Ripper (14 page)

Now, the baton in hand, he dared that backward glance. For a second, the sliver of an alley was empty. Then the man’s thick, powerful hands grasped the fence. In one swift move, the figure, which in memory seemed too large for the space, leapt the wooden slats and slipped into the alley as easily as a shadow. The stalker slithered toward Carver at a maddening speed.

Chest aching, out of breath, Carver found the button on the cylinder and pressed it.

Schick!

He held the copper tip toward the alley. As snowflakes landed on it, the copper sparked and sizzled.

Seeing it, the figure hesitated and then withdrew.

Carver rose, still holding out the crackling cane. The workers, still having their snowball fight, seemed hopelessly far off.

“Help!” he cried. He moved backward across the street, eyes on the receding shadow in the alley. He didn’t think he could scream any louder, and no one seemed to hear.

“Help!”

At last, when he was a half block away, a few of the workers turned toward him. The stalker gone, he pressed the button, retracting the baton, and slipped it back into his pocket.

By the time he was a quarter block from the workers, they’d gathered to look and point at him. Carver was a little surprised by how young they were, no older than street rats. A short, stocky boy with a flat, animal face pulled ahead of the pack to greet Carver first.

They recognized each other at exactly the same time.

“Carver?” a squeaky voice said.

“Bulldog?” Carver rasped.

“IT’S A
reee-yoon-yun!” Bulldog squealed, sounding as if he were using the word for the first time. The boys behind him picked up their pace. Among them Carver recognized the other members of Finn’s former Ellis Orphanage gang. Once over the shock of seeing them, he remembered how they’d all gleefully signed up for sanitation jobs.

Their rivalry seemed so long ago, so childish, he couldn’t imagine they wouldn’t help him.

“Bulldog,” he said, trying to catch his breath. “Someone’s after me; I need help.”

“I’ll say you do,” Bulldog answered with a chuckle. He hefted his iron-headed shovel. “We been waiting for this a long time.”

Following his lead, the others swung and tested their shovels.

Carver was shocked. “You still want to beat me because Finn stole a locket?”

“Think we’d forget how you set him up?” Bulldog said.

“This is serious,” Carver said. He took a step closer, only to be nearly knocked over by the flat end of a shovel.

“
This
is serious,” Bulldog said.

Part of Carver realized how badly outnumbered he was, but the other part, fresh from his encounter with a far greater danger, was incensed. He thought of taking out the baton and shocking Bulldog into dreamland.

“Are you
really
this stupid—?” Carver began.

Whoosh!
He had to leap back to avoid being hit.

“You really
want
to call me stupid?” Bulldog said. The others laughed.

“This is crazy! I’m—”

Whoosh!

“Or crazy?” spat Bulldog.

“Put that—”

Whud!

The last swing caught Carver in the stomach, knocking him on his back. Bulldog stabbed down with the shovel’s edge. The blade sliced through the snow and clinked into the pavement near Carver’s head. Having had enough, Carver glared up at Bulldog and tensed his leg muscles, preparing to kick.

A taller figure came up, so much taller that Bulldog didn’t even have to crouch for Carver to see his face.

“Hi, Carver,” said a deeper but likewise familiar voice. His flaming red hair was neatly cut, parted to the left, his freckled skin clean. The stylish black overcoat he wore was unbuttoned, revealing a suit and tie beneath. His face remained the same, cleaner maybe, but just as good-looking as ever.

“Finn,” Carver said. “What’s with the monkey suit? Someone leave
all
the cages at the zoo unlocked?”

“I like to hang with my friends when I can,” Finn said.

“And Miss Petty’s not around to save him now, huh?” Bulldog said, elbowing Finn.

Carver tried to simultaneously rise and reach into his pocket for the baton, only to have his arms grabbed by Bulldog and Peter Bishop. They hoisted him onto his feet, held his arms behind his back and thrust his face toward Finn.

Finn eyed Carver’s ratty coat. “You a street rat? That where all your brains got you?”

“I’d take my coat over your monkey suit any day,” Carver answered. “How often do your owners change the straw in your cage?”

Finn’s eyes flared. He tugged off his coat and loosened his tie. “Thanks for making it easy.”

“How easy does it have to be? You really need all this help?” Carver said.

