Crooked in His Ways

by S. M. Goodwin

  Jasper looked from the two or three hairs matted with blood to those Kirby had removed from the corpse.

  Christ! They were the same.

  Jasper shook his head; he simply could not believe Jessica Martello had done what she had confessed to doing in her letter. But here was … well, here was some damned convincing evidence.

  “Don’t feel bad that you didn’t see it, my lord,” Kirby said, mistaking the reason for his stunned silence. “It was pretty matted up with blood; I didn’t see it until I soaked the blade. Anyhow, I’d stake my reputation on that being the saw that cut up Frumkin.”

  Jasper couldn’t come up with anything sensible to say just then. Instead, he asked, “What next, Doctor?”

  Kirby hesitated, and then recovered the pieces.

  “Next is Miss Martello, or is she Frumkin?” He raised an eyebrow at Jasper.

  “Martello,” Jasper said quietly but firmly. The poor woman deserved at least the dignity of her name, if nothing else—no matter whether she was a killer or not.

  “So I did a bit better for you on this one,” Kirby said. “I understand you sent the body over. Did you look at her?”

  “Yes.”

  “This wasn’t a suicide, my lord.”

  “Tell m-m-me what you think happened, Doctor.”

  “Look here.” Kirby gestured to some faint bruises around the ligature marks left by the rope. “There are what appear to be indentations from two thumbs—deep indentations—and fainter marks from fingers. I think she was choked to unconsciousness and then hanged. Or perhaps choked to suffocation and then hanged.” He pointed to the marks on her upper arms. “I believe these indicate that the killer grabbed her and lifted her.” He looked at Jasper.

  “I concur,” he said.

  “Are these three cases related? I mean, it seems obvious there is something going on with the Frumkin-Martello connection. But what about this?” He uncovered Anita Fowler.

  “It’s p-p-possible,” Jasper equivocated.

  The truth was that he’d been burned once too often by people selling details in this city. It might not be Kirby, but one of his subordinates or maybe just somebody sneaking a look at the files. And newspapermen would be lurking to discover more about the Frumkins.

  “Was Miss Fowler pr-pregnant?” he asked, aware it was a terribly clumsy segue.

  “Pregnant?” Kirby repeated. “No, not pregnant. Was she supposed to be?”

  “What did you d-d-deduce from your exam?” he asked.

  Kirby pressed his lips together, clearly unhappy at Jasper’s evasiveness. “As my assistant apparently told your detective, a sharp metal object was inserted into the victim’s brain stem. The lack of water in the lungs indicates she was dead before she entered the water.” He pulled the sheet down further to expose Anita Fowler’s upper body. “See these bruises?” He pointed to a series of large, irregularly shaped discolored spots over the rib cage and breasts. “I think whoever killed her grabbed her from behind, shoved her against a wall—” He pointed to her nose, which had deep scrapes on the bridge and then lifted the hair off Anita’s forehead to expose bruising and more scrapes. “Probably brick,” he added. “While he had her immobilized, he shoved in something similar to a boarding knife or maybe a modified butcher’s pick of some sort.”

  Jasper jolted at the word butcher. “B-B-Boarding knife? Butcher’s pick? I’m n-n-not familiar with either.”

  “Help me turn her and I’ll show you.”

  The procedure was more difficult than it should have been due to decay from being submerged in water and then exposed to the summer heat.

  Jasper spared a moment to be grateful Detective Law wasn’t here. The man had been squeamish about Frumkin; Jasper could only imagine his response to a rapidly decomposing, once-beautiful young woman.

  Once they had her face down, Kirby moved aside her heavy rope of hair and pointed to the base of the skull where the skin had been peeled back and then roughly restitched. “I left the wound untouched.” He pointed below the stitching to a narrow slit in the skin. “The injury brought to mind boarding knives, which are used to flense whale blubber,” Kirby said. “The few I’ve seen have a blade that’s wider—generally about two inches wide. The knife is like a double-edged sword and long—usually about fifty to sixty inches.”

