The entire room fell quiet as the woman batted the constable’s hands from her shoulders.
“Do not touch me!”
“You’ll have to return once you’ve gathered your composure,” he said to her, leading her to the door. “Come back to file your complaint once you’ve learned to behave like a lady.” The constable snapped the door shut, narrowly missing the woman’s nose as she protested her dismissal. And then, once he had turned to the enraptured room, he gave a smug smile and dusted off his hands as if he had just taken out the day’s trash. His smile vanished instantly once he spied Detective Jeremiah Walker pushing his way through the crowd toward him.
“Constable Garret!”
The man’s face flushed so rapidly Jeremiah could almost hear the blood draining from his face. “I didn’t see you there, sir.” Constable Garret ran his palm down the front of his uniform, as if to ensure all his brass buttons were in place.
“Is this how we treat members of the public who have found themselves in distress?”
Garret gave a quick glance to the stoop outside the station, but the step was clear and the woman gone.
Walker snapped his fingers at MacNeal and waved for the door. “Catch up to that woman,” he commanded. “I will speak with her momentarily.”
MacNeal nodded and pushed through the door in pursuit.
When Jeremiah turned his attention back to Garret he found the man sweating at the brow.
“It’s only that I know that type of woman, sir,” the young constable tried to explain. “They come in ’ere every week complaining about men who don’t pay them for… services rendered.”
“Services rendered?” Jeremiah drew closer, using his height and bulk to incite a certain level of intimidation.
“Yes, sir.”
“Am I to understand that when you say ‘type of woman’ you are meaning those of limited means who work for half the pay as men for a third more of the work?”
Garret stammered. “I never took you for a suffragette sympathizer, sir.”
Jeremiah felt a seething rage inside him, rooted in his own personal experiences and the contempt he felt for anyone who was dismissive of women. For much of his formative years his mother had been branded as that type of woman. Oft dismissed and ridiculed, her concerns were never paid much attention. The police offered her no protection, not when she needed it the most. The anger she directed at him for joining the force was rooted in this. He had promised her then that he would help change things and it was a promise he intended to keep.
“May I take a moment to remind you that the sigil you wear on your hat symbolizes the oath you took before taking up your position here. You are entrusted to uphold the laws of the city with the greatest care and decorum.”
Toronto police were still actively climbing out of a hole dug some thirty years before when the entirety of the force had been sacked. Officers abused their powers, intervening only when they felt it necessary and allowing innocents to be caught up in the fray. Prior to 1860 the men in blue were complete brutes, often exacting their own form of justice to advance their personal causes or those of the aldermen who had appointed them. Still, thirty years on and with only half the force rehired, the public did not trust them enough to seek out their assistance.
Jeremiah took personal offence to men in uniform such as Constable Garret. He represented all the worst characteristics of men entrusted with authority. Constable Garret and men like him were the reason Ms. Eaton distrusted them so much.
He pointed his finger at Garret, pressing toward him like a stag ready to lock antlers. “If I ever hear of you treating the good citizens of this ward like miscreants again I will see that you are relieved of your duties, have I made myself clear?”
Even as Constable Garret nodded, and hastily made his way back to his complainant, Jeremiah watched, scowling to further accentuate his point. The room of spectators, which had quietly watched the admonishment play out in front of them, gradually returned to their previous tasks. Jeremiah saw Garret take a deep breath before returning his attention to man with the stolen turnips.
“Fucking turnips,” Jeremiah muttered to himself as he pushed his way out into the street to follow on MacNeal’s heels.
***
Two blocks south, Jeremiah found MacNeal and the woman yelling at each other in front of a tailor shop.
“Just wait one more minute,” Jeremiah heard MacNeal say as the woman crossed her arms over her chest. “The detective will be here any minute.”
“I ain’t got all day—”
“I’m here,” Jeremiah said, pushing past a crowd of pedestrians to get to them.
The woman eyed him suspiciously and refused to uncross her arms.
