Crooked in His Ways

by S. M. Goodwin

  Assuring Lightner that the corpse was in the hospital’s small cold room hadn’t changed his mind about venturing out into the mad night, nor had he cared that she’d been in the water and there was no crime scene to get spoiled.

  Only after Hy convinced the other man that it was worth both their lives to go anywhere in a carriage—a favorite target for the gangs currently tearing up the city—had Lightner agreed to wait until morning.

  Hy had avoided the worst of the marauding gangs on his way home by using a number of shortcuts and twice taking shelter in kind strangers’ houses.

  Spivey Lane, the street where he lived with his cousin—which wasn’t really an official street at all, but more of a rubbish alley that had gradually built up over time—had been noisy with fireworks, shouting, singing, and fighting. That was nothing new, but Hy saw plenty of broken shop windows and other wreckage on the way over to the Eighth this morning. The gangs had gone crazy, and there hadn’t been any coppers to put a stop to it. In fact, Hy suspected plenty of ex-Muni men had joined in the pillaging.

  Hy stood on the front porch of the house, hoping for a breeze.

  After a few minutes, he realized it was almost hotter outside than it had been up on the fourth floor, so he headed back inside.

  He was just trudging up the stairs when he heard somebody come in. He turned to see the Englishman shutting the front door.

  “I’m glad you’re here, sir.” Hy hadn’t meant to blurt that right away, but the truth was he couldn’t stand to look at Martello hanging there and was close to lifting the body down, an action that would infuriate Lightner.

  “How is she fa-faring?” Lightner asked as they headed up the stairs.

  Hy couldn’t help it; he groaned. “Er, you didn’t stop by the station before coming here?”

  “No, I came d-directly from Brinkley’s house. I owe Miss Martello an apology.” He frowned at whatever he saw on Hy’s face. “Why? Is aught amiss?”

  Hy didn’t answer until they reached the second-floor landing. He stopped and turned to the older man. “She’s dead, sir. She killed herself.”

  Most of the time Hy couldn’t tell what the Englishman was thinking. But this time, the emotions that flickered across his pale face were clear: shock, sorrow, and fury in rapid succession.

  Lightner took the stairs two at a time, but Hy wasn’t in any hurry to see the poor woman again.

  When he reached Martello’s room a moment later, he found Lightner standing in the middle of the tiny room staring at Jessica Martello’s body.

  Death was never pretty, but this was a particularly hideous scene. Martello’s purpled face, bulging eyes, and protruding tongue rendered the corpse almost unrecognizable from the small picture that Hy had seen of the woman and her mother.

  A few flies buzzed lazily around the bottom of the door, where there was evidence of her body’s evacuation.

  A muscle in Lightner’s clenched jaw spasmed, and then he glanced around the room, a notch forming between his dark eyes. “Where are her t-tools? Her intaglio box?”

  “I’m sorry, sir, but her what?”

  “She was an artist. She c-c-carved cameos—quite lovely ones, at that,” he added, as if to himself. “The last time I was here, everything was on that tr-tr-tray.” He pointed to the empty oversized wooden tray with two handles. Hy recalled his grandmother had possessed one just like it for making bread.

  “I didn’t move anything, sir. I just searched the premises, but I put it all back just as I found it.”

  The Englishman just stared at the body, and Hy wasn’t sure he’d heard him.

  “Er, that’s her note on the table, sir.”

  Lightner blinked, as if he’d just woken up, wrenched his eyes away from the body and seemed to notice both the letter and the saw for the first time. “Good lord—what is this?”

  “The letter explains it, sir.”

  Lightner unfolded the letter and smoothed it open. Hy went close enough to read it again, along with him.

  I’m sorry to whoever has to clean up my mess, but I can’t do this anymore.

  And I can’t keep this to myself any longer.

  My father came to see me back in December. It was the first time I’d seen him in ages. I needed money, badly, but he wouldn’t give it to me unless I promised to give up my work and come live in his house. I refused. We argued and things got violent. He grabbed and shook me, slamming me into the counter. I’d been holding a twisted double point scribe in my hand and when I went to shove him away the tool accidentally jammed into his chest. I must have hit his heart, because he died within moments.

