Pat O'Malley Historical Steampunk Mystery Trilogy

by Jim Musgrave

  I decided to pursue the matter further, even though I was obviously dealing with a demented soul. “But, Mr. Anderson, sir. What about your first wife? She accused you of having sexual relations with this beautiful employee of yours, did she not? What have you to say about her?”

  These words seemed to turn the old gentleman into a raving lunatic. He stood up and walked into the center of the kitchen. He then began spinning in place, like a whirling dervish, and when he stopped, he stared into my eyes, and I shall never forget the look of abject horror in them when he spoke. “She? Another one of them? These woe men? Why, I have put her away for good keeping. Just like Eddy would do! Yes, she and her little stories are safely tucked away in the manger of my family and our estate to come! If you want this brand of worldly truth, then you’ll have to dig it out, my union soldier! Why then, why don’t you go now? Get it over with! Find out your beloved truth. You’re no better than Poe and his lust for his own reality of warped demons and black witchcraft and sorcery! I have solved that problem, too! I have placed the four authors of the eternal Truth around her lies. She will never escape! That’s my protection for now, don’t you know. Little Willie guards the vault of her hell! Now, get out, soldier! Get out of my house, or I’ll bring the wrath of hell down upon your wide shoulders!”

  I had heard enough, and now I knew I must get away to figure out what the puzzle of his words really meant. The case was becoming more complicated with each turn. Poe, a murderer? Or, was Edgar killed because he wanted to link the murder to Anderson? Was Missus Anderson killed also because she knew too much? What was happening here? I wanted to rest and figure it all out in a calmer setting. I left the mansion and rode back to the city.

  * * *

  Later, inside the Fraunces Inn on Pearl in Manhattan, I thought about what the old millionaire had told me. What could he mean by the “manger of his family and the life to come?” Wait one moment. These rich ones like to imitate the classical nobility. He worshipped Garibaldi. Republics all over the world! Eternity--that’s what he meant! They always want to live in some form or other forever! He was talking about a mausoleum! Where do these rich ones pile up their family after they die? Their mausoleums! The old bastard has buried his own wife inside, and there must be some record of the real events of 1844 somewhere inside. Everything was coming full circle here. If I can find Anderson’s newly built mausoleum, then I can search inside it to find the truth!

  I dropped Sherman II off at the city livery, and I walked over to the library in Manhattan. They were open until eight PM, so I had time to search through the records to find what I needed to know.

  It wasn’t difficult to find where Anderson’s family mausoleum was located. In the City Library, there was a big article from 1861 headlining it in the New York Examiner. “Millionaire Tobacconist and Philanthropist Builds New Mausoleum in the Greek Style,” it read. “Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.” That’s where I was headed. I thanked the evening librarian, and I left.

  The cemetery Green-Wood was built in response to Manhattan’s rotting corpse problem–as the population density in New York grew in the early 1800s, churchyard cemeteries changed from small burial grounds into festering eyesores. The overflowing layers of rotting corpses were a public health hazard, and yellow fever and other outbreaks not only contributed to the unmanageable number of dead but were also suspected of originating in the cemeteries themselves. City planners looked outward, across the river, to the then unused farmland in Brooklyn and imagined an alternative to the putrid, cluttered church cemeteries in Manhattan. The plan wasn’t just a dignified dumping ground for the deceased but also an oasis of peace that reflected the Victorian ideal of a beautiful death.

  I picked up my horse at the livery, and I also borrowed a small sledgehammer from the proprietor. As I rode my steed over the lush hills, I saw all the beautiful memorials to death and, perhaps, to a future life beyond this veil of tears. No Catholics, Jews nor other heathens need apply, however. Souls like Poe and me had to rot in our own graves, far from these hallowed cemeteries of the Truth and Light.

  I should have realized that it was Anderson’s wife who held the key to this mystery. She was the one who was trying to help Mary Rogers escape the clutches of her husband, and she was also eliminated once she found out how Anderson killed the girl to prevent his indiscretions with the young woman from being discovered.