“Nah,” Finn said. “But this way’s more fun.”

Bulldog chuckled as Finn raised his meaty fist. Carver braced himself, but nothing happened. There was an odd hesitation in the bully’s face. Was it possible Finn thought it unfair to pummel someone who couldn’t move?

The others began chanting, “Finn! Finn! Finn!”

“Go ahead,” Carver said. “You stupid thief.”

That did it. Finn pulled back. The next thing he knew, the chanting stopped and the bully said, “Ow!”

“Phineas! What on earth do you think you’re doing?”

It took Carver a moment to recognize Samantha Echols, Finn’s new mother. She wore a peacock-feather hat and was wrapped in white fox fur that made her look like some sort of arctic creature. Her chubby hand twisted the cartilage of Finn’s ear so severely that Carver winced in sympathy.

“Come away!” she said, pulling him by the ear. “Mr. Echols is about to meet the commissioner and there’ll be photographers! Look what you’ve done to your clothes! You’ll iron them yourself again!”

Stunned, Bulldog and Peter released Carver as the portly woman dragged the burly Finn through the snow. Even after they’d vanished into a side entrance, the boys kept staring.

“Ironing?” Bulldog muttered. “Ironing?”

With the gang lost in wonder, Carver backed up a few feet and then broke into a trot. As the snow made its way through the rips in his coat, he thought about Finn’s newer, warmer clothes and how far, but how comfortably, the mighty had fallen. Why hadn’t Finn punched him when he was down? For that matter, what were the Echolses doing at the Tombs in this weather?

He moved east toward Centre Street. It was away from the New Pinkertons, but he desperately wanted to avoid crossing paths with the dark figure.

He didn’t think it possible, but the storm was getting worse. By the time he’d made half a block, lines of swirling white all but wiped the gang from view. Even the vast Tombs were blurry and indistinct, the swampy smell faded.

Ahead he saw even less. The line between street and building was clear, but not between street and sidewalk. Before he realized it was there, he walked straight into a hansom cab. It sat lopsided and horseless in the snow. Apparently the driver hadn’t seen the curb. There was no sign of him, either.

Carver was thinking of climbing in just to catch his breath when the cabin door swung open. Whirls of brown and gray emerged from the black interior.

Was it the stalker? Carver stumbled back. As this new figure
stood, though, Carver could see his shape and clothes were wrong. This figure was older, hunched…

“Mr. Hawking?” Carver said. Frost ringed the man’s bowler hat. Flecks of snow mingled with his salt-and-pepper mustache. He looked particularly vulnerable standing in the storm. Carver was thrilled to see him.

“Fool driver said he’d be back after he saw to the horses,” Hawking mumbled. He looked at Carver, only vaguely interested in the coincidence of running into him. “There’s been another murder.”

Body wobbling slightly in the wind, Hawking stabbed his cane in the direction of the Tombs. “And the killer was kind enough to leave the body there.”

“I WAS
followed,” Carver said.

Ignoring him, Hawking attempted a few steps through the snow before waving him over to help. “After you left, Tudd called from Mulberry Street, jabbering like a mad old woman. He’s still hoping to get me involved, I suppose. I stupidly said I’d take a look.”

“I was followed!” Carver blurted again.

Hawking chuckled.

As he told him the story, Carver put his arm around his mentor’s broad back and hoisted his bad arm across his shoulders. Leaving an odd set of tracks, they moved diagonally across Leonard toward Center Street. Part of him hoped Hawking would roll his eyes and give him some banal explanation that would make Carver feel stupid, but safer. Instead, Hawking stopped so suddenly, Carver nearly slipped and fell.

The detective twisted his head this way and that,
scanning what little was visible of the street. “I doubt just anyone would be out and about. You may well have stumbled upon the killer.”

“Why?” Carver said, stunned. “Why would he follow me?”

Hawking grimaced. “Must I explain the obvious? You’ve heard how some like to return to the scene of the crime? A man who dumps a body at the Tombs is looking for attention at the very least. Seeing you lurking around, he’d want to make sure you hadn’t seen him with the body. He was probably more afraid of you than you were of him.”

He looked at Carver’s fearful expression and sighed. “That last part was an exaggeration, I admit. We’d better keep moving. He could still be here and there’s safety in numbers, even if it is just Tudd and our corrupt police force.”

