Pat O'Malley Historical Steampunk Mystery Trilogy

by Jim Musgrave

  “You pansy-ass lecher!” Allen shouted, and he lifted a panel on the bar and came between it to grab me by my coat collar. I certainly did not want to change my professorial demeanor, so I allowed him to escort me out of his place by the scruff of my suit in a most undignified manner.

  As I walked back uptown to Fifth Avenue, I kept wondering why Haskin’s place was so vehemently against the arrangement of appointments with child prostitutes. Could it be they had some scruples after all? Perhaps they were not behind the kidnapping, and we were once more chasing wild geese.

  However, I remembered my William Shakespeare again, and the quote, ‘The bartender doth protest too much, methinks’ rang true. If Jane the Grabber wanted to keep clear of the offers being made to procure children, then she would, undoubtedly, have others make the arrangements in her stead.

  Ultimately, however, the Palace Theater could be the place where the children were kept and drugged, just as the drugging of Seth was mentioned in the note we received from the kidnappers. The plot of my case was twisting fiercely into a snake-like undulation, and I was anxious to see how many more such offers had been made by Doctor Edward Bliss Foote.

  The street was quite active, as the denizens of the night began their vampire-like strolls on the sidewalks. At this stage of my case, every street urchin and prostitute, every merchant, peddler and crippled veteran, appeared to be bathed in a darkly sinister glow. My thoughts of children being rounded up for the enjoyment of predatory men were disgusting to me, and they tainted every step I took along these boulevards of broken dreams where people sold themselves at the slightest jingle of a coin purse.

  * * *

  When all of us returned from our variety of forays into the city, Superintendent Kennedy sat down at the head of our command central table in the parlor, motioned for us to be seated, and he sat down behind the typewriter. I was surprised he was using the typewriter, but he was very good at it. This new invention was taking many offices by storm, as it shortened work time considerably.

  Becky was seated next to me, and she had a confident demeanor inside her blue dress. Bessie was seated directly across from me, and her raven hair was shining under the gaslight. She still wore black for her husband. McKenzie and Bill Maguire were also seated around on the right, talking with each other about baseball scores of the day.

  The typewriter made a pronounced clicking sound that was quite distracting if one was trying to sort out the details being communicated, but I attempted to do my best. After all, I had my own set of clues and suspects, and I was not planning to mix my list with Kennedy’s unless something changed dramatically in the case.

  “O’Malley you can go first. What appointments have you made?” Kennedy pointed at me and then returned his fingers to their alert stance above the keys of the typewriter.

  “I have three appointments. One is on Wednesday at eight in the evening in the Sisters’ Row. The second is on Thursday at nine at night at the Haymarket, and the last one is for Friday at ten PM at the Cremorne. I also asked at the Palace Theater, but John Allen cursed at me and threw me out of his bar.” I smiled resolutely. “I went out like a lamb, but I would imagine Jane Haskins and her ogres might still be behind the kidnapping,” I added.

  As he finished typing, Kennedy looked over at me. “Right you are. They are the ones to have most to gain from this endeavor, and they also have a history of conflict with Miss Charming and Missus Mergenthaler. And, Miss Charming, what did your Doctor Foote accomplish?”

  Becky also smiled. She was obviously pleased to have convinced this physician to come to our side. “Doctor Foote obtained two appointments. One is for Thursday at seven in the evening, and the other is on Saturday at three in the afternoon. All of the children are under twelve years of age, I might add,” she said.

  “Mine are aged six, ten and the other twelve,” I pointed out.

  “Good. Now we can arrange to get our cameras installed inside the rooms, so we can photograph the proceedings. My men reported to me earlier, and they heard that Tammany Hall is bragging about new money in the Tenderloin made from what they called ‘little lambs in the bedroom.’ There is a definite connection between this increase in child prostitution and money being made by those grafters inside The Ring.”

