Hudson's Kill

by Paddy Hirsch

  His eyes were gritty. He had gone back to his lodgings after Eliza’s party, and tried to sleep. But he had snapped awake just a few hours later, bathed in sweat, unable to recall whatever it was that had disturbed his dreams. He had dressed, intending to go to the Federal Hall, but his feet had carried him uphill instead of down, through the still-sleeping city to the mean alley where the girl had died. He had looked over the scene in the thin, early morning light, then walked to the Almshouse, where bodies were kept in an old wine cellar until they were claimed by relatives or friends.

  He felt a tickle in his nose. The air was heavy with the smell of lavender. The nuns who ran the Almshouse had stuffed bunches of the herb into sconces around the cellar to mask the smell of death. Justy had argued for the establishment of a proper morgue, with proper ventilation and some windows to see by, but his superior, the High Constable Jacob Hays, made the undeniable point that a corpse was rarely left unclaimed for more than a night, so the cellar was really all the city needed.

  “What do you make of it, Mister Gorton?” Justy asked.

  Gorton stepped out of the shadows. He slipped something into his mouth and leaned forward over the body. There was a crunching sound, and Justy smelled coffee.

  “Professional job, I’d say,” Gorton said.

  The cut was a livid purple gash that ran from the girl’s sternum down the length of her torso. The nuns had washed the corpse, and removed the girl’s entrails. Someone had bound the body cavity closed with a bandage, but the cut still flared at both ends, like a split sack of cotton.

  Gorton ran his tobacco-stained forefinger down the length of the gash. “This cut’s precise. No hesitation. A clean line. Means the doer had a sharp knife and he knew how to use it. But this…” He pointed at the end of the cut.

  Justy picked up the candelabra. The long, vertical gash ended two inches below the belly button, but Gorton was pointing lower down, at a thin, horizontal cut, less than a half-inch wide, just below the upper line of the puff of hair above the girl’s pubis.

  “I missed that.” Justy leaned in, and felt the skin bump, all the way up his spine. “A filleting knife, you think?”

  “Could be. It was something narrow, anyway.”

  Justy placed the candelabra carefully on the corner of the slab. It was a moment before he could speak. “So he stabbed her to death, and then cut her open? Why? What kind of monster does something like this?”

  “One who knows how to cut up bodies well enough, I’d say. A huntsman perhaps.” Gorton’s voice was grim. “Or a butcher.”

  The faint chimes of a church bell floated down to them. Justy looked towards the sound, hoping to see someone at the top of the long flight of cellar steps. “Eight o’clock. Half the city’s either at work or at mass by now. The other half’s at breakfast. And no one has come to claim her. Do you think that’s strange?”

  “Depends on the girl. I grew up in Whitechapel. Kinchin would go missing all the time from round there, and no one ever gave a dry bob for ’em. Begging your pardon.”

  “This isn’t London. And that girl doesn’t look like the kind that’s disposable. She looks like the kind whose parents will have been going mad with worry all night.”

  “That’s if they even knew she was out of her bed. Eight’s still early for some. Mayhap the parents haven’t even seen she’s gone yet.”

  Justy nodded. Gorton was making all the right points. But something inside him knew that the watchman was wrong, and that there would be no anxious parents hammering at the doors of the Almshouse or Federal Hall on the girl’s account.

  “I don’t think anyone’s coming for her, Mister Gorton. Which means we’ll need to find out who she is ourselves.”

  “We?”

  Justy gave him a long look. The candle flames lengthened in the still air. “Haven’t you asked yourself why I dismissed Playfair, but asked you to stay with me?”

  Gorton gave the universal soldier’s shrug, the one that said officers frequently did things that made no sense at all.

  “What made you tell Mister Playfair to correct himself last night?” Justy asked.

  “Don’t know what you mean, Marshal.” Gorton’s tone was wooden.

  “I don’t know you, Gorton, but I know Playfair well enough. He’s not the kind of man to go back on a story once he’s told it. Not without some convincing.”

