“Brendan’s looking into what’s been going on here,” Ruella confided. “And he can take you to Old Tim. You just wait out in the yard, and I’ll send him.” She eyed Liam sternly. “That’s the best I can do.”
Without a word, Liam went.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Liam cooled his heels in the jail yard far too long, and as he did he thought about dying. His eyes, quick and careful, moved around the space: perhaps forty by thirty paces, it opened onto Eagle Street, was paved in brick, and surrounded by brick walls on three sides. The building at back had no windows, the jail kitchen but one. Not many eyes would see what happened here on a cold, dark November night.
He tried to determine just where the noose had been rigged and at last decided it must have hung from a supporting beam high on the brick wall next to the kitchen. No hint of rope betrayed the spot now, but it would be a shadowed corner at night, and a box made of rough wood had been shoved against that wall.
He closed his eyes and struggled to remember what he didn’t want to recall—rain pissing down and a torch thrust through that bracket there, casting a garish, smoky light that reflected off the wet brick. Hard hands forcing him, well-bound, up on the box, and the harsh rasp of the rope at his throat. The terrible sound of wood scraping brick as, without ceremony, the box got kicked away. Then pain, pain, pain.
A utilitarian death, it had been. But did he remember, or just imagine? His skin pricked all over his body, and he broke into a cold sweat. No way to tell, but he wanted out of this place, and now.
“McMahon?”
Ruella’s voice brought his eyes open and banished the terrible scene from his mind. She stood before him with a fine, strapping lad at her side. Nearly as tall as Liam himself, the fellow had to top six feet, with sturdy limbs and a deep chest, light brown hair, rosy cheeks, and eyes so blue they shone in the dingy yard.
“This is Brendan Fagan. I had to fill him in on who you are. He’s been looking into what’s been happening here, and he’ll take you to see Old Tim.”
Liam eyed the lad frankly. “Glad to meet you, Fagan. Not the superstitious sort, are you? Not afraid of meeting a ghost out here in this yard?”
“I am that,” Fagan replied, “and a bit put off by the idea. But Miss Ruella can be very persuasive. And I’ll admit I’m after wanting to know just what’s going on. A mystery, it is.”
“Good man.”
“Miss Ruella says you survived the hanging that night, but no one knew?”
Liam glanced at Ruella, who winked at him. Ah, so she hadn’t betrayed Clara’s confidence by telling the lad the whole story.
“Something like that,” he said. “I want to know what’s going on here as badly as you. That bastard, Maynard, is nothing but a base murderer, and I don’t even know the why of it.”
“You don’t remember much, then?”
“Nothing, before they wrestled me up on that box, gave me the noose, and kicked the crate away.”
Fagan shivered. “I’ve just come off duty.” He indicated the street clothes he wore. “So I’ve some time on me hands.”
“Get out of here, the both of you, before you’re seen.” Astonishingly, Ruella leaned in and planted a generous kiss on Fagan’s lips. “I’ll see you later, lad. Our usual time?”
“Aye, Ruella.”
Liam’s senses reeled. Ruella went back inside, and he followed Fagan from the yard.
Of all the things he wanted to ask the lad, he chose one. “So—you’re tumbling Ruella? By God! What’s it like?”
Fagan gave him a speaking look. “With all due respect to your recent near death, sir, I hardly think it proper to discuss the nature of my relations with Miss Ruella, and perhaps besmirch her virtue.”
“Her what, then? Come lad—the mind boggles. And she’s scarcely a delicate flower, is she?”
The intense blue eyes regarded Liam a moment before Fagan inclined his head and leaned a bit closer. “I’ll say only that her favor’s strong. Bruising, in fact, but well worth the effort. Anyway, us Fagans can take our knocks.”
“And give them, by the sound of it.”
Fagan grinned. The light that appeared in his eyes looked wicked, for a copper.
Liam asked, “How long you been out of Ireland?”
“Ten years. Me mummy, pa, and I all came, with six brothers and sisters, when I was eleven.”
“Ah. And what made you choose the copper’s life?”
