by Joanne Dahme
Just as quickly, he was up again, allowing the object to drop to his side as he scrambled up the bank. Staring straight ahead toward 25th Street, he broke into a trot.
For a moment, I considered following him—find out exactly what it was that he had dunked into the river. But I couldn’t chase him on foot. I would lose him as soon as one of his crew picked him up. I certainly couldn’t try to follow him by trolley. I had to find Sean.
I hurried across the forebay bridge, holding the hem of my skirt in my hands. I walked across the Mill House deck, with barely a glance at the Watering Committee Building. My heart began racing as I approached Sean’s office, and I thought I saw a figure flash by the window. Thank God I thought, relieved to find him safe, albeit slightly disappointed as I wondered why he had neglected to stop on our corner this morning.
That shouldn’t matter, I told myself. I’m sure he had good reason. I pulled my gloved hand from my pocket and knocked politely at the door. I had so much to tell him—to warn him about—including the odd sighting of Peter Brophy. Sean’s name was on my lips as the door opened quickly. But no sound came from my mouth. A laborer, dressed in overalls and a flannel shirt, stood in front of me. We stared at one another with similar expressions of consternation.
“I’m sorry,” I finally said. “I’m looking for Mr. Parker. Is he here?”
The laborer shook his head. “Good morning, ma’am,” he nodded, stepping back inviting me to enter. “My name is George. I’m Mr. Parker’s mechanic. I’ve also been waiting for him.” He twirled the tip of his walrus mustache in a nervous gesture. “Forgive me,” he added. “Would you like to come in? You must be cold.”
“No, thank you for your kindness though,” I said. The mechanic looked familiar to me. I had seen him on the grounds of the Water Works during my committee visits. I then recognized him as one of the men who knelt by Nellie’s body when I finally reached that horrible scene. I felt myself blush and looked down for a moment. I was sure he recognized me.
If he did, he didn’t let on. “Mr. Parker and I meet every morning at eight to talk about our work for the day. He hasn’t missed a day since—in a very long while,” he finished. “He may be running late. The epidemic has taken much of his time.”
“Of course,” I agreed. George looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to give him a message for Sean. For a moment, I hesitated and looked over my shoulder toward the forebay bridge.
“Do you know where he lives,” I asked, shocked by my own boldness. But I was frightened for Sean. There was no telling what Patrick might do in his present frame of mind. He truly believed that Sean and some others were out to malign his name. Propriety should hardly be the prevailing factor in my life today.
George remained silent for a moment and then reached a decision. “Mr. Parker lives with his father at 1214 Lyndall Street.” His brown brogan kicked at the floor. “You can catch the trolley at the bottom of Callowhill Street. It turns down 12th Street and runs pretty close to Mr. Parker’s house.”
“Thank you, George. And please, if Mr. Parker should appear after I leave, can you tell him that I am looking for him? It’s extremely important.”
“Of course, ma’am,” George nodded.
I gave him a quick smile and then turned so that he wouldn’t see the embarrassment further color my face. He must think me brazen, I thought, as I hurried back over the bridge. But I had no choice and couldn’t worry now about my reputation.
I did my best not to run up the pathway that ducked beneath the arch and hugged the base of the reservoir hill, ending at the edge of the park on 25th Street. I didn’t want to acknowledge the arch, except to think of brave Nellie, of how badly I wanted to bring justice to her memory. I forced myself to walk at a respectable pace as I turned on 25th Street. I felt the chill of the shadow of the reservoir’s mount as I crossed to Biddle Street and passed St. Francis’s Catholic Church on the corner and said a quick prayer. I hailed a trolley from Hamilton and climbed on board at Callowhill. I did my best not to appear a novice as I searched my coat pockets for the proper fare.
As the trolley turned down 12th Street, I grew more anxious again, wondering what I would do if Sean weren’t home. I couldn’t very well spend the day running from place to place until I found him. I must find him. Sean was no match for Patrick.
I found Sean’s house in the middle of the block and knocked on his door. I was aware of my heart beating fast, of feeling the pulse in my temples. I prayed that Sean would be home.
