The Corpse Queen

by Heather M. Herrman

  The tableau could not have been more perfectly set for a show—and Dr. LaValle, in his devil-red velvet suit, had known it. Each quick knife nick of skin would be a feat as thrilling as if the audience itself had been allowed to penetrate Ginny. And all the while would be the unspoken judgment that she deserved it. The audience would need only to look at her skin, her body, her job. Most of them had never even seen a tattoo before, and almost certainly no one in the room had ever seen one on a woman. Like the priests with Kitty, the onlookers tonight would believe Ginny had been born with the devil inside. Cutting her open, LaValle would simply be looking for where that devil hid.

  “Molly,” Tom said softly. “We should go.”

  Outside, the footsteps grew louder, drunken voices lifted in eager anticipation.

  Molly clenched her fists. No. She would not allow it. She may not have been able to save her friend’s life, but she would not let Ginny’s body be cut up for some parlor trick, hacked into pieces for amusement, the inked bits floating, like Kitty, in a jar.

  Wrapping her arms around her friend’s shoulders—she could swear they were still warm—she tried to lift the body.

  “Stop!” Tom begged. “Please. It won’t do her any good.”

  Molly brushed his voice away as one might an irritating fly. Pulling the heavy body toward her, she embraced her friend as Ginny had once embraced her. She sank her head against the dead breast, seeking its familiar scent—the warm, living smell of sweet onion and bread that spoke of the comforts of home.

  It was gone. Erased completely.

  Instead, only the intense scent of peppermint remained, the same smell Molly remembered wafting from Ginny’s room. Dr. LaValle must have been eating his never-ending operating candies when he paid her to come here and then killed her, the scent as distinct as a fingerprint.

  “I won’t leave her,” Molly whispered.

  “Then let me help you.” James moved beside her. Tom, too, stepped in, and now the three of them lifted together.

  Ginny’s body rose from the table, and with it a nearly imperceptible noise sounded—the barest issue of a sigh.

  Molly let go, unable to bear this final trick of death, the whisperings of the dead air.

  It was madness, but . . .

  “Wait.” Carefully, she pulled back one of Ginny’s eyelids. Then the other. The eyes stared up at her, perfectly blue. Turning the girl’s head gently to the side, Molly waited.

  Ginny’s gaze stayed steady.

  “She’s alive.” Molly’s words were a bare whisper.

  She turned the girl’s head again. Once again, the bright-blue eyes stared straight ahead.

  Outside, the voices grew louder.

  “Molly,” Tom pleaded. “We have to go.”

  But she did not move. “She’s alive.” Louder this time. “The doll’s eye test,” she said to James. “Her eyes didn’t move. Ginny’s alive!”

  * * *

  Molly could now hear Dr. LaValle’s teasing cry to the crowd for patience.

  She laid two fingers across Ginny’s lips and felt the faintest stirrings of breath.

  “We haven’t much time.” Her face grew serious. “It won’t make any difference if she’s breathing or not once the doctor gets in front of the crowd.”

  She thought of the dog, completely still as the doctor removed a piece of its flesh, and shivered. Dr. LaValle could just as easily finish killing Ginny in front of an audience as without—no one would ever know.

  From behind them came the groan of the heavy church door opening.

  “If we try to move her now, he’ll stop us,” James said. “He’ll say we’re stealing the body, and I guarantee there’ll be no doll’s eye test then to prove him wrong. He won’t give us the chance.”

  Frantic, Molly searched Tom’s face. “The man in the pub. Do you remember?”

  His brow wrinkled in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

  “We’ll carry her out. Just as we did him. Walk her between us like she’s a lady who’s had too much to drink. As soon as the crowds come in, they won’t notice us at all.”

  “But even if we move her, they’ll see the table’s empty.” James looked worriedly over his shoulder.

  It was true. And it would be the first thing LaValle would check for.