  I knew nobody would believe it was an accident and that I had to get rid of his body. There was no way I could carry him out, so I decided to cut him up. It was a nightmare of a mess, so I packed him in salt to stop the bleeding. I often send and receive shipments to Europe, so I knew where to get a crate.

  I sent the body to New Orleans because my mother told me he originally came from there and had once been married to a woman from Louisiana, although I don’t know anything about that part of his life.

  I thought I could live with what I’d done because I’d hated him for so long. But the guilt is eating away at me. Especially after I found out the generous terms of his will. I can’t accept the windfall he left me; I am a murderer and don’t deserve it.

  I’m so sorry,

  Jessica Frumkin

  The Englishman looked up and shook his head. “I just c-can’t believe this.”

  Hy gestured to the few papers he’d found in his search of the apartment. “I don’t think it’s a forgery, sir. It looks exactly like her handwriting. Well, and then there’s that—” He pointed to the bloody saw.

  Lightner leaned down to look at the blade, getting far closer to the nasty bloody bits that were stuck in the teeth than Hy had done.

  The Englishman gave a disbelieving laugh. “Why wouldn’t she have w-washed it?” He glanced up at Hy. “Even if she didn’t have to wo-worry about discovery, why keep a bl-bl-bloody saw lying about?”

  “I dunno, sir.” Hy shrugged. “Maybe she kept it to punish herself?”

  Lightner gave him an incredulous look. “What?”

  “Well, sort of a Catholic thing, sir,” Hy said sheepishly, his face heating under the other man’s stunned gaze.

  Lightner clearly had no response for that. Hy envied him that; growing up in a Catholic orphanage had left him with the ability to feel guilty for just about anything.

  “There is something wr-wrong with this, Detective. Something very, very wrong. And this l-l-letter—?” He shook his head, clearly at a loss, and turned away from the table that held the saw, going to the body. “The chair was where it is now?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir, that’s where I found it.”

  “Tell me how you think it happened, Detective.”

  Hy inhaled deeply and turned to the body. “She tied the rope around the handle, ran it over the door, and then stood on the chair, which she then kicked away.” They looked from her dangling feet to the leg of the chair that was closest to her. “It was far enough away that she couldn’t have used it if she changed her mind.” Hy looked at her hands, which were tied at the wrists. “She would have set everything up first and then tied her hands. The way they’re tied meant she’d not be able to reach over her head and grab the door.” Hy stood up on his toes to see the top of the door.

  “What d-d-do you see?”

  “There’s some chaffing on the paint, but it looks like it’s from the rope.” Hy examined her hands, which were swollen and almost purple. “Her fingernails don’t look damaged from grabbing at anything.”

  Lightner stepped up beside him and unbuttoned the six buttons at her cuff, carefully tugging the shirt material from beneath the rope to expose her forearms.

  Hy leaned closer. “Jesus—those look like fingernail marks—little half-moons.” He looked at Lightner. “Could she have done that to herself?”

  “I suppose it w
ould be p-p-possible, but why? Have you ever grabbed yourself that way?” He peered at the wounds. “Some of these scratches are quite deep, flesh is m-missing.” He pointed to one about two inches above the rope, which had crusted blood at the edges. “Look, no sk-skin or blood beneath her nails.”

  He crouched and moved aside her skirts, looking at the door, and shaking his head. “No visible k-kick marks.” He examined the heel of her worn brown leather boots and then dropped to his haunches and unbuttoned one.

  Once he’d removed it from her swollen foot he went to the other door—the one to the hall—and banged the heel against the whitewashed wood. He repeated the action, a bit harder. After the fourth or fifth time, there were faint brown smudges from the leather on the white paint.

  Lightner looked at Hy, his eyebrows raised.

  “There should be marks where she kicked,” Hy said flatly. “Somebody dyin’ like that would be thrashing, wouldn’t they?”

  “One would th-think.” He put the boot down. “Let’s take her down.”

  The process of slipping the rope off the handle and lifting her was clumsy, even though she was as stiff as a board. Just one more indignity of death.

