A Madness So Discreet (12 page)

T
he girl lay staring at the sky, her gaze missing the first sparks of the stars in the dying daylight. Grace fought the urge to shift away from the warm bodies pressing on both sides of her, only too aware of how different this scene was from her first outing with the doctor. On that night, her facade had been under the scrutiny of only a select few and the heavens had poured as they worked on the blood-soaked cobblestones.

Here rain didn't fall; blood did not flow. There was only the softest of breezes from the river, carrying with it the moist smell of a night just ready to begin. The last rays of the sun were drying the wet folds of her dress and Grace bit the inside of her cheek as someone trod on her foot.

“Pardon me,” the man said, glancing at her. She remained blank,
staring straight ahead as he took in her scars and the doctor's black valise clamped tightly in her hands. The sight of a mental patient was just as entertaining as the dead, and he elbowed the person next to him, whispering something. The white moon of another curious face filled her peripheral vision, but Grace remained unmoved, her attention focused solely on the girl and Thornhollow as he knelt beside her.

“Step back, now. C'mon, step back.” The policemen walked in a widening circle around the body trying to move the crowd away. Grace's spine stiffened as she recognized Davey. His eyes met hers and she willed herself to show no reaction as he approached.

“You're all right,” he said quietly, reaching for her elbow, then pulling away as he thought better of it. Instead, he gestured for her to move closer, separating her from the crowd. “Can't do the doctor much good from back here, can you?”

Grace stepped forward, letting a long exhalation escape silently as she left the press of other bodies behind.

“Look here—why's she get to go in front?” the man who had stepped on her foot protested.

“What do you think this is? An exhibition?” Davey shot back. “This here's a murder scene and that girl is the doctor's assistant.”

“What good is a doctor on a murder scene? Seems to me she's already dead.”

Grace left their argument behind her, their words sliding away as
she lost interest in all but the girl, whose blank stare was so like her own. Thornhollow glanced up as she moved closer, his eyes glazed with concentration as he feverishly cataloged all he could in the moments allowed him.

“Ah, there's your girl,” the heavyset policeman said as he joined them, having successfully threatened the onlookers enough that they kept a distance. “Almost makes a murder worth it, seeing her pretty face. Shame about the scars, though.”

Thornhollow rose, and she caught the slightest whisper of his words as he leaned into her. “Watch the crowd.”

“Hardly a shame,” Thornhollow countered George in his next breath. “The surgery made her violent fits much less common, although admittedly, less predictable. Just yesterday she chased a squirrel across the front lawn, caught him too. The nurse told me she spent hours picking all the hairs from Grace's teeth.”

“You don't mean to say she ate it?” Davey asked.

“That's the tale. I wasn't there to see it, but one of the patients told me the doomed thing was still trying to climb out as she was chewing.”

George backed away from Grace. “Might want to keep your distance, in that case, Davey. No face is pretty enough to outweigh having something chewed off.”

Davey hovered nearby, nonetheless. “There's a fella over there not too happy about the girl, uh . . . Grace, getting to come up close
for a good look. I'll just stay near.”

“She knows no difference, either way,” Thornhollow said, looking at Davey shrewdly. “If the gentleman in the crowd were to bother her past her point of endurance, Grace would handle it. Now, if I could direct both your attentions to the girl on the ground and not the one standing, that would be most beneficial.”

Grace's eyes wandered over the crowd that had gathered in a loose circle around them, the girl's body on unwitting display as her death provided the night's entertainment. People pressed against one another three deep, the ones in front informing those in back what was going on. Eyes bounced off her own as Grace took in each face, each reaction as they noticed her scars.

The three men conversed in low tones, their words suddenly scattered by the shrill piercing of a train whistle. Several people in the crowd jumped, hands going to their ears.

“Some vagrant's done it,” someone shouted. “Probably hopped the next train out too. Never catch the bastard once he's on the rails.” The man broke to the front of the crowd. “You'd best be watching the tracks, coppers.”

George rounded on him, hand dropped threateningly to his billy club. “You let me decide what I best be doing.”

