Lies That Comfort and Betray

by Rosemary Simpson

  “We can’t give up yet, Josiah.”

  Prudence walked toward a pile of wooden slat boxes stacked haphazardly beneath the operator’s platform. At first glance, they looked as if they’d lain there untouched since the Carousel was closed down for the worst of the winter weather. But there were scuff marks on the ground around them, and the clear imprint of a lantern base in the loosened dirt.

  “Here.” Prudence handed the lantern to Josiah. “This is where he hid his prize, whatever it is. He wasn’t down here long enough to do any better than take advantage of what was already here. We forgot about the element of time.”

  “Open the top one.”

  “It’s empty. I can see through the slats.” Prudence picked up the box and set it on the ground. “They’re not heavy,” she said, picking up another crate. “This is what we’re looking for.”

  The top of the crate opened easily. Inside lay a bundle of dark clothing looped around with a white cord that had three knots tied at each end. Prudence could feel her hands trembling as she fumbled with the rope. Finally, the clumsily secured cord was unloosed and the bundle fell apart.

  “A nun’s habit,” Josiah breathed.

  Prudence held the garment against her body, the starched wimple and novice’s veil stark white in the dim light coming through the plank ceiling. “There’s a rosary here, too,” she said. “It’s so big I think it’s meant to be worn hanging from the waist.”

  “What’s the other piece?”

  Prudence set aside the nun’s habit, then shook out the heavy black cloth. A starched white collar fluttered to the ground, a small cat-o’-nine-tails falling atop it. “It’s a priest’s cassock,” she said, stunned by what they had found. “That’s a whip, Josiah.”

  He stooped to pick it and the collar up from the damp ground. “There are nasty little hooks attached to the leather thongs.” He bent his head to look more closely. “I think there’s dried blood on them, Miss Prudence.”

  “Did he kill her, Josiah? Is this evidence of his guilt that he’s trying to hide?”

  “How stupid. He should have burned all of it when he had the chance.”

  So intent were they on examining what Joseph Nolan had hidden that neither Prudence nor Josiah heard the scrape of footsteps against ice.

  “That would be a desecration,” a man’s voice boomed against the earthen walls. “These garments have been blessed. They can’t be burned like ordinary clothing.”

  Joseph Nolan blocked the only exit from the horse round. One hand held a blade that shone brightly in the reflected light of the lamp, the other rubbed at his clean shaven chin. “She made a very beautiful nun,” he said longingly. He swayed, as if in a dream, then straightened, shaking his head to clear it. “Is she really gone?”

  “Don’t you know, Mr. Nolan?” Prudence tried to match the quiet, even tones of the man who might have killed and mutilated three women.

  “I forget things sometimes. It makes Da very angry.” Nolan swung the finely honed butcher blade with the ease of long practice. It was the preferred knife on the evisceration line, where carcasses dangled from ceiling hooks and men stepped up to slit them open with one strong downward motion.

  “Why did you kill Sally Lynn?” Josiah was terrified, but he stepped in front of Miss Prudence, clutching the priest’s collar and cat-o’-nine-tails in one trembling hand, the lantern in the other.

  “Why? Why did I kill her?” Nolan took a step forward, coming deeper into the darkness of the tunnel. He shook his head from side to side as if seeking an answer to the question.

  The lantern Josiah held sputtered and spit as its fuel began to burn low.

  “May I fold these?” Prudence asked. She gestured to the habit and the cassock she had dropped. They lay crumpled one atop the other on the ground. “They’ll be ruined otherwise.”

  Without waiting for an answer, but feeling Nolan’s eyes on her, she picked up the nun’s habit, adjusting the sleeves neatly across the front of the garment. She laid it reverently atop one of the crates, then folded the wimple and veil. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Josiah tighten his grip on the lantern, almost imperceptibly moving first one foot and then the other until he was standing squarely facing Joseph Nolan.

  Josiah’s arm arced back then swung forward with all the strength he could put into it. He let go of the lantern at the last possible moment, then grabbed Prudence by the arm.

  “Run!” he shouted.