  They laid her out on the narrow cot, and Lightner began to check her for rigor mortis. He spoke to Hy as he performed the tests.

  “The whole process is approximately thirty-six hours. The m-muscles in the face are the f-f-first to experience a stiffness,” Lightner said, turning to Hy. “Perhaps two to three hours after d-death, then the l-l-larger muscles, and complete rigor occurs around twelve hours. Sometime around twenty-four hours the stiffness b-b-begins to slowly dissipate and the b-body is usually fl-flaccid between thirty-six and forty-eight hours. Again, all this varies greatly with t-temperature, size, and age of the victim, and other f-f-f-factors.”

  The Englishman began to unbutton her dress, which opened down the front.

  Hy’s jaw sagged. What in the name of—

  Lightner glanced up at Hy, almost as if he’d spoken, and gave him a slight smile. “I w-w-want to see her shoulders and upper arms.”

  “Aye, ’course.” Hy’s face heated at the grim amusement in the other man’s eyes, as if he’d guessed what Hy had been thinking.

  Beneath the dress she wore a thin chemise and a worn corset. Lightner struggled to pull the dress over her shoulder, and Hy lifted her up a bit, until they could ease down the sleeve.

  There were a series of finger-shaped bruises up and down the pale flesh of her arm.

  Hy’s eyes widened. “It looks like somebody manhandled her.”

  “So it would appear,” Lightner said, pulling down the other sleeve and finding a matching set of bruises. He placed his long-fingered hands over the marks and the match was almost perfect.

  “Somebody held her from the front,” Hy said. “Maybe to lift her up and slide her neck into the rope? Think she was knocked out first?”

  Lightner examined her hair, which was the blue-black of a crow’s wing, the strands thick and wiry.

  He shook his head. “No obvious contusions.”

  The rope around her neck was thick and rough and had sunk into the skin, which swelled up around it.

  “I’m l-l-looking for any evidence of strangling,” Lightner explained.

  “You think somebody choked her and then put the rope around her neck to make it look like suicide?”

  “Perhaps. But the flesh is too rope-damaged to say. P-Perhaps Kirby will have better luck.”

  “That noose looks—” Hy struggled to find the right word.

  “As if it were tied by s-s-s-somebody conversant with such knots?”

  “I wouldn’t know how to tie a proper noose,” Hy admitted. “Would you?”

  There was only the slightest of hesitations before Lightner answered. “Yes.”

  Hy stared, waiting for more, but Lightner turned back to examine the neck injury for a moment, and then stood. “We need to get her to K-K-Kirby.”

  “Should I get a message to the station or—”

  “No, we n-need to do it,” Lightner said firmly, obviously recalling their last case, when at least one body had been robbed on the way to the coroner’s physician. “We can wrap her in a sheet and t-t-take her in a hackney. I d-don’t want to wait for a police wagon in this heat.”

  Hy didn’t tell him that was just as well since they were probably all still loaded with beer kegs from the Tammany celebration.

  “I’ll go and—”

  “Detective?”

  Hy swung around at the barely audible voice. “Flynn. Where the hell have you been?”

  Flynn shrank back into the hall, the whites of his eyes visible, his big body shaking.

  “Flynn—don’t go. I’m sorry I yelled,” Hy soothed, catching the big man’s arm.

  “I’m sorry, Hy.” A tear slid down Flynn’s cheek. “I didn’t mean to go, but—but—”

  “There was fightin’?”

  Flynn nodded.

  “Detective?”

  Hy turned to find Lightner in the doorway, his expression grim. “Will you get a hackney, Detective? I’ll speak to P-Patrolman Flynn.”

  As Hy jogged down the stairs he couldn’t help being grateful he wasn’t poor Flynn.

  CHAPTER 23

  You need to be a bit more gentle, old chap. You’re terrifying the boy.

  Jasper took a deep breath and glanced across at the monster of a man currently perched on the edge of his chair like a fledgling preparing to get shoved from the nest.