  Gorton’s stare was impassive. It was a moment before he spoke. “It was the young woman. Miss O’Toole. I reckoned if she really knew you, she’d pay you a visit, and then you’d find out what happened from her. It seemed like too great a risk.”

  “So you don’t like to take risks?”

  “Only when it’s worth it. There was no profit in having you believe that we was first to find the girl, far as I could tell.”

  “If there had been, would you have stuck to your story?”

  Gorton was silent. The candlelight accentuated the lines in his face and the gray in his hair. They made him look like an old man. But he still looked fit, rangy and muscled, with the sharp face and quick eyes of a hunting dog.

  “You were a marksman in the King’s Marines, weren’t you?” Justy asked.

  “And a scout.” Gorton’s eyes slid over Justy’s, making the briefest contact. “Like yourself.”

  Justy had a sudden memory of sliding on his belly through a patch of wet grass, his face blackened with burned cork, his knife slippery in his hand, his eyes fixed on the red coat between the trees, his stomach liquid with fear. He shook the thought away. How did Gorton know? He had not made a habit of blabbing about his part in the Irish Rebellion, but he supposed it was inevitable that people would find out. “I hope you won’t hold it against me.”

  Gorton smiled slightly. “We’re all friends now, Marshal. They never sent Marines to Ireland, so you won’t have milled any of my mates.”

  The whites of his eyes looked yellow. His irises were almost black. Less like a hunting dog. More like a wolf.

  “You’ve kept your skills up, too, Marshal,” Gorton said. “Judging by the way you dealt with that cove last night. Nice moves, like the man said.”

  “It gets more difficult every year. Owney Clearey does his best, but I’m a poor student.”

  “Clearey the pugilist?”

  “I train at his gymnasium. Or I did, at least. I haven’t been in a while.” The last time, more than a month ago, Clearey had given him a tiresome lecture on using ordinary household objects in a fight. The edge of a dish could crush a man’s windpipe. A rolled-up sheaf of papers could gouge out an eye. Anything could be a weapon, properly aimed, properly applied, with maximum force and maximum speed and maximum aggression. And so on and so forth. Justy had lost interest and not gone back since. As such, he had felt slow the previous night, and ill-prepared for a tussle. But the man had been drunk and clumsy. Which made both of them lucky.

  He looked down at the girl. The soft light of the candles made deep hollows of her eye sockets, and turned the gash in her abdomen into a dark pit.

  “Someone might come, I suppose.” His own voice surprised him, a murmur that seemed to float up between them to the vaulted ceiling.

  “But you doubt it.”

  “I do.” Justy nodded. “What’s your first name?”

  Gorton looked surprised. “Jeremiah.”

  “Well, Jeremiah, you likely know this already, but Marshals work alone. I couldn’t get a constable or a watchman to help me on an investigation, even if I wanted to. But that doesn’t mean I can’t hire on help on my own account.”

  “You’re offering to hire me?”

  “I am. These injuries might tell us something about the doer, but until we establish her identity, it’ll be very difficult to catch him. I’m not going to be able to do any of it on my own.”

  “You’ll pay?”

  “Two dollars fifty a day. The same rate you get from the city.”

  Gorton looked as though he was tasting the idea, rolling it around on his tongue like a chu
nk of rock sugar. “I can’t give you that much time, Marshal. I’ll still have to do my warden’s work. If I call in sick, they won’t pay me. They might even fire me.”

  “So you work a double shift: with the Watch at night and with me during the day.”

  “When would I sleep?”

  “You catch an hour’s kip here or there. It’s just two days. Three at the most. Nothing for a corporal of Marines. You must have spent whole weeks awake on your feet in Guadeloupe.”

  “I was a younger man then.”

  “Three days. It’s all I need.”

  Gorton pursed his lips. “Why me?”

  “What do you think?”

  A shrug. “Because I’m an incomer. Because I’m not long in town. So I’m not in anyone’s pocket yet.”