  The lantern flew through the air toward Nolan, who seemed mesmerized by its trajectory. By reflex action he raised the butcher knife, catching the lantern flat on, deflecting its fall so that it crashed to the ground. The glass shattered and a pool of fuel ignited, the flames dancing toward but not reaching their target. Prudence and Josiah were cut off. Nolan still blocked their escape, aided by the river of flame that should have consumed him. It was already burning itself out. There had been barely enough fuel to create a distraction.

  Holding on to one another, Prudence and Josiah backed toward the mechanism to which the horse and the mule were hitched when the Carousel was in operation. Two metal arms stretched out from the central pole around which the patient animals circled all day long. They clung to the farthest bar; it was the only barrier between them and death.

  Joseph Nolan stared at the lantern fuel soaking into the earth, flames leaping and falling as they burned themselves out. It was as if the fire held him spellbound.

  “I grabbed the rosary,” Prudence whispered, never taking her eyes from the man in whose home she had drunk tea only a few days before.

  “Danny Dennis will come looking for us. He’s bound to,” Josiah said. He held the cat-o’-nine-tails behind him, wondering whether he could flick the knife out of Nolan’s hand before it cut him to ribbons.

  “Danny has no idea we’re down here.”

  “I wasn’t sure,” Nolan said conversationally. The flames had subsided, freeing him from their allure. He moved closer through the gloom. “I glimpsed something, but I couldn’t tell who or what it was.” He shrugged his shoulders, the butcher knife held lightly in his hand. “I’ve always been the cautious type. That’s why I came back. I’m sorry you decided to follow me, Miss Prudence. I never intended it to end this way for you.”

  “Nothing has to end, Joseph. May I call you Joseph?”

  “My sister used to call me Joe when we were little. Then Da decided Joe was too common. She had to use my full name and we couldn’t address him as anything but Father. He’s desperate to forget what he came from.”

  “What about you, Joe? Do you want to forget who you are?” Prudence tried to remember the sound of Alice Nolan’s voice, mimicked it as best she could.

  “I’ve always known who and what I am.” Nolan’s right hand began to swing slowly back and forth, his fingers loosening then tightening their grip on the butcher knife. It was the way the men on the evisceration line kept their muscles from cramping during the long hours of disemboweling sheep and cattle.

  The last of the fuel from the smashed lantern burned itself out. A single flame flickered, faded, licked upward one final time, died.

  Like us, Prudence thought. We’re desperate to keep him talking, but we’re running out of things to say. He’s getting nervous, impatient. When he moves, we won’t be able to stop him.

  “Mr. Nolan,” Josiah cajoled. “We’ll give you back your things. You can take them away with you. No one will ever know. Just lay the knife down so you can carry them.”

  It almost worked.

  Joseph Nolan stretched the arm holding the butcher knife toward the stack of crates where the nun’s habit lay neatly folded. But then he glanced down, saw the cassock still lying crumpled in the dirt and gave a small choking gasp. The priest he had always wanted to be lay scorned and soiled at his feet. “Pick it up,” he said.

  When neither Prudence nor Josiah moved from behind the push bar, he raised his voice and yelled. “Pick it up, I tell you!” The hand grasping the knife swung back and f
orth rhythmically, as though he were using a scythe to cut down weeds. The whir of the blade cutting through the cold air was deafening. Without the lantern’s glow, the steel reflected silver fragments of the daylight shining through the planks of the operator’s platform above them.

  Prudence and Josiah could not take their eyes from the foot-long knife that seemed to be exploding in the darkness like fireworks detonating across a night sky.

  *

  Danny Dennis had stopped his cab just shy of the park entrance to let his fare out again. No explanation, not much of a tip either. Joseph Nolan shifted the briefcase he carried to his left hand when he reached into a pocket to pull out some change. Something different there, something about the way the leather satchel moved. Danny could have sworn it was lighter and much less full than it had been when Nolan got out at the Carousel. Odd. Everything about the man Mr. Hunter had paid him to follow was odd.