Finally, the door did open, only to reveal an older man with Sean’s clear blue eyes and strong-jawed features but frailer in body.The man was wearing a flannel shirt and carried a towel in his hands.
“Excuse me,” I began. “I’m looking for Sean Parker. Is he home?”
The man frowned at me for a moment and remained standing in the door’s threshold. I could smell soup and a burning fire somewhere in the darkness behind the man I assumed was Sean’s father.
“You wouldn’t be Mrs. Dugan by any chance, would you ma’am?” he asked, his expression wavering between interest and mild alarm.
“Yes, I am,” I confirmed. “It’s extremely important that I speak with your son.” I could not assuage the pleading in my voice.
Something crumbled in Sean’s father as he stared at me. I thought his narrowed eyes softened and I saw the guarded resistance disappear from the lines in his face. He dropped the towel on a desk beside the door and stepped back. “You may as well come in, Mrs. Dugan. Sean’s not here,” he added. “He was summoned to City Hall, but he didn’t think he would be long. He planned to stop home again before he reported to the Water Works.”
“City Hall?” I repeated. “Summoned? Is everything all right?” I asked, although I was sure that nothing was.
“I don’t know,” he replied, the edge gone from his voice as we stood in the warmth of his living room. He offered me one of the two chairs by the small hearth.The room was sparsely furnished. “I believe the meeting was with the mayor—about the epidemic.”
I hesitated by the chair. I knew I couldn’t just sit here all morning, waiting for Sean. I thought about going to Detective Buchanan’s office in the interim. He didn’t realize how badly he was upsetting my husband when he shared the accusations of Patrick’s enemies with him. He was only a few blocks away. I would appeal to the detective to be more circumspect.
“Thank you, Mr. Parker. But I think that in Sean’s absence, I should make an effort to stop at the Central Station. If Sean returns before I do, perhaps you could tell him to ring for a Detective Buchanan.”
A sound awfully close to a snort emanated from Sean’s father. “I don’t think you ought to go to the trouble.You’re probably better off waiting here for Sean.” His blue eyes grew serious again, and he looked intently into my face. “You smell that soup that’s on the stove?” he asked. “That’s for the other detective on Mrs. Murphy’s case. Poor Officer Russo was poisoned last night. I don’t know what protection the police can offer if they can’t protect themselves.”
SEAN
I found Detective Buchanan on the second floor of Dooner’s, eating a meal of pork and potatoes and drinking a mug of beer. The saloon was crowded with men of business. Top hats and bowlers occupied every hook. Buchanan was seated alone, looking out of place in his biking knickers and the thick turtleneck sweater that he had sported on the day he visited the Water Works. His cap was on the table and his normally thick, dark hair more than hinted at the cap’s earlier presence on his head. I thought he could be mistaken for a burglar.
He wasn’t surprised when I sat down, as if my appearance was a predestined part of his evening. “I’m sorry I missed our appointment, Mr. Parker.” He chewed for a few minutes before continuing. “I thought I had a lead on our case. I trust Officer Russo asked you the few questions we needed to clarify?”
I was too tired to prepare the detective for my response. “We didn’t have a formal discussion, Detective. Russo was attacked in hi
s room tonight.”
Buchanan’s fork froze in mid-bite. Now he looked shaken. “What happened?”
“Something truly depraved.” I reviewed the last two hours of my evening as Buchanan worked his cutlery with barely a glance at his meal. Since I left Russo, I couldn’t stop worrying that I might have overlooked some important detail, some clue as to who the men were or where they might have gone. “I didn’t know if I should have attempted to track his attackers, or immediately look for you. Russo advised the latter.”
“You did well, Mr. Parker,” Buchanan assured me. “Thank you for so ably assisting Russo.”
I waved away the thanks. “Detective, I can’t stop thinking about Russo being forced to drink that water. Have you ever experienced anything like this before?”