  Patrolman Myron Flynn looked to be about twenty, but he’d claimed his age was twenty-five when Jasper asked. The odd, almost lopsided shape of his skull told Jasper the story behind his slow answers and dull gaze.

  Jasper empathized with the obviously brain-damaged man, and he wondered if the injury was the result of an accident or intentional abuse.

  He decided that he did not want to know.

  “Let’s g-go over it again, Patrolman.” He’d noticed that the huge lad perked up when addressed as patrolman. “Tell me everything that happened after I left y-y-yesterday.”

  Flynn nodded, his expression a mixture of earnestness, fear, and determination. It was obvious that he was smart enough to be aware of his own limitations and intent on mastering them.

  “I got here at twenty-five after three. I know that because I asked one of the newspaper fellows.” He paused, and Jasper nodded encouragingly. “So, then I stood there.”

  “Th-Th-Then what happened?”

  “Um, the newspaper fellows asked me a bunch of questions that I didn’t know the answers to, so they left me alone. I watched the building, making sure no newspaper fellows went inside.” He gave Jasper a hopeful look.

  “Yes, v-very good. What next?”

  Flynn thought about that question for a long moment. “Another newspaper fellow came running up and told two others about a gang fight over on Bowery, so they all left. Um, and then I was by myself.”

  “What t-time was that?”

  Flynn concentrated hard, but then his face crumpled. “I don’t know,” he wailed.

  “Shhhh, it’s all right,” Jasper soothed. “D-Did anyone else come or go?”

  Flynn chewed his lower lip hard. “Er, the blind lady and her sister. I offered to carry their groceries, but they said no. Two pretty girls came in together.” Flynn’s pale face flushed wildly. “They teased me some, but not mean like.”

  “They live in the b-building?”

  “No.” Flynn frowned. “Wait, that’s not right. One of them lived here. Or maybe two.” He cut Jasper an anguished look. “I dunno, sir. I can’t remember.”

  “Don’t worry about it, P-Patrolman,” Jasper said. It wasn’t the boy’s fault; it was Jasper’s for leaving him here.

  “Can you describe the girls?”

  “They were pretty.”

  “Blonde? Brunette?”

  “Yes.”

  Jasper smiled and asked gently. “So, one of each?”

  “Yes.”
/>   Jasper suspected that was all he’d get about pretty girls. “Anyone else?”

  “Um, a delivery lad.” He perked up a little. “Aye, the delivery was for the older lady on the second floor, she that walks with a cane.” Flynn smiled. “She gave me some water and two biscuits.” Flynn’s posture relaxed a little after his measure of success.

  “She br-brought those outside?”

  “Er, no. She gave me them when I helped the boy. He had his arms full,” Flynn explained. “She gave us both water and then he went.”

  So, Flynn had left his place at the front door.

  “Were you away from the front door long?”

  Flynn squinted, his forehead furrowing deeply as he searched his memory. After a long moment, he shot Jasper a scared look and shook his head.

  Jasper certainly knew the feeling. Head injuries like his—and apparently poor Flynn’s—were frustrating and unpredictable.

  “Was there anyone else you r-r-remember?”

  Once again, the other man cogitated. “There was an old lady. I ast if she lived here, but she said she was just visiting her friend.”

  “C-Can you describe her?”

  Flynn squirmed in his seat. “Um, she was old.”

  Jasper waited.

  He scratched his head. “I think she had a cane. And her hat had stuff on it.”

  “What sort of st-stuff?”

  Flynn shrugged. “The stuff ladies have on their hats.”

  “You mean netting—a veil?”

  “Yeah, a veil.”

  “W-Was she tall?”

  “Not as tall as me.”

  Behind Flynn, Law snorted.

  Jasper couldn’t blame him; he doubted there were more than a handful of men in the city who were bigger and taller than Flynn.

  “Do you recall what she was wearing?”

  Flynn’s mouth twisted miserably, and he looked over Jasper’s shoulder at Law as he shook his head. “I dunno.” More tears rolled down his cheeks.

  Jasper felt as if he were tormenting a puppy.

  He patted Flynn on the shoulder. “That is f-f-fine, Patrolman. Was there anyone else?”