As they worked to get nearer, the front of the vast Tombs glimmered through the icy lines of the blizzard like a mirage in a sandstorm. When they turned the corner, Carver was startled by the commotion. Carriage-mounted searchlights, powered by hand-cranked generators, burned away the swirling snow, creating an eerie patch that looked like a sunny morning. A collection of wagons and carriages lay helter-skelter along street and sidewalk. That explained Bulldog and the rest of the snow shovelers. Clearing the streets near the Tombs was a priority because of the murder.

Hawking winced at the arc lighting, but Carver, fascinated by any machine, was pleased he could make out the features of the fifteen or so thick-coated men standing in a semicircle on the stairs.

“I want to stay out of sight,” his mentor said, indicating a street clock across the way. The pair soon rested against its wrought-iron pedestal, taking in the scene.

Hawking cleared his throat. “Don’t ask any fool questions until I’ve finished and you’ll get your answers more efficiently. A few nights ago, after an evening on the town with her friends, Mrs. Jane Hanbury Ingraham of Park Avenue vanished. Her body was found here early this morning. Despite the strenuous objections of an extremely distraught Mr. Ingraham, Roosevelt, apparently not a complete idiot, has kept the crime scene untouched until it can be completely examined, a difficult task even for the competent in this weather.” He motioned toward a familiar man in the center of the group, who was stamping his feet and gesticulating wildly. “I’d hoped to beat our silk-stockinged cowboy here, but no such luck.”

Hawking put his arm back around Carver’s shoulders. “We’ll have to get closer to learn anything. Should be easy to stay out of sight if we keep away from those lights.”

Moving as carefully as their odd configuration allowed, they edged closer. The eerie spotlights made the crime scene look like some fantastic outdoor theater play. Roosevelt, his square head, bushy mustache and pince-nez glasses, was center stage, his open overcoat flapping.

“Under our noses!” he barked. “The dastardly coward is saying he can do as he pleases whenever and wherever he likes! Can’t
anyone
tell us anything yet?”

For the first time, Carver spotted Tudd, the head of the New Pinkertons, looking wan and tired. He approached the commissioner but spoke too softly for Carver to hear.

Volume was not a problem with Roosevelt. “More time? The coroner’s had an hour! Mr. Ingraham is beside himself! He won’t even allow us to take her near the prison morgue. Do we at least know if she was killed here or elsewhere? Speak up! No?”

Hawking whispered to Carver, enhancing his sense that they
were watching a play. “Quite dramatic, isn’t he? Well, now… look who else we have.”

A solitary, pinch-faced man had stepped out from the building’s wide doors.

“Alexander Echols,” Carver said. So, that’s why Finn had been here.

“Reading the social pages when my back is turned?”

“No, they… he… adopted… someone. Isn’t he a district attorney?”

Hawking nodded. “Pit viper. If Echols adopted, it was window dressing. Your friend will have money, but only what passes for affection among reptiles. I’m sure he’ll appear in a lot of photos, though.”

Carver wanted to say that Finn was no friend, but the timing didn’t seem appropriate.

Echols shoved his way past the patrolmen and looked down. Immediately, his thin face twisted like a sickly pretzel. He covered his mouth and stepped back.

“Ha. A lizard with a weak stomach. What about you?” Hawking said. “Ever seen a dead body? Want to get a little closer?”

When Carver hesitated, Hawking bristled. “It’s not for entertainment; it’s part of your training. You’ll see a real horror sooner or later. Better you vomit here in the snow than in front of some agent who might think you weak. Besides, I have to tell Septimus about whatever the police get wrong. Be quiet, be quick!”

They moved another ten yards. All of Carver’s thoughts coasted to a halt when the body came into view. At first it looked like a pile of expensive clothing, dropped in a heap. But then his mind distinguished the folds of gown and cloak from the flesh and hair.

The harsh light rendered Jane Ingraham’s skin nearly white as
the snow. She looked like a statue carved in a ridiculously broken pose. As he stared longer, Carver made out a thin black line across her neck, dark stains on gown and ground. Maybe it was the distance, the snow or the lights, but as much as Carver knew he was looking at a human body, he couldn’t make himself believe it was real.