A Lesson in Love and Murder (7 page)

Merinda crossed to the blackboard and wiped the slate clean. In a bold hand, she wrote:

Benfield Citrone

Jonathan

PLM

Emma Goldman

Trolley

She set the chalk down and rubbed her hands together. “Here's where you come in, Jemima.”

“Mmm?” Jem's mouth was full of shortbread.

“DeLuca has been reporting the trolley strike and the explosions. He's probably back there right now after yesterday's accident.” She said the last word pointedly. “We need to find a pattern so we can figure out where Jonathan and his crew might strike next.”

“Ray reports as best he can. He explained… ”

“Cracker jacks, Jemima! Think. Of course he didn't report everything. There has to be something else. Go make him tell you everything he saw at the explosion,” Merinda commanded. “I am going to try to find some information on whatever happened in Winnipeg and get Nicholas and Del
^†
to send me anything on Detroit. I'll be
'round later to collect you for the rally, and you can repeat everything DeLuca said on the way.”

“And what if he doesn't want to tell me?” Jem chewed her lip.

“Then you aren't trying hard enough. Go put on a nice dress or bat your eyes or put on perfume. Whatever you silly women do.”

Merinda's eyes fluttered in the direction of the front window, trying to catch one more glimpse of Benny Citrone. Wondering if he might have forgotten something. He hadn't, of course, and her eyes moved Jem-ward.

“You all right, Merinda?” Jem asked.

“Mm-hmm.” Merinda said, calmly reaching for her coffee cup and toppling it over in her haste.

*
The learned reader will, of course, have heard of Sir Samuel Benfield Steele, famous for enforcing law in the Yukon Gold Rush and undisputed hero and distinguished leader of the Lord Strathcona Horse in the War against the Boers under Her Majesty's command.

†
Merinda and Jem first met Nicholas and Del Haliburton in a case Jem recorded as Of Dubious and Questionable Memory.

C
HAPTER
F
IVE

Anger is the least interesting emotion. In pursuit of a nuanced criminal, remember to look for jealousy, greed, love, revenge. Pure anger is rarely enough to develop a motive.

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

J
em was surprised to find Ray at home. He left for work so early and was rarely home in the middle of the day. But as she took off her gloves and removed her hat, she heard his paper rustling from the front room.

At her approach, he looked up from a copy of the
Globe
.

“Ray! Why are you home so early?”

“I was worried about you.”

“I was at Merinda's. We have a client.”

“That usually leads to your chasing perpetrators across the city in trousers.”

“I was safe in Merinda's parlor.”

“I wish you could find a job taking in sewing or at a tea shop.” The teakettle whistled, and Ray rose to tend to it. A moment later, he handed her a steaming mug, brushing her hair back behind her ear as she took it.

“Thank you.” She smiled up at him. “I was wondering if you might tell me about the trolley explosion.”

Ray cocked an eyebrow. “Safe in Merinda's parlor, you said?”

“Our client indicated that all the accidents might be related.”

“Jem, you have to promise me you'll be careful. No, don't do that. Your eyes! They're three times their size! You look like a wounded bird. You know I can't resist you when… Fine. Fine.” He described the scene of the trolley explosion, his hands picking up the pace as he spoke. But the picture he painted was familiar to Jem already.

“You're not telling me anything your readers didn't learn in your articles!”

“I was telling the truth.”

“You're telling
part
of the truth.” Jem leaned forward and rested her chin in her hand. Her eyes widened. “I want to learn about the parts you didn't write about. Anyone there who shouldn't have been there? Did you think it was an accident at the time? I think you suspected that it was more than an accident. You're not the kind to take something like that at face value.”

Ray looked at his teacup. “I have to. It doesn't do for me to… hypothesize.” It took him two tries to say a word Jem knew he had difficulty pronouncing.

“The Goldman rally is tonight. Benny Citrone—he's our client—thinks the anarchist will strike again. Will you and Skip be there?”

“Skip's going.”

“Merinda and I are… ”

“No.”

“I haven't finished!”

“If that sentence finishes with ‘going to the Goldman rally,' then let me stop you right there. It's no longer just your own life you're throwing into danger, Jem. We just talked about this. No, I have to forbid it. You let Jasper and the police handle this.”

“I don't recall needing your permission to do anything. You can't just say no. You… ”

“Please, Jem. We're trying to be honest with each other.”

“And I am honestly telling you that I am… ”

They turned at the sound of the door knock. On the other side was Kat, her face smudged with dirt and a smile on her lips.

“Message for you, Jem,” she said brightly. The girl then proceeded
to relay every detail of her dash across the city so as not to be late in delivering the important message, including in her tale her theories on the trolley incidents and her concerns that a newsie named Buzz was trying to steal her beat. All the while, Jem was wishing Mouse had been given the task instead. Mouse rarely spoke.