  He waited, getting down from his perch to adjust Mr. Washington’s bit and harness, check the reins, lift up his hooves to knock out clods of frozen dung and dirt from the horse’s shoes. When he wanted to, Danny could move as slowly and methodically as a man twice his age. Head down, shoulders hunched, he faded into the life of the street, just another winter coated figure among many. Nolan watched him for a few minutes, then decided he was no threat. He walked back into the park.

  Danny stayed where he was, putting a feedbag on Mr. Washington’s nose to let passersby know he wasn’t for hire. He’d wait a while, then meander back into the park himself. Nolan couldn’t make it out the other side in under twenty minutes at a brisk walk. As cold as it was today, he didn’t think he’d wander the paths, many of which hadn’t been shoveled clear of ice. Nolan’s behavior puzzled him, and whatever was a puzzle eventually turned into a worry. He’d had Danny wait for him out of sight while he did whatever he did at the Carousel. Met someone? Been stood up by a woman who’d promised to join him there? Hansom cabs were every cheating spouse’s favorite vehicle, anonymous and safe. They never thought about the driver sitting just above their heads.

  But Nolan isn’t married. So why the secrecy?

  He’d given the brothel’s address without a trace of diffidence; he plainly didn’t concern himself that his driver would know what was behind the brownstone’s unremarkable front door. Then he’d changed his mind. Almost at the same moment that Danny registered the presence of police in the street had come a tattoo of thumps from inside the hansom, followed by the noise of the trapdoor sliding open.

  “Turn around,” Nolan had ordered. “Turn around.”

  Danny always boasted that Mr. Washington could reverse direction on a dime, and he proved the truth of it then. They were heading back the way they’d come before the coppers got a good look at them. There’d been a carriage at the far end of the street, though. He only got a brief glimpse, but Danny was certain it was Miss MacKenzie’s vehicle, with James Kincaid driving. He’d been about to tip his whip in recognition of the other driver, then thought better of it. Nolan had to be kept in the dark about his connection to the firm of Hunter and MacKenzie, Investigative Law. He’d have to count on Kincaid’s sharp eyes noting Mr. Washington’s quick turnaround. Deciding it was worth mentioning to Miss MacKenzie or Mr. Hunter.

  Danny saw nothing out of the ordinary as he drove past the Carousel again. Not a trace of Nolan standing about or striding off across the park. The man must be walking faster than he’d thought he would. He decided to drive to the other side of the park, out that entrance and along Central Park West. Up and back a few blocks. If he didn’t spot Nolan by that time, he’d turn around and come back to the Carousel. Perhaps give Mr. Washington a rest and investigate on his own.

  Nolan had left one of the carriage lanterns somewhere. Danny had seen him take it from its hook before he climbed onto the Carousel. He hadn’t brought it back, and Danny had pretended not to notice. Where had the man gone that he needed a lantern to light his way? Reason enough to give the Carousel the once over. If he remembered correctly, there was a pit beneath the wooden horses where a real horse labored in darkness to drive the platform.

  Maybe he wouldn’t leave the park after all. Maybe he’d just turn the cab around and go back to the Carousel right now.

  CHAPTER 27

  Kevin Carney and Blossom had picked up a few street odors since the last time they’d been at Armory Hall, but Billy McGlory’s bouncer didn’t hesitate to let them in. The word was out. As strange a pair as they made, the skinny little Irish street beggar and his enormous dog had been ushered into McGlory’s private office where they’d stayed closeted with him for nearly an hour. Until Billy changed his mind about them, best to treat the duo as near royalty or next of kin. The bouncer could have sworn the dog smiled at him as she trotted past.

  “It was him all right. I heard the patrolman telling the detectives all about it. Miss MacKenzie and Mr. Josiah set off after the one who came to visit Miss Sally Lynn, but Danny Dennis won’t know who they are because they sent their carriage home and hailed a hansom cab.”

  Blossom thumped her tail on the Turkish carpet. She thought her human had summed up the situation nicely. She couldn’t understand why the other human seemed confused. Puzzled.

  “You were supposed to stay at Madame Jolene’s, Kevin. I didn’t tell you to come here.”

  “I thought you’d want to know what I found out.”

  “Start at the beginning. Where were you and Blossom when you picked up this information?”