Buchanan patted his chin with his napkin. “No, never. The use of water as a weapon tells me that the attackers, or the person who master minded the attack, is taking advantage of the typhoid hysteria. In the midst of an epidemic, nothing is as frightening as the possibility of contamination. How do you prove that someone gave someone else typhoid?” he asked rhetorically.
“Our world is in a sorry state if people are capable of such a horrific act,” I replied, feeling a chill suddenly as a cold hand touched the back of my neck. My career had been dedicated to eradicating typhoid, and now a new enemy had stepped into the ring—who sees typhoid as a weapon.
Buchanan gave me a small smile. “Let me tell you where I have been,” he proposed. “I received a note from one of my regular stoolies, a petty swindler with whom I have cultivated a relationship. Such relationships can prove useful,” Buchanan added, as I cocked my head quizzically. “Normally, this gentleman provides me with information on the street gangs and petty criminals. Today, he claimed that an Irish ward leader, who remained nameless, asked him to tell me to be at Dooner’s by eight o’clock, that someone with information about the Murphy murder would be meeting me.”
I glanced around the room. “Have you met this person?”
“He’s sitting right in front of me,” Buchanan deadpanned.
I looked at Buchanan incredulously. “Me?” I asked. “This guy was talking about me?”
“Apparently,” Buchanan said. “It appears that you are being set up, most likely by the same person who assaulted Officer Russo tonight.” Buchanan rubbed his hand across his mouth and mustache, deep in thought. “This person knows you. He relied on you tracking down Russo to find me here.”
I preferred simple engineering formulas, like figuring out the head required to maintain an adequate water pressure. Fathoming criminal minds was not one of my strengths. “Buchanan, what you are saying sounds incredible. This person would have to be awfully close to me to be able to predict my every move.” I took a nervous gulp of the draft of beer I ordered. “You’re talking about my father.”
“Or someone who is watching you very closely because he wants to destroy you,” Buchanan corrected. “Someone who needs you out of the way.” Buchanan stared hard into my eyes.
He had pushed away his plate and called for the tab. “I trust you didn’t ride a bicycle?” he asked without a hint of humor.
I shook my head no.
“Then we’ll have to hail a hansom cab.”
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“To the coroner’s office,” Buchanan replied matter-of-factly. “If our criminal has chosen to use the epidemic as his weapon of choice, we need to find out every thing we can about it, particularly what it does to the human body.” He paused to pay the barmaid for his meal. “We need to protect ourselves against it. We need to stare this horror in the eye. We can’t be afraid,” he finished grimly. His eyes were slits beneath his heavy eyebrows.
“Visiting the coroner will do all that?” I asked doubtfully, as we both stood.
“I hope so,” he replied. “I learned from the coroner what a gun shot to the head can do, and I have seen, many times, the aftermath of a knife to the gut. I abhor these acts, but I no longer fear them. However, although I also know the external symptoms of typhoid, I do not understand its ravaging of the body.”
“Just what are you hoping to learn from the coroner that will help us track down Mrs. Murphy’s killer, and Officer Russo’s assailant?” I had to ask.
“I will learn exactly what our killer seems to know. Presently, the terror he is instilling is not completely understood by us. I want to understand his attraction to this terror—to the power that such a terror wields. I want to learn how he thinks.”
I was doubtful about this assertion, but I was willing to follow the detective’s lead. I couldn’t offer an alternative course of action.
The ride to the coroner’s office was swift, and the coroner, an old gentleman with a wisp of gray hair about his ears and a surprisingly large nose that balanced a pair of spectacles, appeared inured to Buchanan’s after-hours requests, as if he were fairly used to it. “Doc Forrest” as Buchanan fondly called him, informed the detective that there were plenty of victims in the morgue that would be available for a postmortem.
“Please don’t choose a woman,” I asked, looking away from Buchanan’s inquisitive eyes, although I saw the detective nodding to himself.
“Plenty of men to choose from,” Doc Forrest called to us agreeably as he shuffled in his lab coat to a room further down the hall. The morgue, as I expected, was bleak, its stone walls bare.