  As I came upon the Anderson tomb, it looked just as I had imagined it. It was four columns of gray cement, with the statues of the four ministers of Truth: Mathew, Mark, Luke and John, the four supposed authors of the testament of Jesus. As I stepped inside, a cold chill hit my back. I looked into the darkness and saw another statue: a statue of a little boy, standing proud and alone in the center of the mausoleum’s gloomy atmosphere of death. I had the sledgehammer in my hands that I had brought from the city. I hoped there was no night watchman on duty, because I may have to also pull out the trusty Colt pistol from my army days, which I had tucked safely away inside my boot.

  If I were wrong about this, I would possibly be spending many more months--possibly years--back in that upstate steel prison I visited long ago. If Anderson killed his wife, then he would probably hide her “little stories” inside his son’s statue. Anderson wanted to be found out, as his mind had become ill, but his conscience was still eating away at him.

  I swung down upon the little boy’s head--for that was little Willie, of course--and his cranium split asunder, revealing the manuscript inside a boy, from his deceased mother. When I picked up this manuscript, it began to rain outside, and I sat down inside the Anderson mausoleum to read it. When I had completed it, I was on the inside of what Poe would have called the maelstrom of hell.

  Wednesday, July 1, 1841. I saw them together again. He was humping her from behind, on the stairs, and when I confronted him about it, he just cursed and swore, telling me I knew nothing. Once again, little Mary and I had to succumb to the male ego. Thanks to Mister McKenzie, I now know of a good abortionist named Madame Restell out on Greenwich Street. She has promised me, for the right price, I can send Mary over to her. Restell is for the wealthy in this town, and I trust her. I am writing this down because we must take care of ourselves in this world of depraved men.

  Saturday, July 4, 1844. Again, he is at it. She works her fingers to the bone, and still John goes to her for his pleasures. He has paid one of the sharpers named Reynolds to take her out to New Jersey for the next abortion. Reynolds comes in with those gangsters from the wharves. John has his rich hands on everything--but he will no longer touch me! I believe he will be discovered in this plot. Something will happen in that den of iniquity. He never listens to me at all.

  July 26, 1844. What did I tell him? Now, Mary Rogers is no more! And what has he done? He has hired Mister Edgar Poe to write a ruse of a story to attract the attention away from him as a suspect! What will be next? Is he insane?

  October 1, 1846. The worm is finally turning on my dear husband, the tobacco tycoon. Mr. Poe has discovered his plot, and he knows the name of Reynolds--John’s conspirator--and Mr. Poe has promised me, in utmost secret, that he will go down to Baltimore to lure this killer into a trap. I must find out what counter-plans John and Reynolds might have for poor Mr. Poe. I fear his literary detection is much more astute than his real life methods. Men are always so very astute on paper, but when you get them into the bedroom--all hell is the master!

  They know of Mr. Poe’s plot! I must get to him before he leaves. They have hatched an ingenious method for Mr. Poe’s demise. I overheard them talking in the den. That’s a good name for their lair: den of demons. John has read in one of his many science books that the hydrophobia disease is spread to humans from animals with a simple scratch. He laughs, and he tells this Reynolds, ‘We will take my black cat down with us to Baltimore, meet him on the train, and then concoct a rendezvous at the wharf to allow our black master to scratch or bite our poet and enemy and become lethally infected with the virus I have in
jected into this cat.’

  If I cannot get to Mr. Poe in time, I don’t know what will become of him. He will surely die in some gutter. They will change his clothes to make it look like he was robbed, that is a surety. Mr. Poe will not last at the hands of these two! I am going to the police--this is the only answer. Before another innocent human becomes a victim, I must collect my wits about me and visit the constabulary. I am so worried, though. John laughs at these stupid officers behind their backs. The story Poe wrote worked like it was heaven-sent. What story will they write for me? Will I be just another dark tale in some future Gothic fiction?