“Respectable trade, sir, and steady.” Fagan’s face clouded. “But I have to say I’ve little liking for what’s gone on at the jail. I’ve been looking into things on the sly, like, taking peeks at the records. You’re not the only one to be strung up in that yard.”
“So Ruella said.”
“There are great gaps in the records. Come, sir, walk this way. Old Tim has a room down on Georgia Street, off Niagara.”
“Aye, lad. What kind of gaps in the records are you talking about?”
“Men who are processed in and put on the books, their keep charged to the county, and then just disappear. Some have trumped-up sentences, some just a word or two after, saying ‘released for time served.’ ”
“Which was I?” Liam matched his steps to Fagan’s without difficulty.
“Released, sir, after time served for D and D.”
“Ah.”
“Yet Mr. Maynard kept charging the county for you. Still, sir, do you know what bothers me most?”
Liam nodded. It bothered him too. “It’s not worth Maynard’s time—or worth committing murder.”
“Right, sir. ’Tis a bad proposition. Miss Ruella says Mr. Maynard’s a big spender at the gentleman’s club.”
“He is that.”
“Yet he’s not making big money charging the county for prisoners who are no longer there. Must be more to it.”
“Indeed, there must. I’m hoping Old Tim will have a clue.” Liam slanted a look at the lad. “Of course, the last time Old Tim saw me, he believed I was dead.”
“Might shock him a bit to see you now. Though,” Fagan added judiciously, “you’re pretty lively, for a dead man.”
****
Clara heard the screaming the moment she came up Virginia Street from the direction of Delaware. She hadn’t wanted to spend the money for a steamcab and hoped the exercise might calm the anger she felt. But it hadn’t, and now her nerves, already unbearably stretched, tightened another notch.
She glanced at the children—all hers—gathered in a knot on the doorstep. “Why aren’t you at your lessons?” she asked the younger ones. They all stared back at her. Woodrow and Fred, already back from work, shifted from one foot to the other uneasily.
“We’re wanting our dinner, miss,” Fred replied. “But Georgina has her hands full with that up there.” He nodded toward the upstairs and made a face. “Can’t stand the noise inside.”
“You say Georgina is looking after our guest? Where’s my husband?”
Fred shrugged. “Not here.”
“Is he at work?”
“Don’t know, miss.”
Clara’s heart thumped in her chest as she went inside, and the screaming increased in volume. Liam wouldn’t desert her. He wouldn’t abandon Nancy—again. She didn’t know how she felt so sure of that. He’d buggered off on her before, hadn’t he? In truth, she barely knew the man even though she loved him to the root of her soul. And she had given him something of an ultimatum.
How could she have been such a fool?
She climbed the stairs on legs that trembled and found Georgina in the hallway, leaning against the door of Clara’s old bedroom as if keeping it shut by force.
“What’s going on, Georgina?”
“Oh, thank the sweet Lord you’re home. I can’t get her calm, Clara, no matter how I try. She wants Liam.”
“Where is he? Why did he leave her?” Clara’s heart pounded in her throat.
“Said he needed a break, and who could blame him? I got the idea he was going to walk down to the
coffin shop.”
“How long ago was this?”
“Right after you left.” Georgina’s eyes revealed her doubt. “You don’t think…”
“That he’s ducked out?”
“I was thinking more he’d been snatched. You know how he was attacked before.”
“I do.” Clara’s anxiety increased.
Georgina jerked her head at the door. “You must do something.”
“I’ll bring a draught from the surgery and see if I can get it into her.”
“Did you have any success at Mr. Van Hamelin’s?”
Clara shook her head and went back down to search out a soothing remedy. Her father had left a few mixtures, and as she began to prepare one with trembling hands, she faced the very worst of herself. That creature upstairs, living through this hell, deserved a full measure of peace. What would happen if Clara poured a double dose into the glass? Would poor Nancy just fall asleep, forget her dead child and her husband, and slip into the arms of eternal rest?
And, Clara asked herself sternly, was her motive truly to afford the woman mercy, or to be rid of her? Was she truly so much like her grandfather? And could she be honest enough to admit the truth?
