Things Half in Shadow (39 page)

“You need to be more careful,” Violet replied before turning to me. “And you, Edward, must join us for lunch.”

I looked to the cab's driver, who was doing a bad job of pretending not to hear our conversation. It made me wonder what else he had heard on the journey there. Probably every word. He gave me an impatient stare, waiting to know if he needed to find another fare.

“I'm afraid I can't,” I told Violet. “I have a very busy afternoon ahead.”

“Oh, I wish you'd stay,” she said. “It would be so much fun. Like an impromptu party, what with Bertie here and all.”

“Bertie? He's
here
?”

“Yes. He stopped by for lunch, too.”

Looking toward the house, my heart dropped into my stomach as Bertie Johnson stepped onto the porch. Now instead of just guilt, I also felt panic, which manifested itself in a series of heart palpitations.

“Bertram,” I said, my tongue sticking to the roof of my suddenly dry mouth. “How have you been?”

“Fine, fine,” Bertie replied. “And what have you been up to lately?”

“Just trying to keep busy.”

Violet tugged on my arm. “You two can catch up inside. Please, let's all go in and eat.”

“I really can't.” I took Violet's hand one last time, hoping she couldn't notice how much my hands were trembling. “I'm sorry, my darling. I must be off.”

Before she could argue, I tapped the driver's shoulder and the carriage jerked to a start. I turned around and waved good-bye, watching the figures of Jasper, Violet, and Bertie Johnson recede in the distance.

Leaving them did nothing to quell my panicked thoughts. I didn't know for certain why Bertie had called on Violet. I didn't even know if he had clearly seen me the night before, outside Mr. Barnum's party. But just like my run-in with Jasper, Bertie's presence at the Willoughby home was an ominous turn of events. No matter how much I tried to remain discreet, my secret activities were catching up with me.

Yet when the cab reached Locust Street, all thoughts of Bertie Johnson and Jasper Willoughby vanished. That's because Barclay's police coach was parked in front of my house. My nervousness was immediately replaced by hopeful anticipation that he had come upon some useful information. My hopes got even higher when I saw Barclay leave my house and head down the front steps. I paid the driver and jumped out of the cab, intercepting Barclay before he got into his coach.

“You're here with good news, I hope.”

“News, yes,” Barclay said. “But I can't say it's good, Edward.”

“What have you learned?”

Barclay opened the door to his coach and gestured for me to climb inside.

“The toxicologist finished his tests on the Kruger girl's corpse. You were right, Edward. She was indeed poisoned. With bee venom.”

T
he Fishtown section of Philadelphia was as gritty and hardscrabble as its name implied. Stone buildings and wooden shacks lined its narrow streets, pressed as tightly together as sardines in a tin. Wash lines, stretching from window to window, crisscrossed overhead, each one drooping with shirts, frayed trousers, and plain dresses. Stoop-shouldered residents lumbered to and from the docks, the women wearing kerchiefs, the men in fishermen's caps. And rising from everywhere—the river, the streets, the houses themselves—was the pungent smell of fish. The air was thick with it, an all-encompassing stench that filled my nostrils and coated the back of my throat.

The odor was especially strong outside the Kruger residence, thanks in no small part to the hovel next door that sold fried shad. Inside the home was no different, although the smell there was tempered by the scents of other foods—boiling cabbage, frying potatoes, Wienerschnitzel.

Margarethe Kruger stood at the stove, dealing with the intrusion of Barclay and me by not dealing with us at all. Her remaining daughter, Louisa, sat with us at a small wooden table, trying her best to get her mother to talk. Following a brief and tense exchange in German, Louisa turned to us and said, “My mother doesn't want to discuss Sophie with you. She's dead. That's all that matters to her.”

“But your sister was very likely murdered,” Barclay said. “Doesn't she want justice?”

Louisa and her mother exchanged more tense words in German. When they were finished, Louisa told us, “She only wants peace.”