“Make way,” Davey shouted, parting the crowd on the opposite side of the circle. “Coroner's wagon is here. Make way, all of you. Show's over.”

Thornhollow took his valise from Grace, and she followed him to the carriage. “Back to the asylum. We've seen all we need here,” he said to the driver, who nodded.

“It seems vultures of all types follow the dead, don't they?” Thornhollow asked Grace as they watched the crowd gather around the coroner's wagon.

“Vultures don't have such heavy feet,” Grace said, rubbing her toes through her buttoned boots. “I'd have been trampled by them if Davey hadn't noticed me. Why did you ask me to watch the crowd?”

“Yes, I think Davey has taken notice of you, to say the least,” the doctor said, lurching forward as the carriage moved into motion. “As for my request, I believe our killer is a planner and an intelligent one at that. Some of that ilk return to the scene of the crime. They rather enjoy watching the police bumble about, not knowing the person they seek is a stone's throw away. Now, quickly, tell me what you gathered while it's fresh in your mind.”

“The body wasn't moved,” Grace said. “The grass around her was crushed as if there had been a struggle.”

“I noticed that as well. However, we don't know how many people passed close to the body even before the city's finest could be called. Judging by the crowd, a good many. We can't be sure she wasn't killed elsewhere.”

“If she were moved it's a much more complex picture,” Grace went on. “There's a railway nearby, a river, a road, even a footpath leading
out of the park. The killer could've used any number of means.”

“Very true. What else?”

“Her clothes were . . .” Grace fumbled for words, unsure how to continue. She pictured the girl, her skirts a confused pile of twisted fabric. “She was in a disarray. As if she were a doll in the hands of a child who is too young to dress it properly.”

“Or someone who didn't know how to handle women's clothes,” Thornhollow added.

“A man, then?”

“Most definitely. But continue.”

Grace closed her eyes, bringing the picture to full light under the darkness of her lids. “She had no clear marks of violence on her arms or wrists, indicating that she didn't fight off her attacker. So she knew him well enough to not believe she was in any danger, or in the least, trusted him.

“There were pine needles in her hair, yet her face and hands were quite clean, as were her fingernails. She was hygienic by nature so the needles tell us that she was . . . was on her back for a period of time, most likely in the park as that's the only place I see pines nearby.”

Grace's brow furrowed in concentration, her eyes screwing even more tightly closed. “If she was moved, she was not dumped or tossed carelessly aside. She was arranged almost comfortably. Ankles crossed, hands folded across her abdomen. Her eyes were left open. I can almost believe a few people walked past her thinking
it was simply a girl relaxing in the grass at the end of the day. All in all, she was very lifelike.”

“Lifelike, indeed. What does this say?”

Grace opened her eyes, unsure past the details she could recite from the picture in her head. “That the killer had remorse? He wishes she weren't dead?”

“Maybe. But I'm afraid that's too simple for this scenario. Your earlier comment strikes much closer to the truth.”

“I said she was clean,” Grace said, ticking her fingers with each point. “That she was laid out with her comfort in mind, and that she was dressed awkwardly.”

“‘As if she were a doll' were your exact words,” Thornhollow repeated, raising his voice to contend with the clatter as they passed over the stone bridge toward home.

“A doll,” Grace echoed, picturing male hands fumbling with the delicate buttons of the girl's skirt, clumsiness and nerves botching the job. Yet even in his haste he'd covered her. “He's not familiar with women, but there's a degree of respect at work. He could've tossed her aside, left her naked for everyone to see, but he didn't.”

“All true,” Thornhollow agreed. “You've seen almost everything.”

“With the glaring exception of how she died,” Grace pointed out. “No bruising, no bullet, no blood. She wasn't strangled, shot, or stabbed.”

“None of those things. Which is what makes this so much more
interesting than our last outing.”

“And?” Grace prodded.

“Ether,” the doctor said, his face eerily lit by the gaslights of the asylum as they pulled into the drive. “It has a distinctively sweet smell, and she was rank with it. A strong dose would paralyze her lungs and she would float off to her death, much like a deep sleep during which one simply stops breathing.”

“You make it sound almost desirable.”