She could: she wanted Nancy’s agony to cease, but she also wanted Nancy gone so Liam could be hers, all hers.
She set the glass down and rested her forehead against the door of the cupboard while emotion surged through her—desire and shame in equal measures. How could she ever give him back to Nancy? How hope to live without him? And this thing would be so easy to do, merely empty a second packet into the cup. Make the screaming stop, and the pain.
But, but, but. Her father had been a healer, a good man. How could she use a remedy he had concocted in such a way? How so betray his legacy? She might carry a full measure of her grandfather in her blood, but she carried Anson Allen, as well.
And what of that other gift—or curse—she carried, the talent passed on by all those who had come before her—some outcast for it, some honored, some feared and burnt as witches? It granted life. It didn’t take it.
Could she, even for the love of Liam McMahon, go against who she was?
Almost. Almost she could. She needed him so very badly, his strength and heat, the taste of him, and that indefinable something that joined them.
Her fingers crumpled the packet in her hand. She swirled the contents of the cup till the powders dissolved, and bore it up the stairs.
Chapter Thirty-Six
“Here?” Liam asked in disgust. “This is where the old man lives?”
Somberly, Fagan nodded.
The rooming house—if such it could be called—wouldn’t make a decent kennel. Whatever money Maynard was wrangling, he clearly didn’t share much of it with the sexton.
The building, grim and narrow, shed flakes of paint the way a leper might shed skin, and the wood beneath looked dark with damp. It seemed to lean like a badly constructed chimney in the direction of the river. An evil smell emanated from it—or from the garbage in the adjacent alley.
“Followed him home one afternoon,” Fagan said. “He’s a room round back. Come on.”
Access was found through the alley which, upon closer acquaintance, boasted not only the smell of garbage but piss and worse. Somebody had been using it for a toilet, and both men picked their way with fastidious care.
“So,” Fagan asked as they did so, “what’s it like to nearly die?”
Liam slid his gaze to the lad’s face. “Not very pleasant. No white light, no angels, to my recollection. Not a glimpse of the pearly gates. Take my advice and keep alive a while.”
“I mean to. A great deal I want to accomplish yet, including a wife and children.”
“Ruella?”
Fagan rolled his eyes. “Don’t be daft. Ruella’s just—well, an exercise in daring. Though I confess, I’ve no notion how to break it off with such a woman.”
“She’ll hurt you, lad.”
“I know. Whisht, now—there he is.”
Liam’s eyes opened wide. A door opened off the end of the alley, and on its step lay what he might have taken for a pile of dirty laundry. When Fagan spoke, though, Liam realized it had a shock of white hair up top. He hissed between his teeth.
Nearby against a wall leaned a large wheelbarrow. He realized with another jolt it must be the same in which Ruella had brought him to Clara’s house.
“Come on,” Fagan bade.
An empty bottle lay beside the old man. He snored softly, face turned to the overcast sky. A miasmic smell rose from him, nearly as bad as that of the alley.
Liam pushed the cloth cap to the back of his head and then, on second thought, pulled it off completely; he wanted Old Tim to recognize him. He nudged the old man with his toe.
No response.
“Drunk as a skunk,” Fagan said.
“Look, lad, you might not want to be seen here.”
“Not planning to harm him, are you? ’Cause I’m still a policeman, even off duty.”
“Just going to ask him some questions. You wait at the other end of the alley.”
Fagan wrinkled his nose. His bright, blue eyes slid over Liam with interest. “Maybe I’d better stay.”
“You might hear some things you don’t like.”
“Still, I think I should keep an eye on things.”
Liam plunked his own cap on Fagan’s head and pulled it well down over the lad’s face. Then he nudged the old man again. “Tim!”
The bottle slid away and clunked against the wall.
“Don’t know as you’ll be able to rouse him, if he drank all that,” Fagan said.
As if on cue, the old man groaned. Liam hunkered down and, with distaste, shook the bony shoulder.
“Tim, come awake—I’ve a drink for you.”