“My apologies,” he said. “That officer’s treatment was abhorrent. He’s been reprimanded thoroughly, I assure you.”
His assurances had little effect on the woman’s sour mood.
“Your friend, she is missing?”
“My neighbour. Two days she’s been gone. ’Tisn’t like her.” She glanced to MacNeal on the other side of her. “I fear the worst may have happened on account of what her ne’re-do-well husband has gotten them involved with. He’s missing too, although that ain’t as unusual.”
“Ma’am, does your friend have fair hair and hazel eyes?”
“Had she a green dress?” MacNeal added.
The woman nodded. “She wore it all the time. How did you know?”
Both officers straightened their shoulders and turned their gaze toward each other.
“You’d better show us where she lived, ma’am,” MacNeal said, gesturing over his shoulder and waiting for her to pass him to lead the way.
***
The woman, Heloise Truax, and her missing friend lived just north of O’Keefe & Company. The smell of the brewery permeated through to the stairwell even after they had long closed the front door. There were far more putrid smells, Jeremiah decided.
Heloise led them down a narrow passage to the rear yard and pointed to a dilapidated set of stairs constructed at the back of the building. At the top of the stairs was a solid door.
“Cynthia lives up there, above me,” Heloise explained.
“For how long?” Jeremiah asked, surveying the narrow and muddy yard.
“Five months at least.” Heloise wrung her hands as both officers stepped down into the yard and eyed the stairwell. With the railing shuddering under his grasp, MacNeal gave quick glance to Jeremiah before committing to the single-storey climb, which was made up of at least fifteen steps.
Perched on the precarious landing, MacNeal hesitated. “Do not come up, sir,” he said. “I do not believe this structure would hold both our weights.”
Jeremiah nodded. “Knock first before you kick the door in, Sergeant.”
“There’s no need,” MacNeal explained. “The door’s already open. It seems someone else kicked it in before we arrived.”
“Oh good God!” Heloise stepped down in the yard but Jeremiah prevented her from heading up the stairs. “Something has happened to her, hasn’t it?”
Jeremiah gave a nod. He could no longer string the woman along in the hopes she would give them the information they needed. “I believe she was a woman we found dead this morning at Elm Street.”
Heloise nearly buckled under the news. She used the side of the brick building to hold herself upright as she cried into a handkerchief pulled from deep in her sleeve. “I knew it. I knew that godawful man would be her undoing.” Her words grew muffled and then died away as she sniffled into her hands.
Jeremiah looked up to his partner, who waited for instruction.
“Head inside, MacNeal,” he said. “I’m coming up behind you.”
Jeremiah could feel the sway of the contraption with each step. He didn’t bother to hold the railing because he knew it would do little good.
The dead woman’s lodging was a single room with scarcely any furnishings save for a metal-framed bed, a small table beside it
, and a tattered chest set against the opposite wall. A washbasin was placed on the floor with a heap of grey, threadbare linens beside. A small, palm-sized crucifix hung from a nail over the bed.
MacNeal was as far in the room as possible. He turned as Walker entered, stepping over the overturned, horse-hair mattress and bedclothes that lay askew over the floor. After just a quick glance, it was clear the room’s occupants were some of the poorest to be found in the city, unable to secure even the smallest of livings.
“What do you make of it, sir?” MacNeal asked.
Jeremiah remained silent while he continued to survey the room. His general impression had been made, now it was the details he was after.
MacNeal moved to the singular window. He beat back a weathered blanket that was being used to block out the sun. “Suppose Ms. Eaton has it wrong.”
Jeremiah looked up at the mention of Mercy’s name.
“Suppose the woman was killed here, by her fella, and her body dumped,” MacNeal continued.
Jeremiah wouldn’t rule out the possibility.
“And I’m sorry, sir, I don’t see any hint a baby ever lived here. I suppose she was wrong about that too.”