  “Me ‘n me boy Billy heard from the gangs. The Dead Rabbits is the group which makes the most money off children, but they ain’t done any business lately. They gets ‘em off the boats. Poor Irish mothers want to make money, and they sells their kids, I’m sad to say. I can’t say the gangs are big in this here business now,” McKenzie said, and Bill nodded in agreement beside him.

  “Thank you for that information, Mister McKenzie. I now believe we have enough offers to set our plan into motion. I shall get my men to set the cameras up in time for your meetings with the children. After we get these compromising photos, we can then plan on what we will say to the press. I think Missus Mergenthaler should be in charge of such endeavors,” said Kennedy, waving a finger toward Bessie. She nodded back at him, unsmiling.

  “What kinds of photos do you think we’ll need?” I asked.

  “I don’t believe we need anything too lurid. We can communicate in the print how these children are used to accompany these photos. Showing children alone in the company of men should be enough to get the public aroused,” Kennedy said.

  “Are you certain that will be enough?” I asked. “Remember how detailed photos are in the penny dailies. Every macabre crime scene shows the body in all its bloody gore. Do you expect to compete with that kind of display?”

  “We have to walk delicately, Mister O’Malley. These are children, and the public will never stand for any gruesomeness when it comes to these tots. As I stated before, we will fill in the wretched details by writing some colorfully descriptive prose concerning how the business is conducted and how these children are treated like animals.”

  “I agree with Officer Kennedy,” said Becky. “Less is more when it comes to children. We can plant details in the imagination of the public that can go quite far in emotionally moving them to action.”

  “Yes, we have some of the greatest journalists in the city at our disposal,” said Bessie. “Mister Greeley, Susan Anthony, and I are ready and willing to write features calling the public to action. My son is being held hostage by these monsters. His safety is our prime concern!”

  “Of course, Missus,” said Kennedy, his face relaxing into a gentle composure. “Your son is of utmost importance in this case.”

  We were interrupted at that point by two men from Kennedy’s unit who came barging into the parlor followed by John the butler. “They jes’ push by me,” said John, by way of apology for the disturbance.

  They were strapping lads of over six feet, and they wore green suspenders and blue gabardine trousers over their white shirtsleeves. Their hair was long, and they wore no hats. Silver badges were affixed to their shirt pockets.

  “Sir, we came upon a strange sight downtown on Canal Street. We were asking all around about children being stolen or sold, like you told us to do, and then we seen a crowd over by a trash bin. We hurried over, and there were six children’s bodies stuffed inside the enclosure.”

  “Gott im Himmel!” said Bessie. “Who were they?”

  I knew she wanted to know if one of them might be Seth. I certainly did not want to be the one to ask.

  “The hospital came over with two city police, and they took the bodies over to Mt. Sinai on 28th. We came back here to tell you,” he explained.

  “I must go over there at once! John! Have Terrance bring the carriage around!” Bessie shouted, and she moved toward the door. “Patrick? Please come. I need you to be with me.”

  I understood Bessie’s panic. If Seth were one of these children, then she would need emotional support. Losing one’s husband and son is something no woman should have to endure in solitude. I also wanted to see these bodies. If these deaths were somehow linked to our child prostitution ring, then there will h
ave been a gruesome and deadly twist thrust upon us. I took off my Reynolds mask and disguise and put them in my bedroom for safekeeping.

  As we rode over to Mt. Sinai in the carriage, I kept having a vision of my childhood back in Kilkenny, Ireland. We were in the midst of a famine, and my mother had died. I remembered when the men came to our row house and took her. She was placed inside a wheel barrow and then they put a sheet over her. I ran alongside, as did my brother, Tim, until they reached the Catholic Church and hospital down the road. In the back yard behind the hospital, other men with other wheelbarrows were delivering bodies from all over the town. It was a gathering of the dead.