  “Stand up to meet your maker,” said a voice behind me. I turned around to see a tall figure standing at the portal to the mausoleum, and the lightning flashed, so I could see his face. There was a scar running all along his forehead and down to the underside of his chin. He held a long pistol, possible a cavalry model from the Confederacy, I couldn’t be quite certain. I knew it was now or never. I drew my gun from my boot and fired. Thank God, Reynolds fell to the earth inside the mausoleum, right next to the broken boy’s head. I felt his carotid on the neck, and it was silent.

  However, just as I was going to reach over to extract the manuscript of Missus Anderson, in order to prove to the world that the events leading to the two murders were finally solved, the sky erupted in a flash of dynamite fire, and it cracked through the roof of the mausoleum and struck the manuscript full force! In a blaze of yellow and red, the flames leaped from the writing, and I watched it turn quickly to powdered ash. My ears were ringing, and my body soon became soaked with the incessantly falling showers.

  Epilogue: The Cat is Out of the Bag

  “How did you know that Anderson had used a cat to commit the murder of Poe?” Becky sat on the front porch swing of the cottage, as I explained to her about the exactitudes of the case.

  “It all began with the vision I had of Anderson and the cats. I was able to remember the animals that were inside the mansion, and then it all fell into place. Anderson hired Reynolds to kill the Rogers girl, and he also hired him to follow Poe to Baltimore and murder him. The cat was used to inflict the fatal disease of rabies into Poe’s blood stream. I had surmised correctly that Reynolds told Poe who he was so as to make a lasting impression on the great writer’s mind. Reynolds knew Poe would be delirious from rabies, so it became a mystery about the identity of this Reynolds after Poe died. Most people believed the propaganda put out by Griswold and the others who were jealous of Poe’s talent.” I started to push Becky in the swing. The sounds of spring were in the air all around the cottage. If Poe’s spirit were haunting us, then he must have at least been given a reprieve from his agony. There was no raven at the door cursing Poe with “Nevermore!”

  “I’m sorry the letters of Missus Anderson were destroyed. Now you won’t be able to prove definitively that Poe was killed by Reynolds. Did the police even want to know why Reynolds tried to shoot you?” Becky asked.

  “No, they had no idea that Reynolds was the gray ghost butcher of New York. I did not bother to explain the case to them. They just knew I had been accosted inside Anderson’s mausoleum, and when they questioned Pastor Newsome, he told them about Anderson’s mental instability, and the police had the old millionaire committed to the hospital for treatment. I would wager he’ll be out soon, and nobody will have discovered his guilt. Only Reynolds and I knew about Poe’s murder.”

  “But you said there were two men who accosted Poe in Baltimore in 1849. Who was the other man?” Becky tucked her legs beneath her dress and looked up at me.

  “It had to be Anderson. He was the only one who knew how to administer the fatal dose of rabies. He must have traveled down to Baltimore with Reynolds, and when Anderson saw what a horrible deed it was, his mind became clouded with guilt. This guilt developed into a serious mental illness later on.” I stopped the swing and sat down beside my charming love.

  “What will you do now? Are you sorry about all that happened?” Becky took my hand and gazed into my eyes.

  “No matter that the world does not know the truth about Poe’s death. Just as I learned about love from you, the world may be able to understand the value of Poe through the great genius of his craft. This experience has taught me that destroying evil takes much more work than simply playing by the rules. I killed Reynolds, and he was evil incarnate. Poe was only a reflection of evil in the reader’s own mind. Which man would you want to have lurking about on dark nights?” I made a sound that I believed was ghostly, but it probably sounded more like a cat being prepared for an Anderson stew.

  “Poe, and his stories, of course!” Becky said.

  I kissed her on the lips, and she squirmed inside the swing so that we began to tilt upward. I was happier than I had ever been on those long campaigns in my Army years, visiting Rebecca inside the cold and drafty cottages alongside the troopers’ quarters.