I looked to the stove, where Mrs. Kruger, stone-faced, tended to her cooking. Our presence made her uncomfortable, that much was clear, and I longed to retreat with Louisa to another room where we wouldn't be a bother. Only there was no other place to retreat to. Upstairs was their sleeping quarters, off-limits to two grown men who weren't members of the family. The ground level was just a single, cramped space—part kitchen, part keeping room. Other than the table and stove, the furniture was sparse. I spotted a few more wooden chairs in the corner, a side table with uneven legs, and a tall cabinet. With such a lack of storage, much of the family's belongings dangled from the rafters. Shoes and satchels hung next to clusters of herbs, frying pans beside cured meats. Above the door was a rusted horseshoe, which had done little to bring this family luck.

“What about you?” I asked Louisa. “Don't you want to see your sister's killer brought to justice?”

“I do,” the girl said. “But not at the risk of displeasing my mother. I must respect her wishes.”

From the stove, Margarethe Kruger said something to her daughter.

“What did she say?” Barclay asked.

“She asked me when the two policemen planned to leave,” Louisa said.

“I'm not a policeman,” I replied. “And we're not leaving until one of you answers our questions.”

“I have a question of my own.” Louisa stared at us from across the table, her face calm but her eyes fiery and inquisitive. “Why do you say Sophie was murdered? It was our understanding that she drowned.”

Barclay fielded that question, explaining how we had found the needle mark on Sophie's arm. Mention of a needle prompted Louisa to push up the sleeve of her dress until it was bunched past
her elbow. In the crook of her arm was a mark similar to the one found on her sister.

“See? I have one as well. Last week, both of us were—” She struggled to find the right word in English, using her thumb and two fingers to mime receiving an injection in her arm.

“Inoculated?” I offered.

Louisa nodded. “Yes. That. Against smallpox.”

Her mother, hearing an English word she recognized, waved a spoon at us and said, “Smallpox.
Es wurde viel krankheit hier.
”

“She said that there has been a lot of illness in the neighborhood,” Louisa told us. “She didn't want either of us to get sick as well.”

“That might account for the injection mark on your sister's arm,” Barclay said. “But it doesn't explain the poison found in her system.”

Louisa looked more confused than ever. “What poison?”

“Someone had dosed her with bee venom,” Barclay said. “Much more than what could be achieved by a single sting.”

I could tell young Louisa believed us, for tears began to leak from her eyes. My heart ached for her. It was bad enough that a girl her age should be forced to speak about her sister's death. The fact that murder was involved made it all the more heartbreaking.

“I'm sorry for your loss,” I said.

“Danke.”

Louisa used a sleeve to wipe away the tears, leaving a streak of moisture on her cheek. Then she went to the stove and broke the terrible news to her mother. Margarethe Kruger's reaction consisted of a few nods and little else.

“My mother thanks you for bringing us that news,” Louisa said.

“We would like to ask our questions,” Barclay replied. “If we may.”

Mrs. Kruger approached the table and placed plates of food in front of us. It was the Wienerschnitzel, potatoes, and cabbage, piping hot and smelling delectable.

“Bitte iss,”
she instructed.

Then she took a seat, staring at Barclay and me through sad, tired eyes.
“Warum sind sie nicht essen?”
she asked her daughter.

“My mother asks why you aren't eating,” Louisa informed us.

I wasn't hungry. Neither was Barclay, from the looks of it. But we both dug into our plates, knowing that appealing to a cook's pride was the likeliest way to get Mrs. Kruger to talk.

“It's delicious,” I said.

“Outstanding,” Barclay added.

Louisa smiled at her mother.
“Kostlich.”

“Sie kann mehr fragen stellen.”

“What did she say?” I asked.

“That you may ask more questions,” Louisa said.

Barclay did just that, posing several to Mrs. Kruger, with Louisa serving as the interpreter between them.

“Did Sophie attend school?”

“No.”

“What did she do?”

“She was a washerwoman, like my mother,” Louisa said. “Sometimes she'd earn extra money at the docks mending torn fishing nets.”

“Did she meet any unsavory characters at the docks? Anyone who might wish to harm her?”

“No.”

“Did your sister have any close friends?”