Fagan snorted. The old man opened foggy eyes, still focused on the sky, and lay for several moments looking uncannily like one of his own customers. Then he fixed on Liam hovering above him, blinked, and drew breath. His eyes grew painfully wide, and his lips moved, forming a word that might have been, “You!”
“I’ve some questions—” Liam got no farther. The old man drew a deeper breath, filled his lungs, and shrieked.
“Jaysus, Mary, and Joseph!” Fagan exclaimed as the old man scrambled away backwards, trying to put distance between himself and Liam, yelling all the while. His cries echoed off the bricks and the walls of the shabby rooming house, his horror amplified.
“Whisht now!” Liam told him. “Listen to me.”
“A ghost! You’re a ghost! Dead!”
“I’m not, then.” But Old Tim never heard Liam. He’d gone white as his hair, face frozen in a terrible rictus. Liam’s thoughts flew desperately.
“Aye, then,” he said, “I’m a ghost, come to avenge what was done to me.”
Fagan swore an oath shameful to a good Catholic lad. Liam shot him a warning look.
“I was murdered in the jail yard and,” Liam accused, “you were there. You saw it done.”
“I wasn’t!” Tim had backed himself against the door and could retreat no further. “It all happened before I got there. They just told me to come and collect the body.”
“They—who?”
Old Tim went suddenly silent.
Liam scowled at him. “If someone besides you is guilty in this, name him. Otherwise, I’ll avenge meself on you, for your part in it.”
“The message always comes from Mr. Maynard, by a runner. Or one of the two guards brings it to me at the tavern.”
“Which guards, ask him,” Fagan hissed. “Which guards?”
“Not sure of their names, only that they come from Mr. Maynard. Are you going to kill me?”
“Maybe, unless you answer all my questions. Why’s Maynard after killing his prisoners, do you know?”
Tim gave an odd little shrug. “Must be for the money. How is it you came back?”
“Ghosts can go anywhere, can follow you even to the gates of hell. Why’s Maynard m
urdering Irishmen?”
Old Tim spat, a shocking gesture in one of his decrepitude. “Don’t matter, do they? He says it’s like puttin’ down stray dogs.”
Fagan growled and shifted on the balls of his feet.
“Wait, lad,” Liam cautioned. He wanted very badly to choke the life out of the old man, but not yet. Fear seemed to have loosened the sot’s tongue, and he ran on.
“Or like rats—river rats. Mr. Maynard says there’s just too many of them in the city, with the way they breed. Might as well make a bounty on them.”
“Bounty? What the hell are you talking about?” None of it made any sense. Maynard simply couldn’t earn enough off falsified records to make the foul deed worth his while.
“No one follows up on missing Irishmen—or if they do, if some drab wife comes asking, no one cares. Easy to make them disappear.”
Liam could now feel the horror streaming off Fagan, at his back, and strove to ignore it. His mind beat at the riddle.
“So an Irishman gets arrested, booked, put in the cells. Then the records get falsified, saying he’s been released for time served, but he’s not released. Instead he’s hauled into the jail yard and hanged, and you dump him in that river with your barrow, there. Tell me, where’s the money in that?”
Tim’s eyes were now so wide Liam could see white all around the brown. But he buttoned his lip.
“Tell me,” Liam threatened, “or I’ll strip the skin from your bones by inches.”
“Don’t drop them in the river, do I? What’d be the point of that?”
Aye, what?
“When Mr. Maynard gets a good, healthy Irish bugger like yourself, he sends him to the Cuttery.” Tim’s face crumpled. “Only they said they’d kill me, if I ever told.”
“Cuttery? What the hell’s the Cuttery?”
Tim, blubbing now, lowered his voice. “They do terrible things. I’ve never seen…”
“They? Who?”
“The Steam Company,” Tim whispered in a low tremor. “That’s what they call themselves. I’ve only seen the two of them. I think the rest are mechanicals.”
“Mechanicals? You mean steamies?”
Tim nodded. “The two men I saw, both were young and… Don’t make me tell!”
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