  “On the kitchen steps. Outside.”

  “What were you doing out there?”

  “We’d just come into the backyard, see, and we heard voices from inside. We thought they’d stop talking if they saw us, so we made sure they didn’t.”

  “What were they saying?”

  “Miss MacKenzie and Mr. Josiah went to Bellevue to visit Miss Sally Lynn in the morgue.”

  McGlory nodded his head encouragingly. Blossom nudged Kevin. It meant he was supposed to continue talking, telling the story.

  Ten minutes later he’d finished. Blossom didn’t think he’d left out any of the important details, but with Kevin you could never be sure. When he rambled, which he did if no one interrupted often enough to keep him on track, it was difficult to follow the trail he was laying down. Sometimes even Blossom dozed off, though she always kept her eyes politely open.

  “What will happen if they catch up with him, Kevin?”

  “Maybe the same as was done to Miss Sally Lynn?” He looked at Blossom, who cocked her head, folded down an ear, and barked. Just once, and not very loudly. It was her sad but true bark. “Blossom thinks he’ll kill them, Mr. McGlory.”

  “Have you ever known her to be wrong?”

  Kevin didn’t like to criticize Blossom’s ability to predict human behavior, but once in a while she was wrong. He waited for her to admit it, but she sat silent and unmovable. “She won’t change her mind, sir.”

  “Then we’d best do something about the situation.” McGlory stood up, smoothed down his vest, caressed the diamond stickpin on his black silk cravat, and opened the office door. He spoke a few quiet orders to the two men waiting outside, then came back in and sat down again. “Now, Kevin, how do you propose we go about locating Miss MacKenzie and Mr. Josiah? I’m sending word out onto the streets, but we need more than that.”

  “We follow the cab, sir. Danny Dennis’s cab. He’ll lead us to them.”

  “The trail’s gone cold. You said yourself the hansom disappeared around the corner when Nolan spotted the police. There’s not a chance in hell of finding it now.”

  Blossom barked again, stood up, batted her long feather of a tail against her human’s leg, and smiled at Billy McGlory. Flirted, actually. Like a showgirl boasting about how well she can dance.

  “She follows Mr. Washington’s scent trail. Every horse smells different from every other one. Animals know that. We get a blanket from the stable where he has his stall, Blossom learns the scent, and we go back to the
corner where Mr. Danny turned the cab around.”

  “Can she really follow a horse’s trail through the streets of New York? After dozens of other cabs and horses have trodden over it?”

  Blossom rolled up the skin along her muzzle where humans would have had lips.

  Billy McGlory sent a man on the run to get the blanket. “Double quick,” he told him.

  It would be a shame if Miss MacKenzie were to be sliced up after all she’d been through.

  *

  Sometimes Alice Nolan had to make up sins to confess. You couldn’t kneel in the quiet darkness of the booth with nothing on your soul for the priest to absolve. She had a list of venial offenses that she varied week after week, reeling them off with the assurance of a practiced sinner. As long as she included the sin of lying, she had nothing to worry about.

  The problem was the penances she was given.

  Say three Hail Marys, three Our Fathers, and three Glory Bes.

  No rosary, Father?

  No rosary. Now make a good Act of Contrition.

  Alice yearned for a real penance, a punishment that would take days or weeks to accomplish. She yearned to be told to fast, to kneel for hours before the crucifix, to flagellate herself the way so many of the saints had done. But it never happened. Week after week it was the trio of Hail Marys, Our Fathers, and Glory Bes. She added extra prayers and skipped meals, but it never felt right. The penance had to come from the priest. It couldn’t be something she made up. It had to be genuine.

  She thought confessing to fornication might be what she needed.

  Joseph fornicated. She knew he did from the dark bags under his eyes when he wouldn’t look at her across the breakfast table.

  She knew he was also indulging in impure acts with himself. Once, very late at night, she’d crept to his bedroom door and listened. He’d had to wait until their mother and father were snoring in their beds, and then he’d put a rolled up blanket against the doorsill. She’d stretched out on the hall floor and poked hard enough with one of her carved wooden hair sticks to dislodge the roll an inch or so.