  “Then it won’t be empty.” For the first time, Ursula spoke. Without warning, she began pulling her gown over her head.

  “What are you doing?” James stared, mouth agape.

  Ursula didn’t bother answering. Standing in her undergarments, she thrust the dress at Molly. “Put this on her.”

  She took it, forcing Ginny’s horribly still arms through the sleeves.

  Ursula crawled on top of the table, pulling the sheet over her thin chest. “Use my carriage,” she said to James. “Get her to a hospital.”

  “What about you?”

  Ursula laughed, and a wicked smile traveled to her face, lighting her violet eyes. “I’ve had plenty of practice playing dead at Mama’s meetings. At least it will buy you some time.”

  James looked at her appreciatively, as if seeing her for the first time.

  Tom wrapped an arm around Ginny’s waist and moved her now fully dressed body toward the shadows. He motioned to Molly. “Let’s go.”

  But Molly didn’t move. “Have James help you. Get her to the hospital. Then go to the police.”

  “Aren’t you coming?”

  She shook her head. “If the doctor could do this to Ginny, he’s capable of anything.” She had not seen Ava all night. Not even at the party. And in that instant, the tiny warning bell of alarms became a full-fledged siren. “I need to find my aunt. Warn her.”

  No matter what, you mustn’t let the doctor know what’s happened.

  “Wait, and I’ll come with you,” Tom said. “I’ll get them to the carriage, come back for you. I’ll . . .”

  “There’s no time. Ava will be the first person the doctor will look for when he discovers all this.”

  Or had looked for already.

  She would not let her mind finish that horrible thought.

  Tom pressed something cold into her hand. “Then take this. Promise me you’ll use it if you have to.”

  It was the surgeon’s knife, the red ribbon still wrapped around its handle.

  She took it.

  “I won’t hesitate,” she promised. “Tonight the doctor’s going to pay for what he’s done.”

  41

  As the partygoers flooded around her, Molly scanned each face for Ava. None of them was hers.

  Pushing against the stream of eager guests, she stumbled outside, dread sluicing through her brain—what if she was already too late?

  Shoving through the crowds and into the garden, she quickened her step. There was only one place her aunt might still be. One place the doctor couldn’t enter.

  The house was eerily quiet.

  Molly’s breath came in short, quick gasps as she made her way up the stairs, nerves and fatigue mixing in equal measures. She clung to the image of the key tied constantly around Ava’s neck, its pretty velvet ribbon like a charm against bad luck.

  At the top of the stairs, she paused, searching the hallway.

  It was empty.

  The tick of the pendulum clock pulsed, throbbing in time to the dull beating of her own heart.

  As she passed her own room, Molly saw the remnants of her dinner remained.

  The dirtied plates sent a chill down her spine.

  Ava’s house ran like clockwork. If such a mess had been allowed to remain, it was intentional—someone had told the servants to stay away.

  A few more steps, and she was at Ava’s door.

  Hesitating, she raised a hand, then paused. The silence was palpable.

  Steeling herself, she knocked.

/>   The door flew open almost immediately, and Molly gasped in relief at the sight of her aunt standing there, screwing an earring into one ear, perfectly alive.

  Ava wore a gown that Molly had never seen before, its red an exact match to the doctor’s suit. Behind her, fire in a gray stone hearth lit her profile, turning the velvet the color of blood.

  “Molly.” Her aunt’s face puckered in surprise.

  The words poured out in a rush as she grabbed Ava’s hand. “We have to leave! Dr. LaValle. He—”

  “Slow down.” Ava took a step into the hallway and looked up and down in both directions before pulling Molly into her room for the first time.

  It was nothing like she’d imagined.

  Whereas the rest of the house was impeccably decorated, this room was practically bare. A small bed rested beside the lit fireplace with a simple wood chair at its foot. And there was a plain dresser and mirror not much better in quality than the one she and Ma had shared at their old farmhouse.

