A Lesson in Love and Murder (19 page)

A quarter of an hour later she had acquired the necessary wardrobe, quickly changed into black wool cap and trousers, and left a note for Merinda.

Thereafter, with a map secured from the concierge and the paper
with Jasper's slanted hand in her balled fist, she straightened her shoulders and took Chicago in stride.

“You can do this, Jemima!” she mumbled to herself as she ascended the steps for a sleek trolley and recalled the verbal directions the concierge had given her, accompanying her map.

When she alighted, a pungent mix of fish, garbage, and seaweed tickled her nose. Sure enough, the grand Lake Michigan lapped lazily not far from her. She kept her eyes ahead of her, imagining she was in Toronto, skipping through the Ward with Merinda, guarded from wolf whistles and appreciative glances by her male garb. She moved swiftly, breathing out her insecurity, remembering that there was no surer sign of uncertainty than a person in a strange place consulting a map in broad daylight. She would fit in as best as she could with curls threatening to fall from her cap and cascade down her back and trousers that she had little time to see tailored and that did not disguise the curves of her gender as much as she might have wished.

Any reservations she might have had regarding her wardrobe vanished, however, in the instant she made out a familiar form crossing the street a ways ahead. Shoving the map deep into her pocket, she picked up speed, first in a brisk walk and then into a jog and then into a most unladylike sprint.

While her romantic notions would have had her in a lovely violet dress with lace at the collar and wrist, her task was made simpler without the inhibitions of corset or stays. She flung her arms around Ray and kissed him with a fervor and determination that would have shocked the Jem Watts of a year ago.

It was all very scandalous, of course, yet she pressed her lips to his with such force his hat toppled off. But in that moment, she didn't care. And as his arms enfolded her and pulled her so tightly she almost left the ground, she deduced that he, too, was far from scandalized.

When they stopped
^‡
and he held her at arm's length, his mouth was a frown but his eyes were bright.

She ran her hand through her free (and quite askew curls), caring little as to the whereabouts of her cap. Her cheeks were reddened by more than the heat, her fingertips tingled, and her knees were jelly, and she wasn't quite sure where she was. But it didn't matter now.

“I cannot believe I found you.” She tugged at his hand. “But I did! Can you believe it! Me! In this strange, big city without even Merinda!”

Ray's frown deepened. “This is very dangerous, and you are being very ridiculous.” But his words sounded like a recitation, for his eyes didn't just spark… they positively shone.

“You're crying!” she exclaimed with a delighted laugh.

“I am not crying.” He dabbed at his eye with his shirt sleeve.

“You are! You
are
crying! You are happy to see me!”

“I am quite… ” He squinted at the sun while searching for a word, which just made his red-rimmed eyes water even more. “I am simply flummoxed that you would take such an unnecessary risk. Indeed, Jemima, when Jasper told me… ”

But Jem was too giddy, too elated, to hear him fluster through a string of frustrations set in his endearingly broken English. So she removed his powers of speech altogether.

*
A Mountie could never hope to afford the Palmer House prices.

†
For indeed a woman's shoes—or even a woman in a man's shoes—could not hit the pavement with that weight of force.

‡
There are few inconveniences more irritating than the necessity for air in the midst of a reunion.

C
HAPTER
F
OURTEEN

An investigator must attempt to feel immediately at ease no matter where the situation or surrounding. Being in one's element is a luxury foreign to the art of deduction. Approach every new situation and acquaintance with a confident air.

M.C. Wheaton,
Guide to the Criminal and Commonplace

M
erinda paced the steps outside Ross's address, leafing through the pamphlets she'd had printed, for several long minutes before giving up on Jemima altogether.

When she finally pressed her hand to the doorknocker, the face that met her was alive with the same expectation that rewarded him with such a large turnout in Toronto.

“Come in, Merinda Herringford, come in. Where is your lady friend?”

“Last-minute case of cold feet,” Merinda explained, wondering if her fib was true. She hated small talk, but she persisted. “Fancy, we met in Toronto not a full day ago, and here we are again. Might even have been on the same train.”

He offered her tea, which she declined. Then he offered her something stronger, and she declined that as well. She was too occupied looking around his small space, and he had to insist she take a seat.

While he slowly perused one of the pamphlets she handed him—commending her on its balance of Goldman's philosophy with what were obviously her own personal convictions—she studied the
paper-laden table before her. A plate with crumbs. A magnifying glass. A few tomes in Russian.

And newspapers. Spread out. Two of the same, remarkably. Merinda studied them, reading upside down. Nothing about anarchists or bombs or explosives or anything political. A few hat ads. Something about a bank on LaSalle. A review of a new nickelodeon.

David Ross set her pamphlet on the table between them. “You understand this cause so completely,” he told her. “I have been waiting for someone like you! I never would have dreamed it would be a lady detective from Canada.”

“Believe it or not, lady detectives from Canada have a very great understanding of oppression. The powers that be in Toronto would see me locked up and silenced for good.”