Jem motioned for Ray to hand her a coin, which she pressed in Kat's dirty palm. She waved her off with a smile and then opened the note.

Jem—Ran into Kat on Yonge. Was at the Globe digging into their international and national news to find something about the explosions in Winnipeg and Detroit. These explosions are connected by the careful way in which they appear to be accidents. They also occur, it seems, when some noted official is in town or some major rally for change is taking place—I assume to draw more press coverage. In Winnipeg it was Nellie McClung. In Detroit it was President Taft.

I agree with Benny that Jonathan might be at the Goldman rally tonight. I'll be by early so I can get DeLuca to tell me everything he didn't tell you about the explosion.

Merinda rapped at Jem's door with her walking stick.
*

Ray opened the door. She beamed at him. He didn't return the smile.

“I hope you're ready for a solo summer stroll, Merinda, for I have forbidden Jem to go to the Goldman rally.”

“I'm still going!” Jem called from the sitting room as Merinda sidled past Ray and into the house.

“Of course you're still going!” Merinda looked up at Ray. “It's a client, DeLuca. It's part of our job.”

“This isn't Jem's job.”

“She lost her job at Spenser's. She has to have something to do!”

“Jemima!” Ray was pleading, and Merinda sensed a surge of something between them, but it wasn't strong enough to keep Jem from joining Merinda on the doorstep, clad in men's clothing and hat.

They both heard Ray bound up the stairs in the back, and Merinda sensed a slight reluctance as Jem slowly pulled the door shut behind her. Indeed, it was only with the sound of the click that she finally exhaled and forced a smile at her friend.

“Do you think that there may be some violence tonight?”

Merinda watched her friend's face darken. “Goldman has some incendiary way about her,” Merinda said, having followed the newspapers since Jasper first told her of the anarchist's arrival. “She inspires people to move and act. Her words cut right through them. They are so desperate to make a bold move, they don't think beyond what they're seeing in the moment. And every move is drastic.”

Merinda and Jem knew the location of the Goldman rally well: an abandoned warehouse in Corktown not a stone's throw from the
Hogtown Herald
's ramshackle office.

“ ‘The most violent enemy in society is ignorance.' ” Merinda quoted Goldman on the streetcar. Jem processed it while they rumbled down King Street. Merinda leafed through a few pages and read, “I'd rather have roses on my table than diamonds on my neck.” Jem stared out the window. Her world was bereft of roses… and diamonds. But she doubted Goldman spoke of the limitations of a husband's pittance of a salary.

“I can see why she's popular,” Jem admitted several moments later as they hopped off at Trinity and moved quickly to the center of the action. Merinda swung her stick with the rhythm of the growing crowd, and Jem picked up pace to match her exhilarated stride.

The People's Labor Movement had several canvassers passing out pamphlets as the crowd moved inside. The summer air, made thicker by the warehouse's proximity to the distilleries churning and pumping out all manner of unpleasant smells and smoke—not to mention the cloudy humidity of nearby Lake Ontario—did little to provide comfortable breathing in the standing-room-only event.

Merinda was surprised when Jem grabbed her arm to steady herself.

“Are you all right?”

“It's awfully warm in here,” Jem said, tugging at her tweed vest. “All these people.”

She loosened her grip, but Merinda made sure their shoulders brushed. If Jem toppled, she'd be able to catch her in time.

Finally, after a rumbling introduction peppered with several hyperbolic phrases that would put even the
Hogtown Herald
to shame, Goldman stood unceremoniously before hundreds of gaping, silent faces.

“The most unpardonable sin in society is independence of thought,” Goldman's voice boomed. Her first words on Toronto and its repression of women (especially as evidenced by the presence of the “patriarchal and primitive brute force of the Morality Squad”) were received with eager ears and silent mouths. The more convicted and incendiary those words grew, the more sharply they were reflected by the crowd. Her voice wove through the crowd, and with each heightened decibel, Merinda was aware of the frenzied spell cast over them. Some sat on overturned crates and barrels; others stood at attention or leaned on poles, spilling out of the warehouse space, shoving shoulders, pressing to get a clearer view of the homely woman with the crooked spectacles, unmanageable brown hair, and uneven mouth.

Merinda watched the crowd as much as she watched Goldman. There was a smattering of women, many still wearing aprons or
pressed shirtwaists, having stolen away from their work in hopes of hearing someone who spoke aloud what they would never find the courage to say.

Merinda stole a look at Jem under the murky light. Her friend's face was paler than usual, and Merinda sensed that although they stood close enough for their shoulders to brush, her friend was miles away.

She took to searching the sea of faces again, this time wondering if she could make out Benny in the crowd. Jasper and his bluecoats were on hand, she noted. A few mounted policeman that she'd seen outside. Others were stationed nearby on the new motorbicycles, aware of the reputation of Goldman rallies.