“That’s enough, I think, Miss Imhoff. Did anybody come to see her? Her mother, her husband?”
“Not that evening. Not until the next morning when I sent for the doctor. She wouldn’t respond to me, and I felt I had no choice. Things moved very quickly after that. Her mother sent word to wake Mr. Winthrop—his rooms are on the other side of the house—and he came in just as the doctor arrived. He sent me out and told me to collect my things and be gone or he’d have me arrested.”
She looked directly at Oscar, the question plain on her face.
“You’ve committed no crime,” he said. “There’s just one more thing we need from you for the time being. We’ll take a short drive, and after that if you like I can introduce you to a Mrs. Adams. She has a boardinghouse for ladies, very reputable and well kept. No doubt you’ll sleep for twelve hours after the day you’ve had.”
Oscar presented himself to the world as gruff, no-nonsense, unsentimental, iron fisted, but he was also generous and protective with people who were in trouble they had not earned. The wonder of it was that he had not lost those traits after so many years on the job. Jack hoped he could only do half as well over time.
• • •
HE TOOK OSCAR home to Weeds for some supper and a quiet place to talk over the day. Coming in through the stable—empty, as they kept no horse or carriage—they stepped out into the garden and Oscar stopped.
“Well, look here,” he said, spreading out his arms and turning. A dancing bear.
“Now look at this. I could live right here, out in the open.”
Jack was pleased with the garden, though he hadn’t had much of an opportunity to sit in it.
“Mr. Lee and my father put their heads together. They sent three wagons of earth and plants, conscripted the cousins, and this is the result.”
They turned at the sound of the rear door, to see Anna standing there. She looked a little sleepy, a pillow crease in one cheek, her hair escaping its pins.
“I expect you spend most of your time indoors,” Oscar said under his breath, and Jack elbowed him, hard.
• • •
MRS. CABOT SERVED her ragout of pork cooked in port with apples and prunes. Anna had to smile at Oscar’s expression, as if he could not believe his good fortune.
“Mrs. Cabot kept house for a family who employed a French cook,” Anna told him. “This must be one of the recipes she took away with her.”
Over coffee and a plate of cookies Jack said, “We’ve had a busy day, but we’re still on duty until morning.”
“You just came home for your supper,” Anna said. “But I’m glad you did. I’ll be leaving for the hospital before you get in.”
Oscar cleared his throat. “We have another victim.”
Anna felt her expression freeze, but she took in a deep breath, picked up her coffee cup, and asked, “Exactly the same?”
“In the essentials,” Jack said. “Nicholas Lambert will do the postmortem, but there’s little doubt in my mind. Oscar?”
He shook his head. “But we did get some information this time, from the lady’s maid. You remember the advertisements you found in the paper, the ones that mention Smithson’s?”
Jack said, “What’s wrong? All the color just drained out of your face.”
“Smithson’s?” Her voice wavered a little. “What about it?”
“There’s a coffeehouse just opposite, do you know it?” Oscar asked, his tone wary.
“Yes,” Anna said. “I used to go there with my uncle Quinlan when I was very young. And—” She looked first Oscar and then Jack in the eye. “I was there today.”
• • •
BY THE TIME they had exchanged stories—Jack got out his notes both to be sure of the facts and to add Anna’s observations—it was eight o’clock. She started at the chiming of the hall clock.
“I thought you had to go back to work?”
Oscar raised both brows and tucked in his chin in what she thought was mock surprise.
“What is it you think we’re doing?”
“Oh,” she said. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
“Your parlor is far more comfortable than the squad room, I’ll give you that.”
Jack said, “And it smells better.”
“I should hope so,” Anna muttered. “Is it too late to go to Jefferson Square right now? Just to get a sense of how things are laid out, and where Mrs. Winthrop might have been going.”
“Possible, but not the best idea,” Jack said. “You were there this morning; we were there a couple hours ago. If someone involved in this case happened to see us there again—together—it might well send them packing before we’ve even figured out who they are.”
“You think that’s possible?”
Oscar said, “Probable, even. And after tomorrow almost certain.”
Jack took a folded piece of paper from his notebook and handed it to her. “This will run in five newspapers tomorrow.”
Anna skimmed it, and then looked at them. “This might help reduce the number of women who go to him, but how could it help in identifying him?”
The two men glanced at each other. “We have a suspect,” Oscar said. “We’ll be watching him.”
“Can I ask who it is?”
“No.” Jack’s tone was firm.
Oscar scowled at him. “Come on, man. She’s up to her eyebrows already. And if I have to remind you, she’s been behind most of the useful information we have.”
“I know that,” Jack said shortly.
Anna said, “Oscar, I know what this is. What we have here is the Brooklyn Bridge.”
The look on his face was almost comical, and so she explained.
“I wanted Jack to take me to the top of one of the arches,” she said. “This was before it opened. We had a philosophical disagreement about the boundary between protectiveness and paternalism. I think this is a similar situation.”
Oscar was trying not to grin. “And how did that turn out?”
