Race for the Dying (24 page)

Chapter Forty-one

Well, at least we know you didn't do it,” Deputy Constable George Aldrich said. He stood in a puddle, rain dripping off the brim of his soft cap, as Thomas wheeled across the waiting room. Zachary Riggs entered behind the constable, with two other men on his heels. Thomas could see at least five others either on the clinic's front step or in the street beyond. Aldrich jerked his head at them, and the door was shut against all but the deputy constable and Riggs.

“So tell me,” Aldrich said. He was a short man, rotund and ruddy-cheeked, the sort who would look perfectly at home serving drinks in a warm, dry pub. “What do you know about all this?” His accent was soft, almost melodic, reminding Thomas of some of the farmers in rural Pennsylvania.

Thomas took his time before answering, searching the constable's face for hints. “What have you discovered?” he asked. “Is Miss Auerbach…”

“She's home, Thomas,” Riggs said quickly. “Home and entirely well. And we're all certainly relieved about that.”

“But what about—”

Aldrich held up a peremptory hand. “When was the last time you saw the constable?” he asked.

“Midnight, at least,” Thomas said. “What happened? Is he all right?”

“He was here?”

“Certainly. He came to the clinic to escort Miss Auerbach to her home.”

“You saw him for certain?”

“Yes. He was standing outside, smoking a cigar. You must tell me what happened, for God's sake.”

“You exchanged words with him?” Aldrich asked, ignoring the question with infuriating calm.

“Only the briefest of pleasantries. We were all tired. Miss Auerbach was anxious to be home.”

“I see.” Aldrich's frosty blue eyes regarded Thomas, and his heavy lips pursed, the lower one protruding like a pouting child's. “So Mr. Kittrick paid you a visit as well?”

“Yes.”

“What did he want?”

“He threatened me.”

“Is that so.”

“Yes, that is so.”

“And the threat?”

“Constable Eastman asked that I testify to the courts about the weapon that killed Charlie Grimes. A folding knife that the constable had in his possession was consistent with the weapon that could produce the wound. Eastman said the knife belonged to Ward Kittrick. I'm sure you know more about that than I do.”

“I wondered about that knife.” He drew himself up and rested his hands on his hips, coat flaring behind him. “How is it that you could tell that this knife—”

“The shape of the blade makes a characteristic wound,” Thomas said. “Always. Especially with a single, hard, swift thrust. It's simple enough.”

“I see. What did you tell Kittrick?”

“I told him nothing, sir. He said the only reason that he didn't kill me was because of the Beautard child. I had treated the infant earlier. But Kittrick also may have caught sight of Louella Unger and her mother. Perhaps that stayed his hand.” Thomas turned and nodded toward the door. “They are here in the ward. I hope they won't be disturbed.”

“Mrs. Unger saw Kittrick as well?”

“Yes, she did. He presented himself unannounced in the ward.”

“Did she hear the threats?”

“No. Kittrick and I spoke in the office. I did not want the patients disturbed.”

“I see. And then he left?”

“Yes.”

“He made no move against you?”

“No. Only the verbal threats. Against me and the clinic. I assume he meant all who work here.”

“You know where he went then?”

“No.”

Aldrich heaved a deep breath and looked over at Riggs. “Very odd. What else did he tell you at that time?”

“He said that he and Mr. Eastman had reached an accounting. That was his word for it.”

“You took that to mean?”

“That they had a confrontation. Kittrick was injured. If you examine his body, you'll see that. That's why I was concerned about Miss Auerbach.”

“Explain it to me.”

Thomas straightened in his chair. “Kittrick was bloody, here.” He laid his hand on his own left flank. “The blood had soaked his trousers as well. But he wasn't interested in being treated. Eastman is badly hurt?”

“Kittrick did not come here for treatment?” Aldrich asked.

“I told you. He would not allow me to treat him,” Thomas said again, “or even make a preliminary examination of the injury. It did not appear to impair his movements.”

Aldrich laughed abruptly. “So then. He left here, and you did not see where he went.”

“No.”

Aldrich turned to Riggs. “But we know, eh?”

“Indeed.” Riggs said, then added, “I confess that I'm flummoxed. It's clear the two men fought. Constable Eastman is dead, Thomas.”

Thomas looked at him in disbelief. Surely a scuffle with a single foe wasn't enough to bring down the enormous constable.

“Indeed he is.” Riggs added.

