A Lesson in Love and Murder

by Rachel McMillan

“We have no fund collected for sending lady detectives to Progressive Party conventions.” He passed Merinda an article announcing the grand convention wherein Roosevelt would attempt to rustle up the support that he had failed to receive at a previous convention in June. “No matter how interested they are in the cause.” Here, he stabbed Merinda with a glare.

  “Oh, money will not be a problem. We’ll pay our own way,”§ Merinda said, appraising the picture of Roosevelt and reading the caption about the days-long convention. “So you’ll forward your contact’s address in Chicago?”

  “Against my better judgment,” Ross growled. He sized up Merinda from brogan to bowler. “Although I have little doubt you would find it even if I refused.”

  Jem and Merinda spilled out onto Parliament Street clutching each other’s arms.

  “Another American case!” Merinda said excitedly. “If he means to use Jonathan to blow up trolleys, we can be there to stop him once and for all!”

  “And I can finally find out what Ray has been up to,” Jem said.

  “And Benny will be there too,” Merinda said with a sly smile. “We can find Jonathan.”

  Common wisdom would say that Benny and Merinda had not spent nearly enough time in each other’s company for them to experience a spark. But Merinda felt the world flicker nonetheless. How much time did it actually take?

  * * *

  *These had been procured from another newsie who kept every unsold paper and had built them up into a kind of lean-to.

  †Much to Jem’s embarrassment.

  ‡Jem was thinking of the time they solved a quiet case in Concord, Massachusetts. Ross didn’t need to know the extent to which international stretched in this context.

  §Merinda’s father often turned a blind eye toward how she used her allowance money.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Always ensure that you possess more than one skill set. Naturally your proficiency will be greatest in a single area, but the life of a Royal Northwest Mounted Policeman calls for the ability to rise to unique situations.

  Benfield Citrone and Jonathan Arnasson, Guide to the Canadian Wilderness

  Benny took out a small leather notebook, yellowed with age. Grandfather’s Regulation Guide had initially inspired their boyhood project, snippets of advice and diagrams for the wilderness survival required of the Northwest Mounted Police. At first it had an inflated title: Benfield Citrone and Jonathan Arnasson’s Guide to the Canadian Wilderness with Specific Instruction Provided for the Officers of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police. As they got older, through training in Regina and even as Benny was stationed in the Yukon, the compilation continued, though with a slightly less magnanimous title. At least Benny continued, while Jonathan said it sounded more and more like the most recent printing of the Rules and Regulations Guide. To Benny, it became a collage of life lessons, a hybrid of Grandfather’s wisdom with the strict code of the RNWMP. He never stopped amending with addenda or inserts pasted between the stringy, worn binding. He read:

  The lynx is the scheming king of the northern winter. The grizzlies are hibernating. The deer and elk recline in the falling temperatures, and the lynx prowls, his gray fur blending with the trees and snow-covered logs. His alert eyes jeer out at you, burning brightly. He is too elusive for your trap. You rush over in hopes of success and the fur for a cap only to find a dead hare in his place. He’s too sneaky. To lure and ensnare him, you must think like him. Bright colors against a white canvas will make you stand out. His peaked ears indicate his exceptional hearing. Your skill as a tracker will be proven by your ability to outsmart a lynx.

  Jonathan was a bit of a lynx. Far too smart. Smart enough to make everything look like the simplest accident.

  But tracing the untraceable was second nature to a Mountie. As was every part of keeping one’s kit and schedule. Rise at dawn as the first bird begins its chatter. Lay out kit in perfunctory order, having dressed for the day. At the top of the palliasse* near the pillow were brushes for boots, hair, and horse. Gloves on either side of the blanket with armbands. All items of clothing neatly folded. In winter, if moccasins worn, ensure spurs are shiny and shown on long boots.