“Not in my favor,” Anna said. “But this time it will.”
• • •
THEY TOOK A break while Oscar went back to Mulberry Street to collect some materials. Jack took Anna’s hand and led her outside to sit in the garden.
“Something Oscar said made me realize we aren’t taking advantage of this.” He gestured around himself. “I keep meaning to look into putting together a pergola. Would you like that?”
Anna lifted their linked hands and pulled him toward a small bench at the far end of the garden.
She said, “This will do for the time being. So, you’re going to have to convince me about Neill Graham.”
He considered for a moment. “Tell me first why you’re so sure he’s not involved.”
“These women may each have been desperate in her own way, but none of them was stupid. They had money—some more than others, but all of them were well off when compared to the average. They had households to run—and you know what that entails.” She drew a breath and held it for a few heartbeats.
“A woman like this, with money and position, a woman who isn’t stupid isn’t going to hand herself over to a twenty-one-year-old intern. That kind of woman wants nice offices and treatment rooms and all the latest medicines and instruments. She wants anesthesia and laudanum and a physician with many years’ experience. She wants decorum and white hair and distinction and manners, and she’s willing to pay for all those things. Graham is polite and solicitous, but I can’t see Janine Campbell or any of the others simply handing over a pile of money and then surrendering to his care. Have I convinced you?”
“Not yet,” Jack said. “But then you weren’t there when Graham told us what it was like to examine poor women. There was—revulsion, even hatred, in his whole demeanor. And his keen interest in the Campbell case and the others—there’s s
ome kind of connection.”
“I take you at your word,” she said. “After talking to Mrs. Smithson today I wouldn’t be surprised if she were connected too. I have no idea how. Is there one simple scenario that pulls together all the small pieces?”
“That’s what we’re working on. Look, here comes Oscar with his maps and the rest of the case file. Anna.”
She looked up at him, waiting.
“Promise me something.”
That made her laugh. “Just like that? You want carte blanche on everything, or just one thing in particular?”
“I want you to promise me you won’t go digging around Jefferson Square anymore on your own.”
Anna grabbed his earlobe and pulled, ignoring his yelp to plant a kiss on his cheek. “That’s a deal,” she said. “I won’t go back there on my own. Satisfied?”
His brow pleated itself when he scowled, as he was doing now. “Savard,” he said. “I know you, and you’ve got something up your sleeve.”
“I will not put myself in harm’s way,” she said. “I know very well that I’m out of my depths. I’m not foolish, Mezzanotte. What I am, what I’ve got up my sleeve, as you put it, is anger. I can’t remember ever being so angry.”
He studied her face for a long moment, and then nodded. “Let’s go see what Oscar’s got.”
42
THE NEXT MORNING Jack caught up with Anna before she had reached Cooper Square, took her Gladstone bag, and held out his free arm; he raised a brow at her until she took it.
“I said I’d be home in time to walk you to work.”
“I wanted to get an early start. And you need to get some sleep, Mezzanotte.”
Mornings Anna was often on edge, but there was something more to her mood this morning. They had spent a good part of the evening poring over the surveyor maps of the Jefferson Square area, compiling a list of buildings within three blocks of the coffeehouse and Smithson’s where a doctor might have offices. It would take days for the officers assigned to the case to canvass all of them, but that was the next and necessary step. That, and a new and more intense look at Neill Graham.
He said, “You didn’t sleep well.”
“Not especially.”
“I wondered if this would happen.”
She rounded on him, her brows drawn down. Ready to be irritated; almost, Jack thought, eager to be irritated. “What would happen?”
“You with your quick doctor’s mind and quicker surgeon’s hands are finding the slow pace of the law frustrating.”
They stopped at a corner to let an omnibus pass, wheels screeching on the rails. When they had crossed the street Anna looked up at him.
“I had a dream,” she said. “I don’t usually remember my dreams, but this one woke me and I was damp with sweat. After that I couldn’t sleep any more at all.”
He waited, but she didn’t go on. “You don’t want to tell me about the dream.”
“I think I have to tell you about the dream. It goes onto that long list of things I need to talk to you about.”
Jack was tired too; they had been called out to a street fight after midnight, stevedores and sailors bent on breaking each other’s heads. He thought about telling her this story and decided it would wait until they were both in better moods.
In front of the New Amsterdam he gave back her Gladstone bag, brushed a curl off her forehead, and kissed the corner of her eye so that her lashes fluttered against his mouth.
“You’re not easily spooked,” he said. “But I’d be surprised if this case didn’t give you some bad dreams.”
She seemed to relax a little, her forehead pressed to his jaw. And still she looked unhappy, distracted, overwhelmed. He didn’t like any of it, and there was nothing he could do for her in the here and now.
“I didn’t dream about the case,” she said finally. “It was about my brother. I dreamed he came to apologize to me, and I hit him in the head. With a hammer. But he was a ghost and he just stood there looking at me as if I’d disappointed him.”
Jack heard himself draw in a sharp breath. “We need more time to talk about this,” he said. “But I don’t mind telling you that I thought that when you got around to telling me about Paul, the story would be something else entirely.”