  “N-N-Not exactly easy to conceal if you were w-walking down the street,” Jasper said.

  Kirby snorted. “No. It would be conspicuous pretty much anywhere except the on the deck of a whaler. Now, although this looks very similar in shape, it’s not even an inch wide, so it’s far narrower than a boarding blade. The second possibility is a butcher’s pick, which is shaped like an oversized, flattened awl. That’s closer to the wound size and shape, but, again, it’s not an exact match.”

  “So wh-wh-what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying the tool used on Anita Fowler seems like a specialty item.” He looked up at Jasper, his expression one of revulsion, which for a doctor accustomed to postmortems was quite concerning. “In my opinion, it looks like a tool that was made specifically for murder.”

  * * *

  A rush of stale, hot air greeted Jasper when he opened the door to Miss Fowler’s apartment.

  It felt like a bloody oven, or like hell. Or perhaps an oven in hell.

  He removed his hat and gloves, hesitated, and then unbuttoned his coat.

  Why not? He was alone and it would serve nobody’s purpose if he lost consciousness due to heat.

  Once he was down to his vest and shirtsleeves, he opened the two windows, which faced the street and Frumkin’s house.

  The sluggish, humid breeze that crept through the room tempted him to strip down to his smalls.

  As he looked around the apartment, he thought about the storage area right over his head. Had Anita Fowler heard something upstairs? Is that why she was dead? Or had she been the one to use the room after robbing Frumkin of his jewelry and killing him? Or, far more likely, killing him and then robbing him.

  Although Frumkin hadn’t been large, Miss Fowler had been a slight woman. Getting a corpse up all those stairs would not have been easy.

  Unless you brought the body up in pieces.

  Even then it would not have been easy, Jasper argued to himself. Frumkin’s torso alone accounted for about half his body weight. No, it would not have been easy. Unless she had assistance.

  Jasper put that thought aside for the moment.

  If Mrs. Stampler, Sanger, and Powell knew the third floor rooms were used for crating—wasn’t it likely that Fowler had known that, too?

  And, although the storage room door had been locked, Law said old Wilfred had picked it in less than a minute. Jasper had picked a lock or two in his day, so he knew that it could be done even if one wasn’t a career criminal.

  Besides, if Fowler had killed Frumkin and taken his jewelry, perhaps she had also taken his keys. Jasper sighed, shelved his speculations, and concentrated on the task at hand.

  He recognized many of the items in Fowler’s room—like the small table and chair set and dresser—which were exactly like those in the other three apartments. Which meant Frumkin must have at least partially furnished all the rooms for occupants.

  Jasper knew the other set of rooms on the third floor—the side not given over to storage—already held a settee and wardrobe like Miss Fowler’s.

  Had Frumkin been in the process of furnishing that room for one of the names already on the list—or preparing it for some new, unsuspecting, person about to enter the list—when somebody had murdered him?

  Just thinking about Frumkin spinning a web in anticipation of draining his victims made Jasper feel ill. Why had he wanted to keep some of his victims right next door? To toy with them? He had to have known they hated him. What sort of man wanted to surround himself with people who wanted him dead?

  Jasper knew that he shouldn’t get emotionally involved in his cases, but everything about Albert Frumkin left a bad taste in his mouth. />
  Was there anything more loathsome than an extortionist?

  Adolphus Vogel’s face flashed through his mind.

  Yes, a man who beat his wife was the lowest form of life.

  Jasper tipped the sofa onto its back to look beneath it; there was nothing but horsehair, burlap, and metal springs.

  He took out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead and temples, surveying the room around him and trying to get some sense of either the woman who’d lived here or the man who’d paid for not only the walls around him, but almost everything between.

  It was shocking how little there was of Fowler in these rooms.

  As for Frumkin? Jasper had no sense of the man himself—not here in this house he’d furnished for his victims nor next door in his almost suffocatingly luxurious house. It was like a packrat’s nest, where worthless curios like a child’s wooden duck and priceless objets d’art were all stored, cheek by jowl. He’d surrounded himself with luxury and the things he’d stolen, like some monument to his greed.