“If the woman was killed by her man, why is the door kicked open?” Jeremiah asked.
MacNeal shrugged. “Marital spat gone astray.”
Jeremiah knelt in front of the toppled chest and set it upright. There wasn’t much left that hadn’t been tossed aside but he did find a few candles burned down to less than two inches, some crochet doilies, a prayer book, and a pristine white handkerchief with the initials CB embroidered into one of the corners.
MacNeal moved to the bedside table and pulled a broken crate from under the bed. “I doubt very much someone intended to rob the place.” He pushed about some tin bowls and a mug before pushing the crate aside.
Jeremiah reached into the chest to get a closer look at the handkerchief and found it lumpy beneath. He pulled back the first layer of the folded cloth and found three small pearls tucked into the crease. One was white, another pink, the last grey. So astonishing was the find and in such a desolate place no less, Jeremiah froze and stared at them, wondering how such precious gems could find their way here.
“These folks were as poor as church mice,” MacNeal said, standing tall once more.
He turned to show MacNeal his find. “They weren’t entirely poor.”
MacNeal raised an eyebrow. “Now how do you suppose they came into possession of something like that?”
Jeremiah used the handkerchief to wrap the pearls in before tucking it away in his inside breast pocket. He went back to the chest and retrieved the prayer book. He opened the front cover and found Cynthia Laplante, Loretto Abbey Graduate, 1881.
“Cynthia,” Jeremiah said, showing the inscription to his partner.
MacNeal cocked his head toward the door. “She’s going to have to identify her body for us to be sure.”
Jeremiah nodded. “Mrs. Truax!” he called out as he went for the open door, “We’re going to need this woman’s married name and the name of her husband.”
Mrs. Johnston waited at the bottom of the steps as Jeremiah made his way down, prayer book in his hands. Once he was at the bottom he heard MacNeal coming down behind him.
“Cynthia, but we all just called her Cindy.” Mrs. Truax sniffled and crossed her arms over her chest.
Jeremiah saw MacNeal writing it down in his notebook.
“And her married name, ma’am?” MacNeal asked.
“Bolton, that is to say if she and her husband were truly married.”
Jeremiah and MacNeal looked at her sharply.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Jeremiah asked. “What did you say?”
“She was Cynthia Bolton. Her husband is Louis Bolton.”
MacNeal snapped his notebook shut, assured that he would remember the name.
“You’ll have to make arrangements to come identify the body,” Jeremiah said.
“Yes, of course,” she said, raising her handkerchief to her nose and closing her eyes.
“You’ve been most helpful, ma’am.”
MacNeal and Jeremiah walked past her and went for the passageway that would again lead them to the street.
“I hope nothing’s happened to the baby,” Mrs. Truax, said walking after them.
Jeremiah and MacNeal stopped at the opening on the other side.
A look of horror washed over the woman’s features. “Please tell me you’ve found the baby.”
“We aren’t aware of any baby,” MacNeal said.
“Oh, she’s such a wee thing, barely three weeks old and now her mother is taken from her.” The woman’s sobbing morphed into a cloud of noise over Jeremiah’s head as his mind retreated back to Mercy’s words.
She had just had a baby not a month ago.
“Mrs. Truax, thank you for all your assistance. Sergeant MacNeal will take you to see her now.” He reached out a hand to her arm. “Are you going to be all right?”
A nod escaped between sniffles.
Thankful, Jeremiah was quick to turn on his heels and headed for the sidewalk.
“Walker, where are you going?” MacNeal called out from the top step.
“To offer a much-deserved apology.”
Chapter 19
Mercy locked the door after the Forsyths left and peeked through the lace curtains at the side of the door to make sure they took their two garden gnomes with them. The prospect of losing them as clients did not bother her in the slightest. She may have very well unconsciously sabotaged the reading for that particular outcome. Her hand had grown numb from Mr. Forsyth’s touch, and a warmth still radiated from her skin. Mercy flexed her hand at her side and ran her palm down the front of her skirt in an effort to return it to normal.