“It would be, honestly, in comparison to some. But what's important here is not how you or I—or even she—wishes to die, but how the killer wanted her to die.”

“Quietly,” Grace said. “No marks. No blood.”

“He can almost pretend she's alive,” Thornhollow said. “Yet she can't berate or condescend. She can't even ignore him.”

“No,” Grace said. “All she can do is lie there.”

“An ideal situation for our man,” Thornhollow said, his hand reaching for the carriage door. He handed her down, and Grace pushed the river rock of her voice back down into her belly, to be shared with no one else.

“One last thought, that I'd have you think on later—as I will. As you said, the girl's clothes were mussed. If she's a doll, he hasn't familiarized himself with feminine wardrobe enough to dress her well. He also missed quite a few buttons, which makes me think he was in a haste and flustered. Yet to kill with ether shows planning
at work. He intended to asphyxiate someone—maybe even her specifically—yet once it was carried out, his nerves got the best of him.

“And while the ether would kill our victim quietly, it doesn't do so quickly. Ether has to be absorbed into the lungs, its effects weakening the body but still allowing for movement until a high dosage has been inhaled to render immobility. The girl was taken by surprise, but her killer would have to hold her quite still for a period of time while she struggled. He'll be a large man, maybe even remarkably so.”

“I saw no one like that in the crowd,” Grace said. “I'm sorry, Doctor, it won't be so easy as that.”

They climbed the stone steps together, listening to the crunch of the gravel as the driver took the carriage and horse back to the stables. Thornhollow dropped his hand to the front doors but halted Grace with a look before opening them.

“This was likely a first kill, Grace, and a somewhat botched one at that. Whatever his goal, I don't think it was achieved tonight. And even if it was, this won't be the last girl we find stinking of ether.”

“And why is that, Doctor?” Grace asked, giving her voice rein in the safety of the shadows.

“Because a killer who plans this kind of ritual never stops at one.”

“
I
t's a special day when I get to work on a fine head of hair like yours,” Mrs. Beem said as she dug her fingers into Grace's scalp, massaging soap through her hair. “This is as nice of a mane as I could find down on the plaza, I tell you.”

“I wouldn't go on bragging about yours,” Miss Chancey called from another chair, where Nell hung over a large sink, hair dripping. “My Irish lassie is as nice looking as any. I pile these black curls up on her head and she'll look good as any queen.”

“Oh, aye,” Nell said proudly. “This 'ead o' 'air is the pride o' Ireland, and I'll drape the braid over me tombstone when I go.”

“Now there's a morbid picture.” Elizabeth tutted as she waited her turn, tugging somewhat nervously on her own hair. “You'll be careful, won't you?” she asked for the third time. “String gets
nervous around the clippers.”

“That's only natural, dear,” Mrs. Beem said. “How many times have I done your hair and never once cut String?”

Grace peeked out of one eye while the rinse water rushed over her head to see Elizabeth was only slightly mollified. She was the only one of the three not utterly thrilled when the town hairdressers came up to the asylum for a monthly treat, trimming and styling the female patients' hair. Grace relaxed under Mrs. Beem's brush and comb, giving in to the ebb and flow. She closed her eyes and saw the girl from the night before, ankles primly crossed though her mussed skirts indicated some violence had been done.

“Our killer was unsuccessful,” Thornhollow had informed Grace that morning as he joined her on a morning walk around the grounds.

“On the contrary. His victim is dead,” Grace had said, pitching her voice low and keeping her face blank even though they walked alone.

Thornhollow cleared his throat. “What I mean to say is that he was unsuccessful in his attempt to rape her. I visited the coroner this morning to see if anything more could be learned. The ether had mostly evaporated at that point so he disagreed with me on cause of death, but I hold to my conclusion. Ether is highly combustible, very tricky to mix. Only the most skilled surgeons and doctors would have access to the knowledge. Given that there are
only twenty or so doctors in the city, it greatly narrows our window of suspicion.” He swiped at a clump of grass with his walking stick.

“You seem almost disappointed.”