Aldrich once more held up a hand. “It would appear,” he said slowly, “that they confronted each other in the alley beside the bank. Just down the hill. You heard no shots fired?”

“No. But I was occupied in the surgery.”

“You heard not a single shot?”

“No. Please! Tell me exactly what happened.”

“Well,” Aldrich mused. “That's difficult to say, certainly. It appears there was a confrontation, yes. The chief constable was stabbed, so.” He turned and jabbed a thumb into his own right kidney.

“And he's dead? He died on the spot? But what of Nurse Auerbach? She was witness to all this?”

“I think not,” the constable said. “I believe that the constable had escorted her home, and was then returning to the office. It was at that time that the confrontation took place.”

“And he was not able to resist Kittrick? I find that hard to believe.”

“The element of surprise, perhaps,” Aldrich said. “Maybe he managed to draw his revolver. One shot, only grazing, as you say. And then Kittrick comes here, to make threats. Or so we are led to believe. We may never know.” He reached under his coat and pulled out an impressive hunting knife in a leather sheath. “Kittrick had this weapon, and as you can see, the blade shows use.” He slid the knife out of the sheath. Blood smeared the eight-inch blade. He turned to look at Riggs. “You were lucky, my friend.”

“He made sure I saw that.” Riggs said. “And when he made to draw it out, I confess I acted.”

“Well, sometimes it's good not to wait so much, you know.” Aldrich turned back to Thomas. “And you say you heard nothing?”

“Nothing.”

“They were between buildings, and that, I'm thinking, is why. Even I heard nothing.” He regarded Thomas for a long moment, and then the crow's-feet at the corners of his eyes deepened. “You've had an interesting time of it.”

“Memorable.”

Aldrich laughed. “It's clear to me that Mr. Kittrick got exactly what he deserved.” He raised his eyebrows at Riggs. “The bodies go to Winchell's now.”

“He will do the postmortem?” Thomas asked.

“He would, if there was a question remaining,” Aldrich said. “But there isn't so much now.”

“What did Kittrick want from you?” Thomas asked Riggs, and the older man shrugged.

“I wish I knew. He made threats, just as he did with you. I presume that he might have been after money—Mrs. Unger interrupted him before he could make those demands.”

Thomas nodded sympathetically, keeping his confusion to himself. Mrs. Unger had said nothing about hearing two men arguing when she reached the top of the third flight of stairs, or taking threats. She had said, in fact, that she had become aware of two men talking. After she left, things had obviously escalated to a fatal result.

“Will someone stop by Miss Auerbach's to inform her? She should not have to wait until morning to learn from some passerby of Eastman's death.”

“I will make sure of that,” Aldrich said. “I will want to talk with her in any case. It is possible that she heard something, or saw…”

Thomas nodded.

“Are you remaining here, or returning to one-oh-one?” Riggs asked. His frown was one of concern.

“Here, I think.” He turned to Aldrich. “Did Mr. Eastman have family?”

“A confirmed bachelor,” Riggs said. “A brother, I believe. I have no idea where he might reside.”

“Tacoma,” Aldrich said. “It will be taken care of. Thank you, young man.”

“Certainly. If there's anything else, here I am. I'm something of a captive audience at the moment.”

“Yes,” Aldrich said thoughtfully. “In some ways, that's good.” He nodded at Riggs. “Should I need to speak with you, you'll be…” He glanced upward. “Until we know who Kittrick was dealing with, or why, it is best that you remain discreet, I think.”

He moved to the door, and looked first at Riggs and then Thomas. “You both will be here now.” It wasn't a question.

Chapter Forty-two

“Bertha kinda had a soft spot for the constable,” Harlan Auerbach observed after Thomas settled awkwardly on the wagon's hard seat. “Damn shame.”

“An awful turn of events,” Thomas said. “I confess I've never felt so useless in my life. If something had happened to her…”

Her brother had delivered Bertha to the clinic promptly at six. She had given Thomas a quick hug—the first time that had happened in the few days he'd known her—and then vanished without another word into the ward. Instead of intruding with some sort of commiseration, Thomas thought it best to let her have her own time.

Riding the few blocks to Winchell's was torture in the unsprung wagon, but Thomas braced himself and waited it out. The street angled down through a grove of runty evergreens that had sprung up after the timber had been put to the ax. Mounds of dirt lay here and there as new iron water piping expanded through the village, ending at a massive foundation that Harlan said was the new post office building.