  I remember thinking that there was no heaven or hell. This world had both. My mother, when she was alive, gave me my heaven. She touched my face when I went to bed and sang sweet lullabies until I fell asleep. She held me in her arms and read to me from books about children from far-away lands. These were places that had no famine, and the children were adored like precious gems. She gave me heaven. Hell was right there in that lot behind the hospital. The priests wandered around, reciting their Latin litany of useless phrases, the altar boys swinging the incense holders like Poe’s pendulum above each body. Flashing emerald-colored flies swarmed over the bodies, and the church bell rang out a droning tune.

  When a priest came up to my mother inside her wheelbarrow, I shouted, “God damn you; go to hell!” I ran off, and I never looked back. I did not see her until a day later at the church, when her body was laid out inside a wooden coffin, and I caressed her face that kissed me and her arms that held me.

  We went directly to the basement where the morgue was. The little bodies were laid out individually, one each on a gurney with wheels on the bottom--the wheelbarrows of New York City. Bessie ran to each one to see if her Seth were there. After she looked at the sixth child, she walked over to me and fell into my arms. “Oh, Patrick! He’s still alive!” she whispered between clenched teeth.

  Doctor Hiram Epstein, Becky’s physician for her ladies, had attended to them and had examined each body. His dark face looked grave, and his spectacles were steamed with perspiration. Epstein’s dark brown eyes focused upon us as he held onto his notes on a clipboard.

  “Six children, ages ranging from six years old to ten. Four of them are white and two are black. Each cadaver has a long incision horizontally along the throat, opening the jugulars beneath the skin to cause death. I will perform a more thorough autopsy to determine any other abnormalities,” said Doctor Epstein.

  “They were all murdered then?” I asked.

  “Yes, I would assume so. The incisions were made at such an angle that only an adult wielding a knife or other blade instrument could have done this kind of damage. I would guess the adult held the child from behind and then drew the blade under the chin along the throat in a wide path. The head on each child was almost completely severed from the shoulders.”

  Bessie coughed, and I saw her eyes look frantically over toward the trash bin in the corner of the morgue.

  “There was one detail that puzzled me,” said Doctor Epstein, pushing the frame of his spectacles down on his nose to peer over at us.

  “What was that?” I asked.

  “Each child had the same symbol etched upon his or her stomach.”

  Doctor Epstein walked over to the closest body, pulled down the sheet to the six-year-old boy’s naked waist, and there it was. Burned into the skin, probably with a cattle branding iron, was the yinyang image of the Taijitu, the symbol of the dualities.

  “What could this mean?” Bessie asked.

  “Perhaps it’s some kind of cult. I believe it’s Chinese, is it not?” asked Doctor Epstein.

  “Yes, it is,” I said. “It’s a Taoist symbol representing the light and dark aspects of all creation. Doctor, is there any way you can keep this information secret? I believe this event represents a climactic turn in our search for Missus Mergenthaler’s son. If word were to get out into the public there may be all kinds of distorted views taking place. The Chinese citizens may be blamed, and I have reason to believe these children were not murdered by Orientals. In fact, I have incontrovertible proof.”

  “By law, I must report these deaths to the city, Mister O’Malley. They could put me into the Tombs if I failed to obey the law,” said Doctor Epstein, and there was panic in his tone.

  “I need these killers to continue their ritual. This is the only way I can stop them,” I explained, forming the plan in my mind as I spoke the words.

  “All right. I won’t inform the police. But I must report these deaths before the week is up. I have a family to consider!” said Doctor Epstein.

  “Thank you, Doctor. I believe I can get to the source of these murders before then. Come, Bessie. We must return to your mansion. I need to tell you something important on the way over.”

  We left the morgue and climbed back into the two-horse carriage, which was waiting for us in front of Mt. Sinai Hospital on 28th Street.

  “Take us home, Terrance,” said Bessie, and we were off.

  Chapter 10: Taijitu

  On the way back to her mansion, I told Bessie about the image of the yinyang symbol and where I had seen it displayed. “Two of the bartenders I talked to had it on an armband around their bicep. This may connect them with these murders, but I want to find out more before I act upon it.”