“It's too easy,” he complained. “This afternoon we'll go into the city. I'll pose as an uncle searching for medicine to mollify his niece's sick headaches. You'll meet me in the offices shortly after my arrival. If our killer fits the mold for intelligent killers, he'll be socially capable with men, at least—as he'd have to be in order to get through medical school and hold a practice. But if he's incapable of touching a woman who isn't unconscious, with women he'll be quite awkward.”

“It does seem simple,” Grace had agreed. “Why involve yourself at all if the ether so clearly indicates a medical man as the culprit? Can't the police deduce that themselves?”

“One would think,” Thornhollow said, a muscle in his jaw ticking. “But George's report at the station identified the smell as alcohol. He claims the girl drank herself into a stupor in the park,
got herself roughed up
—his words, not mine—and then expired in a coma. The death of a migrant kitchen worker is less than interesting to the police in a city such as this. Their police force isn't large enough to investigate too deeply anything that isn't potentially lucrative.”

“Lucrative?”

“Certainly. Expired liquor licenses, tax evasion . . . anything that actually brings revenue to the city you'll see carried out to the letter of the law. Digging into a murder with few clues—again, their words, not mine—requires time, something policemen want to be paid for.”

“But not you,” Grace said, stopping to rest under a maple near the banks of the pond, its wide leaves red with the arrival of fall.

“No. I do it for the experience. The science of the matter.”

Grace had been silent for a moment, watching the ripples of the pond as fish fed on the early morning insects. “What was her name?”

“I'm sorry?”

“You said she was a kitchen worker, so she must have been identified.”

“Ah, yes. Uh . . .” Thornhollow's brow creased as he tried to recall a fact less imperative to him than others. “Anka. Anka Baran. She was Polish. Something we'll want to keep in mind as we move forward. Assuming we don't catch our man today we need to make note that there may be some racial motivation. Perhaps a dislike of immigrants.”

“I don't think so,” Grace argued. “There was nothing to show hatred. The method he used to kill, it's almost as if he specifically did not want to hurt her.”

“A very good point. I'll amend it to add that perhaps he only wanted to hurt her in a very specific way and did not have the
time. Or was physically incapable. Either way, we'll know soon enough. I imagine we'll be face-to-face with him within a few hours.”

Grace remembered Thornhollow's prediction as Mrs. Beem's comb passed near her scar, the feeling of the teeth fading as it touched the numb skin there, then reappearing as it trailed down her cheek.

“Hold still now. No jumping when I work around your face. Don't want to mar you any more, do we?”

The last delicate clips were done, her hair dried and curled, Mrs. Beem's fingers expertly twisting a pile of curls complete with pins holding a few in place to hide the damage at her temples.

“All right, Miss Chancey,” Mrs. Beem said. “Take a look. Doesn't my pretty quiet one look as good or better than any of the fancy ladies that walk the shops down below?”

“Better,” Miss Chancey said around a mouthful of pins as she worked with Nell's heavy hair. “With those scars covered she'd pass for normal easy as the rest of us.”

Grace glanced in the mirror and silently agreed. She was ready to go to work.

“You're turning into a regular criminal,” Thornhollow teased when Grace produced the hairpins she'd lifted from Mrs. Beem's sink stand.

“A planner, for sure,” Grace agreed, looking at herself in the mirror of his office. “I knew you'd have all the details right when finding me a dress. It's fashionably cut so that I don't look out of place, but not too distinctive of a print so as to attract undue attention. You've matched the hat, but completely forgotten that I'd need pins to hold it in place. Unfamiliar with women's garments, indeed.”

“Perhaps I've taught you a little too well,” he said, holding out his arm for her as they went to the carriage.

Ned was waiting for them, happy to drive the carriage two days in a row, his bright smile almost bringing an answering one to Grace's face. Thornhollow produced a list of addresses once they were moving, the clattering of the horse's hooves hiding their conversation from Ned.

“I made inquiry and came up with a little over twenty doctors in the city. We'll try to visit them all today while your hair is twisted into this unnatural shape. Doesn't that hurt?”

“Hasn't anyone ever told you that beauty is pain?” Grace asked.

“I'm much more familiar with the latter.”

“Yes, it does hurt a little. By the end of the day there'll be no farce involved as we try to procure headache medicine.”