  Damn, but the man was sharp. “That’s part of it, right enough. But you have the air of a man who might like this kind of work.” He looked into Gorton’s eyes. “Most of all, though, it’s because you care.”

  “Do I?”

  “I saw you earlier, Jeremiah. You closed the girl’s eyes. And you covered her face.”

  “So?” Gorton’s strange eyes were unreadable.

  Justy felt the heat leap into his face. “Look. You can walk out of here now and leave this to me. The chances are I’ll make a little headway, but I won’t get the whole story. Come Sunday, we’ll put the tib in her eternity box and forget about her.” He leaned forward. “Or you can stand with me, find out who this girl was, and help me get the beast who cut her open like an animal. And we can make the bastard swing.” The pulse was hard and fast in his throat.

  “So you are Irish after all, Marshal, I was beginning to wonder.” Gorton smiled, for the first time. “Two fifty a day?”

  “Double your money.”

  * * *

  Sister Marie-Therese of the Incarnation, the senior vestal of the New York order of St. Ursula, was waiting for him at the top of the cellar stairs. She was a petite, thin woman, with small button-like eyes set deep in the sockets of her skull. She was at least a foot shorter than Justy, but somehow she still managed to look at him down her long, pale, blade-like nose.

  “Have you completed your inspection, Marshal?” A trace of an Irish accent, so faint that Justy couldn’t place the region.

  “For now, yes. But I’ll return later. This afternoon. Unless she is claimed, of course.”

  “You think she will not be?”

  “I don’t know. Would it be a problem if she were not?”

  The nun gathered up the rosary that was tied around her waist. She began clicking through the beads. “She is not Catholic.”

  “So what? We’ve had all sorts in here in the past. People of all colors. Even Dutchmen.”

  He smiled, but the sister’s mouth tightened into a thin, white line. “She is not a Christian.”

  “What difference does that make?”

  “Regardless of what my predecessors might have permitted, Marshal, I remind you that this is a house of Christ. We do not welcome those who reject His word.”

  Justy felt his face flush. “And how, precisely, has the young woman lying dead on a slab down there done that?”

  The beads clicked. “She was a Mohammedan. As such, she explicitly rejected Christ’s teachings.”

  “How do you know she was a Mohammedan?”

  “Sister Claire O’Connor pointed it out. She washed the body when it came in. She saw the girl’s hands and forearms were painted with red dye recently. She lived for several years in Africa and knows their customs. She tells me young Moorish girls paint themselves this way.”

  “I didn’t see any marks.”

  “They are very faint. And her skin is … quite dark.” The sister sniffed.

  “I must insist that you keep the body here until she is claimed or identified, Sister. Regardless of her religion. Or her color.”

  “You insist?”

  “Request, then. On behalf of the City of New York.”

  “It is impossible. A heathen, in God’s house? It is blasphemy.”

  Justy could feel the pulse in his temples. “This is my commandment, that ye love one another, even as I have loved you.”

  The clicking stopped. The nun’s voice was cold. “I do not care to have a theological debate with you, Marshal. I have my sisters to think about.”

  “And what will they think if you toss a girl’s body out, to be thrown into some waterfront drainage pit with the dead dogs and the slaughterhouse leavings? And on a Sunday, too.”

  Sister Marie-Therese’s skin seemed to tighten across the bones of her skull. She and Justy stared at each other. She gave a sharp nod. “Burial day is Friday next, so you have until Thursday night. If she is not claimed by then, I shall arrange for her removal.”

  “One more thing. I would like to speak with Sister Claire.”

  “Certainly not.”

  Justy sighed. “Think of it this way, if this girl really is a Mohammedan, Sister Claire may be able to help me identify her. And the sooner I can do that, the sooner I’ll have her out of your cellar.”

  She considered the point. “She is sleeping now. You’ll have to come back later.”

  “I shall. Thank you. In the meantime, did she say anything else about the girl?”

  The nun looked as though she had smelled something rotten. “Her clothing. Her nightshirt, or whatever it is you might call it, is of exceptionally high quality.”