“She was friends with a girl in the neighborhood,” Louisa said. “I do not know her name.”

“That's all?” Barclay asked. “No gentlemen friends? No sweethearts?”

Louisa shrugged, unable to help us. “If there were, I did not know them.”

In an effort to appease Margarethe Kruger, I had continued taking intermittent bites of food as they conversed. But Barclay's
last question reminded me of something Louisa had said the morning her sister's body was found.

“You said Sophie often slipped away at odd hours of the night,” I said. “For what reason?”

“I already told you, sir, I do not know.”

“Did this happen frequently?” Barclay inquired.

“I believe so,” Louisa said. “It wasn't unusual for people to come to the door asking for Sophie.”

“And your mother let her go with them?”

“Yes, sir.”

Barclay pushed his plate away and leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Were these callers mostly men?”

While an awful question, it needed to be asked. I had seen prostitutes younger than Sophie roaming the city's streets. If she had been among their ranks, we had to know about it.

Louisa, sensing the unspoken accusation in Barclay's question, began to cry again. “I do not know.”

“Does your mother know?” Barclay asked.

Louisa asked her mother something in German. Mrs. Kruger shook her head and said,
“Nein.”

“I apologize for what I'm about to say next,” Barclay said. “But it sounds to me that your sister was also earning money as a prostitute. It also appears that your mother knew about it. Did she?”

Louisa, though visibly scandalized, handled the words well. “Please, sir. I cannot ask my mother such a question.”

“Louisa, your sister might have been murdered because of her actions,” Barclay said. “We won't leave until we get an answer.”

Louisa faced her mother. She took Mrs. Kruger's hands in hers and asked,
“Mutter, war Sophie eine prostituierte?”

Margarethe Kruger released a hand and held it to her open mouth.
“Gott in Himmel! Nein
!”

“See,” Louisa told us. “She wasn't.”

“Then why did she leave at all hours of the night?” Barclay angrily asked. “What else could she possibly have been doing?”

Louisa posed the question to her mother, who lowered her head in shame.

“Sie konnte mit den toten sprechen,”
Margarethe Kruger said.

A gasp caught midway in Louisa's throat—a hiccup of shock. “Is this true?”

Mrs. Kruger gave a solemn nod.
“Jah.”

“What is she saying?” I asked. “What is it that your sister did?”

“My mother,” Louisa replied, “said that Sophie could speak to the dead.”

B
arclay and I heard the full story, first in German from Mrs. Kruger, then translated by Louisa.

Apparently, Sophie began communicating with the dead at a very early age. Mrs. Kruger said she first noticed it not long after her husband died, when Sophie was six. The girl had invented an imaginary friend, whom she chattered with constantly for days. When Margarethe Kruger finally inquired about the name of this invisible friend, Sophie replied,
“Ich bin mit Vater reden.”

I'm talking to Father.

At first, the recent widow assumed it was nonsense, simply her daughter's way of coping with her grief. Sophie missed her father, after all, so it was natural she would pretend he was still with them. But when the girl started telling her things only Mr. Kruger could have known, Margarethe began to suspect something unusual was taking place. She posed a series of questions to Sophie, ones in which the answer could only be provided by her late husband. Sophie gave a correct response to all of them.

That was when Margarethe Kruger realized the truth—her daughter really was conversing with her deceased husband.

Over the years, Sophie continued to communicate with the dead. Not just her late father anymore, but others who had shuffled off this mortal coil. Some were familiar to Mrs. Kruger—distant relatives or long-lost friends—but many were strangers. When a few neighbors got word of Sophie's gift, they asked the girl to contact their own loved ones from the Great Beyond. Soon the news of Sophie's abilities spread beyond the neighborhood, and strangers sometimes arrived at their doorstep at all hours, begging the girl to reach loved ones.

At first, Mrs. Kruger refused to allow her daughter to perform such acts, reconsidering only after the strangers began to offer money. Still, she drew the line at letting Sophie talk to the dead in their own home, fearing it would bring nothing but bad luck. So the girl was whisked to the customers' homes or a nearby inn to play medium between them and their loved ones.