Thornhollow shook his head. “I'll never understand.”

Grace pulled a hand mirror from her purse and inspected her reflection. “Yet women do these things in order to appeal to men.”

“I didn't say it wasn't appealing. I said I don't understand it.”

“Yes, well . . .” Grace put a hand to her unmoving hair, and the pins digging into her scalp. “Sometimes the actions of the sane make no sense.”

“Amen.”

They clattered to a stop on a busy side street, and Thornhollow handed her down from the carriage. “Our experiment today is twofold, Grace. As I explained before, I'll go into each practice a few minutes before you, to judge the doctor's social ability with his own sex.”

“And I come along after in the guise of your niece, to see if his demeanor changes around females.”

“Yes. And your free time is to be exactly that. Free. Go about town; you'll find money in your purse. Shop. Buy things. Do whatever it is you want, but be Grace Mae, not the broken girl who lives on the hill.”

Grace's face fell, her eyes carrying a shadow that had lifted during their conversation. “I don't ever want to be Grace Mae again, Dr. Thornhollow. I don't want pretty things in shopwindows, and I don't want to playact at being carefree. I am that broken girl. She has a purpose, at least, and it's hidden in the identity of the man whose address is somewhere on your slip of paper.”

He crumpled the paper in his fist. “Try. For my sake. Your whole life can't be wrapped up in the endings of others.” He turned his back on her, and she went the opposite direction, assuming the false
smile that he wanted to prove true.

Even though she'd tossed his words aside the moment he'd said them, the effect lasted. She caught the reflection of her pretended happiness in a window that she passed, looking every inch like a privileged girl enjoying a beautiful day. But she knew she had never been that, even before the scars on her temples had set her apart from others. Playacting was something she had perfected long before meeting Dr. Thornhollow, and at least the darkness that haunted her now was one she had the power to end.

She entered the doctor's office to find Thornhollow in deep conversation with a bored-looking man who brightened up the moment she walked in. “Any luck, Uncle?” she asked.

“Not so much,” he said ruefully. “Doctor Maggill here was just saying how he's about to close for lunch and doesn't have a moment to help us.”

“Nonsense, nonsense,” Maggill said as he approached Grace. “I can certainly postpone something as pedestrian as lunch to help a lovely young creature such as yourself.” He beckoned for Grace to sit on a stool, but she shook her head.

“No, Doctor, I wouldn't dream of interrupting your daily routine. We can return later, can't we, Uncle?”

“Of course,” Thornhollow agreed, putting his hat back on and taking Grace by the arm. “Back in an hour, Doctor?”

“Lovely, and you can make it half an hour,” he said, smiling, showing too clearly that he'd already had lunch and some of it was still located in his teeth. “I hate to think of you suffering for one second longer than absolutely necessary.”

“That was certainly not our man,” Thornhollow declared, once they were back in the carriage. “Though I'd like to give him a sound drubbing anyway. Not interested in treating a girl he's never seen until he likes the sight of her.” He shook his head, talking only to himself. “A disgrace to the Hippocratic oath.”

Grace rapped his knee with her knuckles as they slid to a halt once again. “Our next stop, Doctor.”

“I'm going to lose my faith in humanity before the day is over, Grace, mark my words,” he said as they descended to the street.

So it continued in office after office, until the dirt of the streets covered Grace's boots and her plea of a headache was no longer a lie. They played their parts, each dissecting the man they spoke with the second they saw him and comparing notes as the carriage took them to their next destination. Not once did they find a doctor who was noticeably flustered by Grace, and Thornhollow's patience stretched as thin as her smile.

“Dammit,” he bellowed, tossing the paper on the floor of the carriage as they headed toward home. “A whole day spent trying to prove our theory and all I have for it is twelve doses of medicine I don't need.”

“I do,” Grace said, hands to her temples.

“I'm sorry for shouting,” he apologized. “I've had such a day in town it's a lovely relief to return to the asylum.”

“It is,” she agreed, pulling pins free and letting her hair tumble loose, scars on display as the wet air from the lake filled her lungs. “It truly is.”