  Bessie turned toward me inside the cab of the carriage. Her brown eyes were moist from the emotional turmoil. She was twisting a white handkerchief between her hands the way I was twisting ideas in my head. “Patrick, what do you think this all means? You don’t believe there is a ritual killing of children going on, do you?”

  “I believe we need to keep all the information about this symbol to ourselves. We shall tell Superintendent Kennedy that the children were murdered, but I want to refrain from telling him more until we get further information after the autopsies are performed by Doctor Epstein.”

  I looked out at the passing pedestrians. They all seemed to be going about their daily routines without a care in the world. They did not know there might be a ghastly killer or killers of children in their midst.

  “You want this to be among the three of us, then?” Bessie asked.

  “For the time being,” I said. “I want to attempt a private investigation based on what we learn from Doctor Eptstein. It would be best to keep all of this under wraps until after I conclude my sleuthing. I wanted you to be aware of it, however, because you have the most to lose.”

  “Thank you, Patrick,” she said. “I trust your judgment. You are going to make the rescue of Seth your highest priority, aren’t you?”

  As we were pulling up to the front of Bessie’s Fifth Avenue mansion, with its expansive green lawns and gurgling fountains, I took her hands into my own and looked deeply into her eyes. “That has been my priority from the very beginning, Bessie,” I said, and I softly kissed her lips.

  Inside the command central parlor there was quite a stir. Walter McKenzie was standing toe-to-toe with one of Kennedy’s boys and pointing his fat finger in the officer’s chest.

  “It’s yer damned fault me boy was killed! That slut was at the window screamin’ down at ya, ya bunch o’ flatfoot city rats. It was yer stormin’ up them stairs made her do it!”

  I came up to the table and looked down at Kennedy. He was busy typing up something, but he noticed me and stopped.

  “What’s happening here?” I asked.

  “New development, I’m afraid. Your little tart Irene stabbed her boyfriend to death inside one of the rooms in the Haymarket house. Somebody got her out the back way before we could capture her. One of my men was interviewing hookers inside the Haymarket when he heard a scream coming from one of the bedrooms upstairs. He asked the hooker what that was, and she told him about little Irene. She said she came in that afternoon with her boyfriend. They both looked drugged and out of sorts, and the scream was coming from their room.” Kennedy was reading this information from what he had
typed on the paper.

  “So you sent more men, and that’s when all this happened?” I asked.

  “Right. The body was slumped over on the bed. There were bottles of laudanum on the nightstand and in the drawer of the desk. She got away, and we’re trying to track her down. I sent three of my men over to the Palace Theater. It’s the place she would most likely retreat to, don’t you think, O’Malley?” Kennedy looked up at me with a wincing stare.

  “I suppose. If she’s all drugged up, they might have taken her elsewhere. It might be too dangerous right now to have her out in public.” I sat down at the table next to Kennedy. Becky was giving me the stink eye from her seat across from Kennedy.

  “What about the children, O’Malley? Were they murdered?” Becky almost sprang forward onto the table with curiosity.

  “Six children were murdered by a knife-wielding killer. They each had a gruesome smile etched forever under their little chins. Doctor Epstein will report the rest of the details when he finishes the autopsies.” I saw Becky’s eyebrows rise.

  “Do you believe these murders were linked to our case, Patrick?” she asked.

  “They could be. But I am thinking these children might just be victims of a serial killer. The doctor seemed to think the way they were killed was too similar to rule out a ritual killer or killers. It might also be the work of some cult.” I did not want to give away too much information at this point. I had my own plan of investigation, and I was not ready to tell anyone except Bessie.

  “We still need to carry through with our appointments,” said Kennedy. “If there proves to be a connection between the child murders and this case, then so be it. We will cross that bridge when we come to it.”

  “Why’d that little whore kill my boy Danny?” McKenzie was still fuming about the loss of the identical twin.