  The only other furniture was a large mahogany table, big enough for a dining room, but cluttered with books, bottles, and other detritus. The materials looked like they’d been shoved aside to clear a long space in its middle.

  “Not what you were expecting?” Ava’s tone held a hint of amusement.

  Something about the table niggled at Molly, a single hair out of place on a carefully brushed head, but amidst the clutter she could not place it.

  “It smells like peppermint in here,” she said, surprised. The mint scent was so overwhelming that it was impossible to focus on anything else.

  Ava gently took Molly’s arm. “Tell me what’s the matter.”

  Molly shook her head, as if to clear it. “Dr. LaValle—he tried to kill a girl tonight. A friend of mine.”

  “Ginny.”

  Molly’s throat went dry. “How did you know?”

  “You said ‘tried,’ ” Ava said. “She’s not dead?”

  Molly’s eyes finally fixed on the object on the table that had been bothering her—a large box. Made of yellow cardboard, with the picture of a rat on its side.

  Arsenic.

  The bloated rat, rising from the candy bowl . . .

  Ava grabbed Molly’s shoulders and shook. “Tell me! Is she dead?”

  Beside the box rested a bag of sugar.

  Her aunt had been making candy—peppermints.

  Molly stumbled backward, understanding lighting her face. “It was you!”

  Ava’s eyes grew pained as she reached for Molly. “It’s not what you think. Let me explain.”

  “You brought her.” She thought of Ginny’s quick hands as she took Molly’s dress measurements, her keen eye for Ava’s fashion taste.

  You have the most beautiful skin.

  “You were her client.”

  “I didn’t know the dressmaker’s girl was your friend.”

  Molly’s entire body vibrated with betrayal. She shut her eyes.

  Ava had poisoned Ginny.

  “How many have there been?” She thought of her aunt handing out the candy at the soup kitchen, to the children at the orphanage, Sophie’s body on the operating table, and the sweet smell of peppermint everywhere.

  “Be reasonable, Molly. I was helping them. Granting them reprieve from the ugly lives they lived.”

  Molly stared in disbelief. “Ginny is the happiest person I’ve ever known.”

  Ava’s face wrinkled in genuine pain, and again she reached for Molly. “I’m sorry about your friend. The doctor needed a body tonight, a special one. I tried to give you a chance to get one, but when you didn’t . . . there was no choice. Ginny was the best that I could do on such short notice.”

  “No.” Molly backed away, her hip hitting the candy-making table and sending a shooting pain up her side. “But it’s LaValle killing women. He’s the Knifeman.”

  To her astonishment, Ava laughed. “There is no Knifeman.”

  “But . . . all those bodies.”

  “Those were simply corpses that didn’t meet our standards to sell or use for the classroom,” Ava said, waving her hand dismissively. “You know LaValle and I only provide the best specimens.”

  “The police, the papers,” Molly said. “All of them said there was a madman hunting women for sport!”

  “Brilliant, wasn’t it?” Ava said. “You see, those silly Corpse Queen rumors were growing problematic. As LaValle and I expanded our export business farther west, we needed more and more fresh bodies to fill the orders. I started handing out my special peppermints at the soup kitchens and charities to those who were already sick or had particularly intriguing qualities. We were finally able to keep up with demand.” She frowned. “Unfortunately, the damned police started poking around.”

  The red of her aunt’s dress seemed to flicker in the flames. “So I gave them something else to chase. Pretty dead girls are very good distractions. I used my knife just as a madman might, choosing girls from my castoffs who might appeal to one. Afterward, I scattered their corpses all over the city for the police to find, making sure a few could be identified as girls who’d been reported missing. Those bodies were gruesome. Hideously mutilated and dismembered. The police could never fathom a woman capable of such violence, especially not one as eloquent and wealthy as myself.”

  Her face broke open in a wide smile. “God, it feels so good to finally share this with you. You’re the only person in the world who can truly appreciate everything I’ve done.”