  “Please, Patrick. Before you go back to your investigations, could you read to me from Whitman once again?” Becky was adamant. She pushed me with her bare foot.

  I got up and went back inside to retrieve the poetry of the master of eternal love. I would forever be grateful for the case of Edgar Allan Poe because I was able to become much more intuitive in my thinking, and I would, as a result, be able to utilize my subconscious powers of reflection simply by making love to my dear Rebecca Charming. My lease was up on Poe’s Cottage at the end of the year, but my gratitude to the Divine Edgar would last forevermore.

  Other Works by Jim Musgrave

  The Digital Scribe: A Writer’s Guide to Electronic Media

  Lucifer’s Wedding

  Sins of Darkness

  Russian Wolves

  Iron Maiden an Alternate History

  The Necromancers or Love Zombies of San Diego

  Freak Story: 1967-1969

  The President’s Parasite and Other Stories

  The Mayan Magician and Other Stories

  Catalina Ghost Stories

  Copyright © 2013 Jim Musgrave

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 1482063492

  ISBN-13: 978-1482063493

  Forevermore (Book 1)

  Disappearance at Mount Sinai (Book 2)

  Jane the Grabber (Book 3)

  By

  Jim Musgrave

  © 2013 by English Majors Publishing

  Published by English Majors Reviewers and Editors, LLC

  An English Majors Publishers Book Copyright 2013

  Published by Jim Musgrave at Createspace

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner, except for a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  English Majors Publishers is a publishing house based in San Diego, California. Website: contempinstruct.com/English

  For more information, please contact:

  English Majors Reviewers and Editors, LLC

  6784 Caminito del Greco San Diego, CA 92120-2219

  publisher@contempinstruct.com

  Cover and book design by Graphicz X Designs (http://graphiczxdesigns.zenfolio.com)

  Disappearance at Mount Sinai

  A Pat O’Malley Historical Mystery

  By Jim Musgrave

  Prologue: The Kidnapping

  Mount Sinai Hospital, New York City, 1866.

  Nurse Rachel Levine was the charge nurse on duty. Dr. Letterman was speaking to her on the fourth floor next to the room where Dr. Arthur Mergenthaler was the important patient. His diagnosis was Ulcerative Colitis, but Miss Levine knew this man also suffered from a serious social disorder.

 
; “I don’t care what he tells you. You are not to allow anyone inside that room. We are responsible for his care and safety, and if something were to happen to him, you and I would be cleaning bedpans for the rest of our lives.”

  “Yes, Doctor, but he keeps telling me he is a mazikeen and I am a daughter of Lilith. What is he talking about, Doctor? He screams when I try to touch him, and he keeps staring straight ahead without blinking. He also has me bring a pan of water for his ritual washing of his hands. He washes them eight times every hour. Is this patient mentally ill as well?” she asked.

  “Dr. Mergenthaler is a genius, and most geniuses have certain idiosyncrasies that we just can’t understand. The important thing is to keep him as comfortable as we can while we treat his physical ailment.” Dr. Letterman was a handsome young Union Officer who had just returned from the war. His brown eyes had that far-away cast to them that Nurse Levine had seen in many of these veterans’ eyes. It was if they knew of suffering that was beyond human comprehension.

  “I’m going to be making my rounds, so I want you to watch this room. Don’t allow anyone to visit. I don’t care if they’re medical staff or even family. This is a restricted room, is that clear, Nurse?”

  “Yes, Doctor. I understand,” said the nurse, and she turned to leave.

  “Call me if anything happens,” said the doctor. “You know how to use the pneumatic phones that I had installed, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I know how to use them. Thank you, Doctor,” she said.

  Inside the largest hospital room, Nurse Levine observed the patient, Dr. Arthur Mergenthaler. She looked at his chart hanging on the end of the bed. She needed to give him his 10 PM medication. As she was looking at the chart, she heard a distant knocking sound. It was rather loud, but she could not ascertain from where it was emanating.