We followed the coroner down the long, narrow hall. I caught a glimpse of what looked like a pair of feet, suspended in air, illuminated by the light of the hall piercing the room at the end of the corridor.The coroner had apparently left one of its double doors open.
I knew what I would find in the room, but I couldn’t stop myself. I was informed of the epidemic’s tally of victims on a daily basis, but I had never seen the actual evidence of these reports in their entirety.
When I reached the end of the corridor, I pushed against the other door. I staggered back, as light softly washed in from the hall, falling upon the rows of bodies like a shroud. Bodies were lined neatly on the floor, heads by the wall, feet pointing east, in an orderly fashion, with barely inches between them. Each covered form had a tag dangling from an exposed toe, to facilitate the work of the coroner. Some bodies lay on gurneys. The room smelled like ether. The air was dead.
I took a deep breath.There must have been at least sixty bodies in this room, of many lengths and bulk. I suppressed the cry emerging in my throat at the sight of all those feet, the only exposed appendages of these once living, vibrant souls. Some were dirty, some were misshapen and callused. I saw the shapely feet of women and the paw-like feet of men. But it was the feet of the children, small and vulnerable, so tiny that I could cup them in the palms of my hands to warm them, that caused me to stumble back and close my eyes. I felt Buchanan suddenly grasp me by my elbow.
“What have I done?” I rasped, not wanting Buchanan to see my face. “I have been stubbornly fighting against filtration—knowing that this city will never enforce the sewer laws to stop the pollution from reaching our rivers. I’ve been too proud to let them win—and all these innocent people are the victims of a battle they never volunteered to fight. I am just as much a monster . . .” I pounded my fist against the wall.
“Come, Mr. Parker,” Buchanan urged, pulling me along gently. “The coroner is waiting for us.” Buchanan’s own voice was full.
We joined the doctor who had a cadaver lying ready on the operating table. This small room was well lit, as there were no windows to introduce natural light. A tray of dissection tools lay at the coroner’s elbow. The cadaver had been a man in his upper middle age. He appeared naturally thin, not emaciated by the disease. His face however, was sunken, his cheekbones painfully pronounced.
Doc Forrest broke the silence. “Gentlemen, I understand that you’re interested in a quick study of the typhoid bacillus and its attack on the human body.” He then smiled at Buchanan, as if a meeting of this sort was routine. He searched my face,
to determine if I were all right. I nodded yes, not looking into either man’s eyes. Doc Forrest then squinted at the scalpel he chose. I turned my head away as the doctor made the incision.
I never considered of myself squeamish, but I felt light-headed and morose from the aroma of disinfectant. The image of rows of lifeless feet now seared into my brain. I closed my eyes to block out the sound of flesh being cut and pulled. Buchanan grasped me by the elbow again to steady me. “No need for you to look, Mr. Parker,” he said brusquely. “Doctor, would you mind sharing with us what you are seeing?”
For a moment, the doctor didn’t reply, in awe that the human body was ever capable of sustaining life. He cleared his throat. “The patient clearly died of perforation. The evidence of peritonitis is well marked.” The doctor made some thoughtful noises to himself. “Also, the membrane lining his abdominal cavity is inflamed, particularly the membrane area covering the visceral organs.” I heard Buchanan grunting in agreement or displeasure, I wasn’t sure which. “Typhoid lesions are evident on the intestines, and the liver and spleen are enlarged and softened. See how the intestines and organs have ruptured? Dynamite might have produced the same effect.”When he saw me turn away, he amended, “A slight exaggeration, my dear sir. But you get the analogy.”
“This is a scourge!” Buchanan suddenly burst out, causing the doctor and I to start in surprise. “My wife died from typhoid,” Buchanan then mur mured. “I had no idea what she was suffering.”
“My fiancée also died from the infection,” I said softly, suddenly seeing Buchanan as more than an unorthodox detective. I looked into Buchanan’s face. The detective simply nodded, noting the horror we shared.
“In our jobs, we don’t get to see too many pleasant deaths, Detective. But typhoid is a scourge, one that we should be able to prevent,” the doctor added, looking meaningfully at me.