  “No,” Molly protested. “LaValle killed those girls. He wanted pieces of them for his collection.”

  Ava spoke to her as if she was a child. “We certainly never left anything of value. If those girls had any unusual qualities, we harvested them.”

  “And then left them in the streets like trash,” Molly said bitterly, the truth of her aunt’s confession finally penetrating her disbelief.

  “Trash?” Ava looked offended. “Not at all. I told you I never wasted anything. Those girls were worth their weight in gold. They convinced the police there was a lunatic stalking the city with his blade, and it gave them an easy explanation for everyone else who’d gone missing. A killer was on the loose. And he was a madman, not a madwoman. Letting the police find those bodies kept suspicion off me for the people disappearing from my peppermints, and best of all, I could frame the Tooth Fairy at the same time.”

  Her eyes sparked. “That bastard never should have tried to cross me.”

  “The giant,” Molly whispered.

  Ava nodded. “That was the final straw, yes. You see, we had an agreement. The Tooth Fairy was allowed his territory, but with the understanding that any special bodies he found were to be offered for sale to me first.” She frowned. “Then he heard from somebody there was a sick giant in town and got greedy. Knew there was a fortune to be made by telling other collectors about him, instead of me, and pitting them against each other so he could get the highest cut.”

  She stilled. “Unfortunately for him, I found out.”

  “Why didn’t you just poison the giant like you poisoned the other bodies you wanted?” Molly’s voice was bitter.

  “I tried,” Ava said matter-of-factly. “God knows, that would have been the simplest solution. I knew the boy’s condition meant he’d have health problems, and so when his mother brought him to the free clinic, I made sure that LaValle and I were there to meet them. I gave the boy my peppermints, but it wasn’t enough. Not with his size.” She shook her head ruefully. “I misjudged. His mother never brought him back, and after that, I was left to wait for him to die naturally, like the other buzzards.” Her face turned red. “Forced to compete for his body like a common collector. And all because of that damned Tooth Fairy.”

  “So you told the police he was the Knifeman,” Molly said.

  Ava grinned. “Two birds with one stone. The Tooth Fairy re
ceived the punishment he deserved for crossing me, and I avoided suspicion for the people who’d gone missing because of my peppermints.”

  Her eyes met Molly’s. “I wasn’t going to do it forever, you know,” she said. “Just until Dr. LaValle got his hospital.”

  “All this”—Molly’s voice choked—“for a man?”

  “No,” Ava said. “For us.” She sneered. “LaValle’s been holding my secrets over me for years. When you arrived, he started making threats. So I made him a deal. I’d help him get his hospital if he’d put my name on the deed and let you stay. When we first arrived in America, you see, he was all I had. I needed his protection. His money, his house, and his connections to clients in the medical community. But I’ve long since outgrown him. Once my name was attached to the hospital and its unlimited bodies, he’d be disposable.” Her eyes shone. “No one else would know my secrets. We could really be together then, Molly. Without fear of anyone tearing us apart.”

  Molly stared at her aunt, horrified. No wonder sweet Ma hadn’t wanted her anywhere near this woman. Her sister was a monster.

  “But what about Kitty? How did the doctor get her tail? Was it the Tooth Fairy?”

  Ava frowned. “The girl at the orphanage? But she was how I found you. The doctor overheard Edgar talking about her. He had to have her. I visited with the other ladies to find her. Pretended to look for a maid. Once I knew who she was, I went to meet her in Edgar’s stead.”

  Molly felt a wild hope rise in her breast. Perhaps there was closure after all. “So Kitty didn’t kill herself. It was—”

  “No,” Ava said gently. “The girl was quite dead when I found her washed up on the riverbank. Fresh, though. If I hadn’t been alone, I would have taken the rest of her.” She frowned. “As it was, I simply removed her tail and left.”

  Molly pulled out the knife.

  Ava’s eyes widened. “Put that away. You know me well enough to know I’d never hurt you.”