“How you gettin' back?” the young man asked as he pulled the wagon to a halt at Winchell's, a cedar clapboard barn of a building that displayed, in lieu of a business sign, half a dozen styles of tombstones erupting out of the mud by the front door.

“I hadn't thought about that,” Thomas said, wrestling his crutches free from the welter of garden tools in the back of the wagon.

“I'll wait, then,” Harlan said affably. “You ain't going to be long, I guess. You need help?”

“No. I can manage.” He navigated to the spread of flagstones in front of the door. His first rap went unanswered, and then Ted Winchell appeared, looking as if he'd been up most of the night himself.

“Good morning, sir.”

Winchell brushed a cloud of wood dust from his trousers. “Well, good morning yourselves,” he said, and regarded Thomas skeptically. “I don't need more business, if that's what Harlan's bringing me.” He craned his neck. “You got another one in there already, young fella?”

“Not this time,” Harlan replied.

Winchell clapped the dust off his hands. “It's looking like a long day.” He reached out a hand to Thomas' right arm. “Come in out of the weather. Harlan, you, too. Let the horse soak by himself.”

“Thanks just the same,” Harlan said a little uneasily.

“Suit yourself.” Winchell held the door for the young doctor. “Well, sir, quite a time we had last night. You've come to take me out for a second breakfast?”

“Food is the last thing on my mind,” Thomas said.

Winchell led Thomas down a narrow hallway and held open a door for him. The office was small, spare, and neat. “Coffee?”

“No, thanks. I came to ask a favor.”

“Name it.”

“Constable Aldrich says that no postmortem is planned.”

“He does, does he?”

“Yes. Is that true?”

“No. Any time there's a homicide, there's an inquest. All a matter of public record. Now…in a way, he's right. If the cause of death is as obvious as a bullet through the heart, then what's the point? In the coroner's report that's filed with the county, we have to be able to say what the cause of death was.” He stretched back and clapped more dust off his hands. “I guess it would be fair to say that we do what we need to do to satisfy the county and its newfangled record-keeping procedures.”

“Aldrich says that Constable Eastman was stabbed in the lower right back, through the kidney.”

“Indeed he was. I'd be surprised if he was able to take ten steps afterward.”

“No other injuries?”

“Not that I saw. What's your concern, Doctor?”

“Ward Kittrick came to see me shortly before he was shot,” Thomas replied. “He was hurt at the time, but it didn't appear to slow him down. Afterward he went upstairs to confront Zachary Riggs. That's when he was shot.”

“That's the yarn, is it?” Winchell said, but his face was serious. He rose and beckoned Thomas. “You might as well satisfy your curiosity.”

Ward Kittrick's body awaited its appointment with the earth and worms in a dark, plain room that included four flat, heavily varnished work tables and a series of cabinets. Three of the tables were occupied by sheeted figures.

“This is the county room,” Winchell explained. He snapped one of the sheets back, and Thomas exhaled slowly. Ward Kittrick, once so inflated with his own menace, was now not much different than any of the cadavers dissected at the university—just a little fresher.

“The gut wound must have been damned painful.” Winchell said. “Another inch, and he wouldn't have felt like threatening anybody.” The six-inch trough gouged by the bullet began an inch to the left of the umbilicus, ripping through skin, muscle, and fat. “Didn't find the bullet. The one in his brain is another matter.”

He rolled the unyielding corpse so that Thomas could examine the skull. “Poked it right against his head,” Winchell said. Sure enough, the little hole marked the middle of a scorched field, the hair crisped and flayed, with black powder dappling the scalp and the back of Kittrick's left ear. No exit wound was evident, but Thomas could imagine the catastrophic damage the little pellet would cause as it exploded through the thin bone of the mastoid process, scattering lead, bone, and powder grains through the brain.

Winchell watched Thomas examine the wound. “You have a probe?” the physician asked.

“Better than that. I have the bullet. It wasn't hard to fetch out of there. Let me show you.” He stepped across to one of the cabinets and waited with one hand on the top drawer while Thomas maneuvered his crutches. “Little hobby my father started. I've been keeping it up.”

He slid open the drawer.

“My heavens,” Thomas exclaimed. Neat rows of curiously deformed projectiles lay in cotton-lined partitions.