And that scream. Mercy shuddered when she thought of it.
“Did they leave already?” Edith asked from the opposite end of the hall.
When Mercy turned she found her daughter at the door to the kitchen, drying one of their large, enamel pots with a kitchen towel. Her heart sank at the sight of her daughter attending kitchen chores directly after returning home from school.
Raven paced at Edith’s feet, leaning in and rubbing his sides along her. When he looked up and saw Mercy walking toward them he darted underneath Edith’s skirt.
“You should be doing your homework,” Mercy said. “Not doing the dishes.” She would have seen to them, were she not distracted by the likes of Jeremiah Walker and his sidekick, MacNeal, for much of the day. She would be glad when this police business was all over and she could return to her normal routine. Not that she was much of a housekeeper.
Tending chores and seeing to the finer details of home management did not come easy to Mercy, who was so easily enticed by other things. In the years since becoming a mother she had learned how to manage the basics; laundry, food preparation, and dish cleaning but little else. She was not one for mending or thorough cleaning. Edith had never been given a homemade dress and Mercy had given up on baking altogether some years before after burning her last batch of cookie dough.
“I can do my homework later,” Edith said, as her mother neared the doorway. “And I don’t mind seeing to the dishes. Someone has to do them.”
Mercy’s eyes shot to her daughter.
“I didn’t mean for it to come out like that,” Edith said. “I only meant that they needed to be done, so why not by me.”
Mercy tried to ignore the sting. She had worked hard to get Edith into Loretto Abbey, especially since they weren’t practising Catholics. Her daughter was meant to be an educated woman of the new century, not a scullery maid or, worse, a housewife.
Mercy pulled the pot and kitchen towel from Edith’s hands and walked them to the counter. “I will finish these,” she said. “Why don’t you practice on the piano for a while?”
Edith let out a muffled laugh. “You hate it when I play.”
“Only because you need more practice.” Mercy w
inked at Edith, who hesitated at the door. “Besides, I’m going to be heading out.”
“To see Mr. Walker?”
Mercy’s gaze lifted. “No.”
“I only ask because you’ve been seeing an awful lot of him lately.”
Mercy didn’t offer a reply and instead pulled open a cupboard to replace the clean and dry pot.
“I saw you with him this morning outside the school. Sister Maryanne saw you both as well—”
“You can tell Sister Maryanne to mind her own business.”
Edith’s eyes widened.
“I’m sorry,” Mercy said quickly. “I’ve just had a long day and it’s going to be even longer if I can’t disassociate myself from this mess, Jeremiah Walker included.” Mercy rubbed her fingers on her temple and closed her eyes. “You know how I feel about police officers. A detective is no different. They use their power to get what they want and only enforce the laws that suit them and their friends.”
“Detective Walker doesn’t seem the sort—”
“Of course he doesn’t seem the sort. They never do. They are charming and kind until they know whatever they do they can get away with it.”
Mercy’s stepfather had been a Toronto police officer. He was retired by the time he moved to St. Catherines and married her widowed mother but he still held influence with those who wore the badge. Influence he never thought twice about wielding. She wondered whether to finally tell her daughter about him, about what he had done to her and Constance after their father died and what he had done that affected their lives still. “You’re too young to understand,” Mercy said. “You are just going to have to trust me when I say I don’t have many positive feelings regarding Detective Walker.”
“You said many,” Edith pointed out. “So do you have some?”
“I said any.”
“No, you said many. I heard you.” Edith smiled. “You like him.”
“Certainly not. Not after today.”
“What happened today?”
Mercy shook her head and waved a dismissive hand toward her daughter. “Go practice your scales. I have dishes to wash.”
It took Mercy five minutes to wash the rest of the dishes. If she were anything close to a real homemaker she’d not have left them to dry on the counter but, as was established long ago, Mercy had no intentions of ever becoming a real homemaker.
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