  A Mountie’s dress was his identity; it was his emblem of pride. Jonathan was always far more efficient at keeping his kit bright and shiny and without the slightest crease. Under Grandfather’s watchful eye, they polished and ironed, folded and tucked. Jonathan was better at tucking sheets with military precision into all four corners of the bed. Jonathan was better at tying the lanyard’s exhibitive Turk’s knot. Jonathan was better… Jonathan was better…

  Having hired detectives did not deter his desire to keep tracking. To keep moving. It was like any hunt: One needed patience and stamina. To always be encouraged by a paw print or a scent or the carcass of a dead animal. To understand that if one’s prey remained elusive, a trek in the woods must still not be wasted, and one should focus instead on a different target.

  Tracking was in his blood.

  But Toronto, now, Toronto was a new experience. In Fort Glenbow, the only police presence was the one in the lone cabin at the edge of the village, smoke drawn from the chimney and pulled up into the sky. Here the police guided traffic and rapped their sticks on the street. During dinner at the Empire he leafed through old editions of the Hog propped up in one hand while balancing his fork in the other. Toronto had a Morality Squad, of all things.

  … often done in private with no formal trial or charge. A woman you know may be with you at work one day and gone the next. Any crime, perceived or realized, from drunkenness to petty theft, are all punished by the city’s undying concern about moral cleanliness. Where is the line drawn between penalizing women who intentionally break the law and watching for women in a vulnerable position, be they penniless or immigrant?

  Benny had little experience with the members of the fairer sex. In the Yukon, he was most familiar with Indian women who were respected as a great asset to their tribes. They offered healing, medicine, and wisdom. They ensured that the homes were kept clean and smelled of herbs and flowers during ceremonial moments of the year. They raised children to be strong warriors. They were as brave as the men, often having to balance the responsibilities of their home sphere with the harsh nature of the elements.

  What would they think of a woman like Merinda Herringford? At the thought, Benny blushed the color of the tunic he had laid out on his hotel bed with regimental precision.

  After leaving Merinda’s flat, Benny had spent the better part of the day in the pulsing heat, taking the city in stride in search of Jonathan. An unnecessary waste of time. Did he honestly think Jonathan would appear when he turned a street corner? After hours of talking to the construction workers, the men repairing the trolley tracks, and the police, he’d returned to the Empire for two plates of stew and half a loaf of the homemade soda bread from the kitchen. It wasn’t a high-end establishment, but he enjoyed the luxury of having someone cook for him and not subsisting on the beans and coffee he made for himself, the frozen, salted meat that saw him through lean winters, and the hard crackers he purchased in large quantities from the mercantile at Glenbow.

  Night in Toronto greeted him no more easily than it had the day before as he took an after-dinner stroll.† He tried to blend with the throng, sidling into their stream and falling in with their quick steps. He was easily caught in as they knew their destination and he wasn’t quite sure of his. Until he made out a silhouette under a streetlight: long cotton coat, trousers that stopped above the ankle, boots, and a walking stick. He followed the line up to springy bobbed curls peeking out from under a bowler hat.

  Merinda Herringford.

  She leaned on her stick, looking quite striking as the light haloed her from behind. But the movement of the crowd hurried him along before he could speak to her. People funneling out from a stopped trolley barred his movement in her direction. He stepped back before he could be rammed into a wall.

  Once the throng had dissipated, he wande
red a little farther south, making out Lake Ontario beyond the buildings sloping down to the harbor. A strange juxtaposition of the nature he loved with the booming commerce of Canada’s busiest street. Nearing Wellington, he thought he made out Merinda again—and who was that with her? He squinted in the dark, wondering if she was out with a beau. He shook his head. What was it to him if she had one beau or a dozen? Theirs was a professional relationship. More likely than not, she was out investigating with Jem.

  His ears perked up at a footfall behind him. Turning, he saw that it belonged to a man who not seconds later swerved around him and picked up pace in the same direction as Merinda and her friend.

  A few thoughts rumbled through Benny’s mind, but all ended with those plainclothes detectives he had read about. If he could make out Merinda from this distance, it stood to reason this chap could too. Benny quickened his pace and saw that, indeed, the man was in pursuit of Merinda Herringford and her companion.