“An old type font case I bought.” Winchell patted the drawer. “Handy as hell.” The collection wasn't limited to bullets. Tips of knife blades, spikes, even a short section of what looked like a saw blade were all carefully labeled.

Winchell selected the deformed slug that nestled in the slot marked 23 september 1891. ward l. kittrick. and held out the specimen. “Your man told Aldrich that he used his Remington derringer, and that's probably right. It's a .41 caliber.” Thomas hefted the deformed slug. “Not much of a round,” Winchell said, “except in a case like this, with the barrel held right against one of the thinnest parts of a man's skull.” He clapped his hands, imitating the sharp report. “And down he goes.”

“Immediately behind the left ear,” Thomas said. “They were struggling, do you suppose?”

“Maybe.”

“Riggs said nothing about that,” Thomas added. “I sent Mrs. Unger upstairs to fetch him, and she heard men's voices. The final altercation took place shortly thereafter.”

“When Kittrick was leaving,” Winchell said skeptically. “And that's what fits. Picture Kittrick standing at the top of those stairs.”

“I have never actually seen them,” Thomas said. “The stairs, I mean.”

Winchell's eyebrows shot up in surprise. “My, you have been caught in a deep rut, haven't you? Well, stairs are stairs. Aldrich says that Kittrick tumbled halfway down the first flight, until he got fetched up in the balusters. Does that sound like a struggle to you?”

“Certainly not. Riggs said that Kittrick either drew his knife or was in the process.”

“While facing away, or while standing at the top of a deep flight of stairs.” Winchell snorted. “We'll have to work on our imaginations.”

“What do you think happened?”

The coroner shrugged. “I can imagine Riggs spooked by this gentleman. Kittrick was a rough and ready sort. Both him and his brother. If Riggs saw an opportunity to gain an advantage on a dangerous man, then more power to him. Whether you want to call it self-defense…Well, that's a point of view. I suppose.”

Thomas handed the spent bullet back and straightened against his crutches. He looked across at the largest sheeted figure. “Eastman?”

Without a word, Winchell returned the specimen to its drawer, closed the cabinet carefully, and crossed to the second table. Eastman's corpse lay on its belly, and Thomas winced at the enormous wound a handsbreadth to the right of the spine, between the last two ribs.

“A powerful thrust,” Winchell said. “Driven in and angled toward midline, then wrenched and twisted out. Done with a big, stout-bladed knife. If I had to guess, I'd say that it fairly split his right kidney clean in half.”

“And still he managed somehow to fire off a shot,” Thomas said.

“He would have a few seconds. That's all.”

“Thank God that Bertha wasn't with him at the time,” Thomas said.

“Auerbach? Why would she be—”

“The constable had escorted her home from the clinic. This happened after they parted, thank God.”

“Ah. Well, she's a lucky one, then.”

“Kittrick and Eastman struggled, do you think?”

Winchell held up his shoulders in a prolonged shrug. “I would guess not. In a fair struggle, Eastman could have easily managed a man like Kittrick. My guess is a quick ambush from behind. The knife was in before Eastman could flinch away. That would have been Kittrick's style.”

Thomas nodded in question at the third corpse.

“That's Wiley Jonson. Got drunk and fell off a fishing skiff.” Winchell said. “Last week sometime. They found him yesterday afternoon.”

“This is a dangerous place,” Thomas said.

“Well, it can be, if you're not careful,” Winchell said. He thrust his hands in his pockets and regarded the floor, then nodded at a plain pine coffin resting on a pair of sawhorses toward the back of the room. “That's Charlie Grimes. He goes in the ground later this morning.” He tipped his head as if he wanted to say something else.

“A sad thing,” Thomas said.

“Indeed. But I just stick to business, recording the ‘what' of it all. I leave the ‘why' to fellas like Aldrich. He and Riggs will figure out how it all needs to be.”

Puzzled by the undertaker's tone, Thomas was about to ask what he meant, but Winchell cut him off.

“How's Doc Haines doing?”

Thomas nodded noncommittally.

“Getting old, like all of us,” Winchell said. “He and my dad are a pair, that's for certain.” He held out a hand toward Thomas. “Anything else I can do for you?”

“Not today.” Thomas replied. “I appreciate this.”

“Certainly. You know, my term as coroner ends next year. You might think about it.”

Thomas laughed. “I think I'd rather try and repair the living, sir.”

“Well, wouldn't we all?” Winchell said. “But sometimes folks don't give us the choice.”