  Yes, that was the overriding impression he had of the dead man: greed.

  Although the multitude of portraits and daguerreotypes and etchings in his house indicated that greed was not his only sin. Only a very vain man would be so very enamored of himself that he’d fill his house with his own image.

  Perhaps that is why the killer mutilated him so utterly—to vandalize the subject of all that vanity?

  Jasper paused at the thought, allowing his mind to range freely as he considered the unusual manner of Frumkin’s murder.

  Criminals were often dismembered—usually for particularly egregious crimes. Public dismemberments were a spectacle for the masses to communicate that the punishment required was extreme. Often drawing and quartering was the final act after hanging.

  Had Frumkin’s death not only been an execution, but also a punishment? And it hadn’t been enough just to dismember him; then a piece—his right hand—was taken.

  Or perhaps it had fallen out when the crate broke open and nobody noticed that it was missing?

  Gruesome, but not unthinkable when stunned people were faced with a pile of salt and body parts.

  Or perhaps whoever had killed him had cut off his right hand to brand him a thief? It was an old punishment—dating back to Hammurabi’s Code.

  Frumkin had certainly qualified as a thief and worse, in Jasper’s book.

  Forty-five minutes and a great deal of dust and dirt later, he’d given up hope of finding anything interesting.

  There were no false bottoms in drawers, no removable panels in either the dresser, cupboards, or wardrobe, or walls, and nothing unusual about the few personal items Miss Fowler had left behind: some hair pins, a bottle of ink, and something that looked suspiciously like a very small jimmy.

  Jasper wiped his face yet again with his now-bedraggled handkerchief and then picked up his coat, his gaze flickering absently around the room as he considered his next move.

  Something snagged his attention. There was a slightly crooked section of wood flooring at the corner of Miss Fowler’s small kitchen table—the only piece of furniture he had not moved because he could see beneath it.

  Jasper crouched down and stared at the rectangle of wood. There was a gap at one end between it and the next board. He might not have noticed that but the wood was higher on one end than the other—too high to have been ignored by whoever installed the floor, or people would have tripped over it incessantly.

  He barked out a laugh, stood, and fetched the jimmy bar.

  The tool fit perfectly in the narrow gap and Jasper pried on the wood gently. And voilà, the end lifted.

  He removed the piece and peered into the dark space beneath the floor: there were two Moroccan leather books.

  His heart was now thundering, and he was sweating more than he’d been earlier. He flicked through pages filled with flowery, beautiful penmanship.

  On the front page of both books were the words: Anita Marie Fowler. The books were dated 1856 and 1857.

  Jasper was about to replace the piece of wood when he saw something pressed against the bottom of the rectangular space: a man’s winter glove.

  The name he found stitched inside the fur lining made him smile.

  CHAPTER 31

  Hy yawned as he leaned against the frame of the big sash window, staring out over the busy intersection of Prince and Wooster: Lightner was late for the second time in one day.

  “Ah, look who’s decided to grace us with his presence.”

  Hy whipped around to find Captain Davies glaring from the doorway of the office.

  “Good afternoon, si—”

  “You’ve got a Doctor Stephen Powell down in the lockup,” Davies announced in his loud, grating voice. “Tell me this has something to do with Brinkley’s dog.”

  “Er—I’m sorry, sir. But, um, whose dog?”

  Davies scowled and then snapped out several words in a language Hy assumed was Welsh. “You don’t know anything about a damned dog, do you?”

  Before Hy could open his mouth, Davies turned away.

  “Ah, there you are, my lord.” The Welshman made no effort to hide either his sarcasm or his dislike.

  Lightner’s tall form appeared beside the far shorter man, and Hy could see even from this distance that the Englishman was ruffled and sweaty, and not his usual neat and tidy self.

  “Good day, Captain.”

  “Not for you it isn’t,” Davies shot back. “What the hell happened with the dog? Have you even talked to Brinkley like I ordered you to do?”

  Hy could see spittle flying out of the man’s mouth.

  “I don’t know, and yes,” Jasper said.