  Determined to intercept before they could be accosted, he jogged up and grabbed Merinda’s shoulders from behind. She yelped, swung around, and thwacked him with her stick. Then, recognizing him, she scowled. He ignored her string of less-than-ladylike adjectives while her companion (who, despite being dressed in men’s clothes, was most assuredly not a man) stared mutely on.

  The pursuing man confronted Benny. “You mean you were on her too?”

  “Yes! I’m taking her and her friend in. This one’s mine.”

  When the man pressed further, blocked from Merinda but grabbing Jemima, Benny fell back on the physical training from the wrestling and boxing he learned in Regina. Two jabbed hooks and the fellow fell backward.

  Jem smiled her thanks, and Merinda looked at him as if he hung the moon. He raised his chin slightly.

  “I appreciate a man who can make out a menace from miles away.” Merinda beamed at him. “And now we can continue our investigation. Important detective work,” she said with a sniff.

  “I am not your only case?”

  “Not when there is the immediate problem of Miss Murdle’s runaway cat, Gingerbread,” Jem snickered.

  Merinda huffed.

  Benny tried to think of something—anything—quippy and smart. But all that came out was, “I… well… good luck. I’m glad I happened to come by.”

  The line fell flat under the fizz of the girls’ excitement and laughter.

  “You two aren’t at all shaken or concerned?”

  “Benny Citrone,” Jem said brightly, “If we had a dollar for every time we ran into the Morality Squad, we wouldn’t need your money—or anyone else’s. We’d be more than wealthy.”

  Benny tipped his hat and continued on Yonge Street.

  “Wait!” Merinda jogged up to him. “Please wait. We weren’t finding a cat, were we, Jem?”

  Jem, catching up, shook her head. “No.”

  “We met with David Ross, the leader of the People’s Labor Movement. They’re headed to Chicago, and we think Jonathan might be joining them.”

  “Chicago?”

  “So Jem and I are going, of course, and you must come. What better way to be near the men your cousin flocks to? We can find Jonathan and still manage to keep anything disastrous from happening.”

  Benny looked around him. Strange city. Strange woman. New adventure. He stole a moment to study her. Her features were not soft or round like the women in the advertisements and billboards heralding every large building in Toronto. She cut a finer, more natural image than the other women he had encountered during his stay.

  “What do you say?” She cut into his thoughts, hope tinging her voice.

  He studied her profile. Was it possible that she was as fascinated by him as he was by her? “It will bring us closer to Jonathan.”

  “And I think it will be a lark!” She looked between Jem’s smiling face and Benny’s apprehensive one. “An absolute lark.”

  * * *

  *For the uninitiated, a palliasse is a poor excuse for a mattress—a scratchy affair made of straw matting.

  †At least, that’s what he told the matron at the hotel he was doing. The careful reader might conclude that he hoped to encounter a familiar face.

  CHAPTER TEN

  After a while, Toronto will become such a part of you that you won’t be able to see any other place without comparing it. That bustling patchwork quilt of a city with its ruggedly sewn-up neighborhoods, the mottled smoke roping up from soot-streaked buildings, the tower clocks ticking, the compass point of the St. James’s steeple piercing the sky… I will see it everywhere should I ever be fortunate enough to travel beyond it.

  An excerpt from one of Ray DeLuca’s less poetical journal entries

  Despite Ray’s attempt at feigned sleep, the passenger adjacent him was endlessly fascinated by his traveling companion.

  “Right hot out there!” the man said, scrunching a red-tinged nose over a bushy moustache. “Nice and comfortable chugging along.* When I was a young man, you never thought of leaving so quickly and easily… ” He prattled on, Ray dreamily catching a few words while his own thoughts spun.

  Any question directed at Ray was answered in his first language in an attempt to put the fellow off. But he was a jovial, persistent thing. Traveling on business. Sad to leave his missus behind. Ray wished he could take the overcoat he was using as a blanket and fling it over his companion’s head. He hated small talk on his better days.