“I know.” She touched his cheek with her gloved hand. “I think that’s why it’s been so hard for me to talk about it. Everybody expects a story that I can’t give them.”
“Anna. I’ll take whatever you’ve got.”
She smiled then, something almost regretful in her expression.
“We’ll talk tonight.” She went up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek and he turned his head to catch her mouth. A soft, warm kiss; in need of comfort herself, she tried instead to comfort him.
He kissed her back, possessively, hungrily, to remind her who he was.
• • •
THE OPERATING ROOM was one place where Anna knew she could drop everything and clear her mind. There was a simple hernia to be done, an operation she did day in and day out, but she was looking forward to it. Then she turned into the hall and saw Archer Campbell waiting outside her office door.
Two thoughts went through her mind at that moment: first, that it would be childish and silly to run away; and second, there were times when she really did have use for a hammer.
“Dr. Savard.” He dragged his hat off his head with a reluctance that spoke volumes. “Can I have a word?”
“Mr. Campbell. No, you may not. I have to be in surgery in five minutes. I’m just here to leave my wraps.”
She unlocked the door and went in, locked it behind herself, and took a moment to catch her breath. Then she went on as she had done every morning for as long as she had come to work at the New Amsterdam: she took off her hat, changed her shoes, and exchanged her shirtwaist for a fresh tunic and put on a full apron over that. The whole time she was aware that Campbell was still in the hall, waiting.
She thought of Mabel Stone in the little cottage by the sea. She thought of Janine Campbell’s four boys, children she had never seen but could imagine nonetheless: if not healthy, then healing.
As soon as she opened the door Campbell stepped toward her, close enough that she could make out ale on his breath. She had faced down drunken husbands and belligerent mothers, and she resolved to face down Archer Campbell. She put her arm straight out, her fisted hand against his shoulder, and pushed him away.
“Mr. Campbell,” she said. “You are inappropriate.”
His hand closed over her forearm. She spun around and jerked free in one motion, and they stood looking at each other. She could hear her heartbeat echoing in her ears, and every nerve was twanging like a fire bell.
“You will talk to me.” His voice went husky and she saw his pupils dilating with an almost sexual response to her rejection. She thought of one quick jerk of the knee and how that would take the look off his face.
“I want to know where Mabel Stone is,” he said. “Don’t tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about. I saw you go into her place that night with the detectives, and the next day the Stones were gone, both of them. There’s no word of them, and nobody knows where they went. Except you. You know, don’t you.”
Anna looked him directly in the eye for a count of three. She said, “Mr. Campbell. Leave this building and never come back. Never approach me again or I will swear out a complaint.”
“Haven’t answered my question, though, have you? That’s as good as a confession in my book. You’ll talk to me, unless you like the idea of a search. You’ll never know when it’s coming, but I can guarantee you, Comstock will find what he needs to send you to prison.”
In some part of her brain Anna realized that he didn’t know she was married, or to whom. The thought made her smile, and her smile made his whole face contort with rage. This is what his wife faced every day, she thou
ght. This is what she lived with for years.
A small group of people came into the hall. An orderly, too busy flirting with the nursing students to take note of anything else, and behind them, Elise. She pushed her way through the others and broke into a trot.
“Dr. Savard,” she called. “Do you need help?”
“She does,” said Campbell with a wide rictus of a smile that displayed graying teeth. “But not from you.”
His eyes moved over Anna, roaming over her body to stop on her face.
“You’re no woman a man would want as a wife. I doubt you even know you are a woman.” His grin flickered on and off. “But then old maids can be surprising. All those juices stored up with no place to go.”
There was a distinct buzzing in her ears and she seemed to be watching the scene from a remove. She felt no fear or even disgust. The most she could muster was a clinical interest, wondering what an alienist would make of Campbell.
“I could show you what goes on in a man’s bed—”
Then Elise Mercier stepped forward with both fists raised and delivered a blow to Campbell’s middle that deflated him like a pin to a hot-air balloon. All the breath in his lungs left him in a rush, the smell of oysters and ale hanging in the air as he collapsed to the floor, hacking and fighting for air.
It all happened in seconds, and then everyone was staring at Elise. The look on the orderly’s face was distinctly admiring, but the nurses were shocked and, Anna thought, a little frightened.
Elise studied Campbell, writhing on the ground and gasping for air.
“He’ll be all right. More’s the pity,” she said to no one in particular. Then she realized that everyone was looking at her, and she produced a small, crooked smile. She said, “Six brothers.”
That seemed to satisfy them all. The orderly crouched down to get hold of Campbell by the collar of his jacket and yanked him to his feet.
“Would you be wanting to call the police, Dr. Savard?”
Anna shook her head. “Just put him out on the street, please, Jeremy. I need to get to surgery. Nurse Mercier, I suggest you soak that hand in cold water before it begins to swell.” But she smiled at Elise. “Later I’ll try to remember to remind you about the prohibition on violence inside the New Amsterdam.”