  Davies took a moment to sort out his answers and then put his fists on his hips and glared up at the Englishman, his hostile stance shouting get the hell on with it.

  “I’m w-working on it and have several ideas about M-Mister Waggers’s whereabouts.” Lightner turned to Hy. “Ready, Detective?”

  Davies held up a hand. “Hold on a goddamned minute. What leads?”

  Lightner’s lips twitched slightly. “I’ve got a spy inside the house, sir. I hope to have m-m-more information in a few days.”

  Davies scowled suspiciously from Lightner to Hy, and then jerked a thumb in Hy’s direction. “Why doesn’t he know anything about it?”

  “I thought the f-f-fewer who knew, the better.”

  Davies opened his mouth—probably to say something insulting—but then shut it.

  “I’ll have something for you b-b-by Thursday at the latest,” Lightner said.

  “Something? From who? And what happens on Thursday?”

  Lightner smiled. “I’m afraid the person assisting me is doing so only under assurance of anonymity.”

  The captain’s fiery red flush said he wanted to insist, but he seemed to think better of it. “I want something on my desk by the end of the day Thursday.” He spun on his heel and stalked back to his office, slamming the door hard enough to make glass rattle up and down the corridor.

  “I’d like to leave something on his desk, all right,” Hy muttered.

  Lightner laughed. “I see you’ve had your r-r-rest and sharp and salty, Detective. Are you ready to see what Doctor P-Powell has to share?” he asked, tossing his hat and gloves onto his desk.

  “Yes, sir. What’s going to happen on Thursday?”

  “I have n-n-no idea,” Lightner admitted.

  “You mean you just made that up?”

  “Yes.”

  It was Hy’s turn to laugh.

  Lightner smiled at him. “I don’t recommend f-f-f-following in my footsteps in that regard.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind, sir. Um, what was all that about a dog?” Hy asked as he followed the other man down the corridor.

  “James Brinkley’s d-d-dog has gone missing, and he’s offered a five hundred d-d-dollar reward.”

  Hy stopped at the head of the stairs. “Five hundred dollars?”

  “Yes.” L
ightner didn’t stop with him, and Hy had to hurry to catch up.

  “Five hundred dollars.”

  Lightner cocked an eyebrow.

  “I’m sorry, sir. It’s just—well, that’s a lot of money.”

  “I know. Never fear, Detective, I’ve got Patrolman O’Malley on the case.”

  “O’Malley? Uh, sir—”

  Lightner took a small leather book from his coat pocket. “I found Miss Fowler’s diary in her r-room.”

  “What? But we searched that place and didn’t find anything.”

  “I know. Serendipitous, isn’t it?”

  That wouldn’t have been Hy’s word of choice. Fishy, shady, and dodgy would have been ahead of it.

  “Er, anything good in it?” Hy asked as they made their way past the sergeant’s desk, where Billings was arguing with an irate German woman in a combination of English and German.

  Hy opened the door that led down to the holding cells.

  “It was v-v-very illuminating,” the Englishman said, his grin more than a bit illuminating itself in the dingy stairwell.

  A patrolman Hy knew—Doyle—snapped to attention when he saw Lightner approach the lockup.

  “G-Good afternoon, Patrolman. We’d like to—”

  “Yes, sir, I’ve got him in here.” Doyle took out a ring of keys and unlocked the closet-like room they used for interrogations.

  Powell looked up at the sound of the door opening, relief coloring his features when he saw Lightner. “Thank God you’re here, my lord. There’s got to be a mistake. I wasn’t—”

  Lightner ignored the pleading man. Instead, he gestured Hy inside and said, “Thank you, Patrolman,” and then shut the door with a decisive click.

  Once they’d taken the two remaining seats, Lightner turned to Powell. “Now then, Doctor, are you prepared to t-t-tell us everything?”

  “Everything?” Powell repeated in a high-pitched voice, his gaze bouncing between Hy and the Englishman. “I don’t understand. I’ve already told you—”

  Lightner took the diary from his pocket and set it on the small table.