  “You’ll miss home too, young fellow,” the man continued.

  Ray couldn’t wrap his voice around the word home. It was a fraying sweater. A shattered glass place he couldn’t patch together with glue. Shivery when the wind whistled in, with a crack in the window. Mismatched dishes and a note telling her he was gone.

  The man soon found a more willing conversationalist across the aisle and ladled his attention on her. Ray was left to peacefully regret every decision he had made in the past year, while the winking sun spilled in through the broad window and the world swished by.

  On cool nights, Jem wore several layers just to keep comfortable. What would happen in the winter? With a baby? He didn’t want Jem to have the scrape-by life he had seen so often in Toronto flophouses or the Ward. If he continued to send more money than he could afford to Viola and Luca, the Ward might just be their fate.

  He took out his journal and his watch. Jem usually kept the watch near her,† but she had left it on the bureau, and it was the only thing he could think of to pawn if he needed a few dollars. He refused to take any piece of her small jewelry collection as collateral—not that it would get much anyway. There was sentimental attachment in the watch for sure, but he thought she would understand—at least more than she would understand his taking off without a good-bye and with an abrupt note, devoid of all the words he wanted to say.

  He had been at the Hog when Viola called, unable to sit still at home without pacing, worrying about Jem, and he could tell his sister was near breaking. He could hear her sob before she even attempted to speak. Tony was doing something big, and men had been in and out of the flat for weeks on end. The cops were always nearby, and their street rumbled with explosions. She was terrified for Luca. Tony had left unexpectedly two nights before with no word. Leaving her with no money for rent or food. She borrowed money from a neighbor to make a telephone call, and Ray thanked God that he happened to be at his desk when she rang. He was only there because he had to clear his head after Jem went to the rally against his wishes.

  Ray tried to talk Vi off her ledge, but she was sure someone was pounding on the door, and while his heart stopped and his stomach did three flip-flops, he attempted to still his quickening pulse. He didn’t hear the receiver click, but every time he called her name into the telephone, he was rewarded with silence. There was little else to do but imagine scenarios of the most dreadful kind involving her and Luca.

  Now he shifted uncomfortably on a seat on the first train he could get on—having paid the luxury of a cab fare to take him home, where he could thr
ow a bag together and leave a hastily scrawled note to Jemima and put a broken watch in his pocket.

  Where might Jem be now? He couldn’t expect that she would just go for a stroll to take in the evening air or knit by the fire. She’d gone to that rally. At least they had Jasper. Ray had never appreciated his constant proximity to the girls, wherever they were, more so than now.

  Thinking of Jasper, he reached into his breast pocket and extracted the small wire in its strange, blackened bow. He was leaving the country with half of the only evidence they had that the rail disasters at Bathurst and Osgoode Hall were linked.

  It was a funny knot, and he held it to the sunlight, making out its careful shape. Someone had crafted this with a delicate hand and wonderful precision, knowing it would end up buried under rubble, most likely under a few corpses. Who could devote himself so blindly to a cause that had no passing thought for human life? What sort of man could be so swayed by an idea?

  Unless that idea came to a profitable end. Try as he may to blink back the first name that flashed in his mind, it took residence there.

  A man like Tony.

  Ray groggily stepped off the train at Chicago’s Union Station, shrugging his bag over his shoulder. He had little with him, so he could easily familiarize himself with the seedier parts of the city—Tony’s world—before attempting to find a workingman’s hotel or flophouse to settle in for the indeterminate amount of time he would stay in the Windy City.

  The darkest part of any city was always by the docks. This he had learned quickly as a reporter, but firstly as an immigrant in Toronto. Often those disembarking from third-class water passage could make it little farther on their few coins and their inability to talk their way into the city. There was always work to be had with vessels and barges tugging in and out, and all manner of trade, legitimate and less-than-legal. It was also cheapest to hole out near the water, where rats scurried and makeshift tin roofs did little to stave off the elements.