“Yes, you understand. You very much need to find work beyond yourself. We all do. The very mundane day to day of our existence. The way that we are impressed upon by those who would control our lives.”

Merinda studied him. His thin, refined features. The severity of his gaze. His mouth seemed stuck in a perpetual frown. “I suspect you have had a more difficult time than I,” she admitted. “My parents are wealthy. I live comfortably. But you—you wear a shirt that has been reseamed several times. And I see that you miss your home. Poland, is it?”

David nodded. “I forget you are a detective.”

“It's a simple deduction. You have pictures of your home everywhere. And that piece over there. Cross-stitched. That is Polish.”

“You read Polish?”

Merinda shook her head. “I only know as much as I needed to solve the case of a petty theft at a bakery in Toronto.”

“Ah. But yes, I am from Poland. I was born Dawid Rosiak. It was easy to Anglicize my name when I came here to America on one of the rag ships. Destitute.”

“To Chicago?”

“Yes. I heard Mrs. Goldman speak. Suddenly everything had
purpose. I could not perhaps shake off the loneliness or guilt I felt at having left my family to their poor lives back home. But I could forge a new path here.” He drank deeply from his glass. “This city is thirsty for something. This is the time. The place. This Colonel Roosevelt—this former president—he will come and perform his magic trick. Make immigrants like myself believe that there is a better horizon. But there is not. His words are just words. They do not repair the past.”

“What is my first step?” asked Merinda.

“Tonight. Ten thirty. Meet me at the warehouse entrance of Williams and Humphrey Department Store.” A smile tickled his mouth. “But only if you are not afraid of an explosive entrance into my world.”

Benny deposited his coat and rucksack at the guesthouse, but after the matron informed him that the lock on his door was broken, he kept his satchel nearby. He wasn't sure what anyone would find of value in it—certainly not a leather-bound volume filled with his thoughts on wilderness life—but it was the most precious thing he owned. Made more so by Jonathan's reappearance that afternoon. He found his way back to the Palmer and Merinda.

“I haven't seen hide nor hair of Jemima,” Merinda said worriedly the moment she saw him in the foyer. “I hope she is just lost looking for frilly froufrous in the department store.”

A shadow crossed Benny's face. “I am sorry.”

“I just can't stop imagining a dozen ways she might have… ” They stopped as a bellboy interrupted and pressed a telegram into Merinda's hand.

Benny watched Merinda exhale and a wide smile cross her face. “The foolish girl went and found DeLuca.” Merinda was visibly relieved.

“You care a great deal for her,” he said softly.

Merinda shrugged it off and pasted on a scowl, but Benny noticed it didn't match her eyes. “You can't have Herringford without Watts,”
she said. “It sounds all wrong.” Then she coughed. “I will see these pamphlets upstairs.”

“Might I ask a favor?”

“Sure!”

He handed her his satchel. “I don't trust this where I am staying. Would you keep it here with you?” Merinda's eyes flickered with excitement as she gave a solemn nod. “Of course.”

A moment later, Benny watched Merinda pass the packages of pamphlets and Benny's satchel to a bellboy, who assured they would be transferred safely to her room. The sun had set and evening settled outside the famous revolving doors of the hotel's front entrance. Merinda insisted on dinner, assuring him that the meal would be charged to her room and her father's allowance.

Benny was certain this was not customary, but nothing Merinda did, he assumed, was customary, and the point became moot the longer he spent in her company.

They sat down to a dinner of small potatoes, fresh carrots, and an herbed chicken superior to anything he had tasted since his last visit to his grandmother's farmhouse table. As they ate, she voiced her lingering concern for Jemima with a few comments as to her friend's safety. Then she followed it up with, “I have to start trusting her more. I do! She is just as strong as anyone… ” Immediately after one of these trails of thought, she would supply him with an anecdote explaining Jem's ability to take care of herself. After the third such example, Benny was unsure if Merinda was attempting to convince him or herself.

Midway through dinner, she unfolded one of the papers she had secured
*
from her earlier errand for David Ross.

“It's more ridiculous than one of DeLuca's articles in the
Hogtown Herald
.” She assessed the curt, bold font. It wasn't unlike the pamphlet
that had led her to Ross in Toronto and her fortuitous meeting with one of his followers on the streetcar.

Benny bit his lip. “No, it is authentic. It is similar to what I assumed lured Jonathan into their clutches,” he said, remembering a similar missive in the barracks in Regina at about the same time that Jonathan began attending the meetings.

“He uses such strong language when he speaks,” Merinda said as their eyes searched the leaflet together. “Explosive. Change. Earth shattering. Freedom.” She stabbed at a word on her own pamphlet as he simultaneously moved his own finger to highlight the same word and their pinkies touched. Merinda, as if touching fire, jerked her hand away as he read, his voice surprisingly steady after the whisper-touch of their fingers. “War.”