  “Go on.”

  “Sister Claire tells me there is a Mohammedan family that lives north of the city that sells this kind of cloth. But it is very expensive, made of a fine wool. Very lightweight, with some exquisite embroidery on the hems. Remarkable workmanship, I must say.” Her tone was grudging.

  “I thought it was rather thin.”

  “Indeed it is. Very thin, yet extremely warm. Sister Claire says Mohammedan ladies usually wear such garments indoors. Or under an outer cloak of some kind.”

  “So it’s not the kind of thing one would expect a young girl to be running about in, at night?”

  “One would not expect a young girl of that age to be out of doors at night at all, Marshal. Mohammedan or otherwise.” She folded her hands together over her belt. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have my rounds to make.”

  SIX

  Hughson’s Tavern was a deceptively sturdy wooden structure, built at the end of Liberty Street, on the southwest corner of Courtland Market. Three stories high, with a steep roof, the tavern leaned precariously over the dank swirl of the Hudson River. It had an infamous history. Sixty years before, John and Sally Hughson had been convicted of acting as a go-between for criminals, fencing goods stolen by slaves from their masters and selling them on to free New Yorkers who liked a bargain. Today the tavern was just a tavern, run by Seamus Tully, a farm boy from County Tyrone.

  The door was wide open. Kerry lowered Rosie to the ground, and the little girl ran inside. She squealed as her mother picked her up and swung her in the air, then settled her on her hip.

  “I hope she wasn’t too much trouble, Kerry girl.” Tamsin Tully’s voice was a combination of West African lilt and Irish brogue. She wore a long apron over her indigo skirt, and her shirtsleeves were rolled up to show a pair of strong forearms.

  “Not at all,” Kerry said. “She helped me at the school this morning, didn’t you, Rosie?”

  “We tidied the books,” Rosie said.

  Kerry winked at her. “I thought I’d better not bring her round too early, Tam. In case you had a late one last night.”

  “And so we did. I didn’t get to my bed until three. But Seamus was square. I’m usually up at six to clean the place, but he let me rest on and did it all himself. I only just got up.”

  “That’s why you look so dimber, girl.”

  “Ah, you’re great.” Tamsin lowered Rosie to the floor. “Will you come in for a damper?”

  “I will. But only for a moment. I’ve to be back at the school this afternoon.” She had to duck under the lintel
. “Jesus! Why did the bloody Dutch build their doors so low to the ground?”

  Tamsin laughed. “To keep the bloody Africans out, of course.”

  They hugged each other. They were both tall women, but the resemblance ended there. Kerry was slim and wiry, with long, straight hair and caramel-colored skin, while Tamsin was dark and voluptuous, with big almond-shaped eyes, and a broad halo of tight curls. She was seventeen when Seamus Tully had spied her at the Fly Market, shopping for pears for her mistress. He was smitten on sight, but she was a slave then, and forbidden from any kind of relationship that might result in a child. So he saved every penny he had for five years, and then he went to her mistress and persuaded her to sell Tamsin to him. He bought her, freed her, and married her, all on the same day.

  Kerry held her friend by the shoulders and looked down. “I thought I felt something. How far along are you?”

  Tamsin smiled. “Four months.”

  “I thought you were done with all of that.”

  “I thought I was too. I suppose God has other plans for me.”

  Kerry smiled back. “Congratulations, then.”

  “Thanks.” Tamsin patted one of the stools at the counter. “Come on now. I’ll get you a cup of coffee. There’s bull-dogs in the basket there.”

  Kerry settled herself, and lifted one of the flour-dusted sweet rolls to her nose.

  “I have to tell you something, Tam. We had a bit of a scare last night, Rosie and me.”

  The child was balanced on her mother’s knee. She looked up, with big solemn eyes. Kerry smiled at her. “We took a roundabout way home, along Chapel Street. I didn’t want to go up Elm Street. You know, past the old burial ground.”