Winter at Death's Hotel (25 page)

“Them, too. I'm gonna tie it all together. It'll be sensational.”

“Are you going to catch the murderer?”

“Don't I wish! No, but you know, I might give him a little dig. Flush him out, maybe. Like the paper knows more than they're telling. Yeah, that's a nice angle.”

“But you don't know.”

Minnie waggled a hand back and forth. They both watched the people in the park. It was a crisp day, the sky starting to turn gray; it felt as if it might snow later. Still, it was better outdoors than working in a basement. Abruptly, she told Minnie about the missing drawers.

“Hey, that's funny. You got a dog? Or a cat? Jeez, I can see the headline, ‘EVIDENCE OF RATS IN SWANK HOTEL.' I'm kidding, Louisa.”

“There are no rats, Minnie. The walls are made of brick, and they're two feet thick.”

“Okay, ghosts. Ghosts are always good copy. A ghost that steals drawers when girls got the monthlies. How about we headline it, ‘GHOST WITH THE CURSE'?”

“Do be serious.”

“Well, how can I be serious? How likely is it that somebody came in and stole your pants? They didn't steal your pocketbook? Your jewelry? A pair of
underpants
? Sure, there's bums'll do that, loonies, perverts, but Louisa—in the New Britannic? Come on! You kicked 'em under the bed or you threw them in the wastebasket or you stuck them in a drawer.” She grinned. “Or, you got a ghost pervert.” She jumped up. “I gotta get to the paper.”

“You're so full of energy.”

“It's this story. I can't wait, you know? I got a couple more pieces to put together, but when I get those, I'm gonna fly! You and Leonard finish up this aft, then Leonard'll bring me what you find and I'll take it from there.”

“Leonard's rather a prize.”

“Has he tried to get into your unmentionables yet, speaking of drawers? Leonard's a poon hound.”

“I think he's rather sweet, in a vulgar way.”

“Between us girls, Leonard would, as they say down South, jump a rock in case there was a snake under it, but he works hard and he really knows the city records.”

“Has he tried his charms on you?”

“Every time I see him. He thinks ‘No' means ‘Keep trying.'”

Before they separated at the City Hall door, Louisa told her about the tickets that Colonel Cody had given her to the Wild West. Would Minnie like to go?

“Why me?”

Louisa was set back a little. “Because I want you to.”

“Oh.” Minnie looked suddenly shy. “Well, sure, okay. You sure you wouldn't rather take Leonard?”

“Saturday evening? Surely you'll have finished your story by then.”

“Well, ye-e-e-s, I guess. Okay, sure. Yeah. All dolled up, a nice supper? Wow, a night on the town. All we need is two men.”

***

“It was very nice meeting you, Leonard.”

It was twenty minutes to two. They had found five of Cleary's properties. They would never, she was sure, see each other again.

“You ain't leaving!”

“I have an appointment.” She was pulling on her gloves. She didn't have an appointment, but she had made a decision.

“You're supposed to stay until four.”

“I have something more important to do.” She had decided to go to the city morgue, Irving or no Irving—and of course there would be no Irving, because she knew what Arthur would say if she asked him.

“Hey! You can't go outta my life just like that!”

“Leonard, you're a very impertinent young man. I was never ‘in' your life. I am a married woman.”

“So? You said your old man's a drummer. What could be better?”

“Now you are being offensive.”

“It's love.”

“Goodbye, Leonard. Be sure to take the list to Miss Fitch.”

“You and me coulda made beautiful music together, Miz Doyle!”

“The only music you should be hearing is the wedding march. Find yourself some nice young woman and marry her.”

“Oh, no!” He put his hands on his head and mimed going crazy, then ran around the big space moaning and screaming and shouting, “No—no, no, anything but that!” And laughing.

She shook her head, but as she went out the door she was laughing, too.

She had to take a cab to the Tombs, where the morgue was, but she managed to get herself in and out by putting some of her weight on the bad ankle; it hurt, but not as much as yesterday. Galt had told her to test it, after all. Well, it was tested, and it had more or less passed.

The Tombs was a prison and a police court. Her guidebook had told her that the building housed “murderers, incendiaries, burglars, thieves, and all their horrid crew.” But the city's mortuary was down a gloomy, stone-walled corridor below the prison, so that the murderers and incendiaries were pacing the cells over her head as she was led to the proper door. The smell beyond it told her everything.

A skeptical-looking young man met her at a battered oak counter, a kind of parody of the New Britannic's Reception and its Cerberus. He was wearing a long cotton coat, perhaps once white, now the color called Isabella. He looked at her, frowned to show that he disapproved, and then said, “Can't be done. No visitors.”

“But of course there must be visitors! These are the dead!”

She had no idea how many people died every day in New York, or how many of those found their way to the city morgue, but she thought that there must be hundreds beyond the metal door the young man was guarding. Surely they couldn't be just left here, ignored, forgotten! She said, “I demand to see these unfortunate women. I wish to pay my respects.”

One side of his mouth curled up. “Respects, is it. You a professional girl too, that it?”

Louisa fell back on her training in the teachers' college. Her voice was frigid. “Do I look it?”

He looked at her, flushed, shrugged. “Anyway, can't be done. No visitors.”

“Why?”

“This is the city morgue! It ain't the Toole and Hanrahan Undertaking Parlour! We don't do viewings!”

“I want to see the two women who were murdered in the Bowery, young man. If I don't, Commissioner Roosevelt will hear of it!”

“Commissioner Roosevelt, oh, la-di-da. What you think he's got to do with the morgue, for Cripes' sake? He's the
police
! Anyway, there's only one woman murdered in the Bowery here now; the other one's gone.”

She was dumbfounded. “Where?”

“Family.”

“What
family
?”

“I got no idea. Somebody came and identified her and claimed her. She's probably in the ground by now. Go pay your respects there.” He laughed, enjoying his own joke. She wanted to hit him, thought she very well might, but then the metal door behind him opened and things changed, because Detective-Sergeant Dunne came through.

Dunne looked at her; his mouth opened and a frown formed as if he were trying to remember how he knew her, and he said, “Miz Doyle!” Behind him, a smaller man came out and looked at her as if he recognized the name that Dunne had just pronounced.

“Detective-Sergeant Dunne.” Louisa tamped down her anger at the young man. She smiled—she knew her smile had worked on the detective before. “What a happy coincidence! Would you
please
tell this young man to allow me to see the latest victim of this butcher!”

“
See
her. You don't want to see her, Miz Doyle. I just came from seeing her, and I've seen a lot, but…” He shook his head, looked as if for support at the smaller man, who nodded as if to say that it really was whatever the detective-sergeant hadn't managed to say. Dunne murmured, “This is Detective Cassidy. Miz Doyle, Cassidy.”

“I want to see her.”

“Why?” Dunne scowled. “
Why?
”

“You know why. You understood when we talked. This maniac is murdering women!”

“And so you want to
see
her? Isn't that a little morbid, Miz Doyle?”

“What are you suggesting?”

“It isn't normal for a nice woman to go looking at corpses, now, is it?”

“Normal! No, it isn't
normal
. Are you like all the rest, Detective-Sergeant? You want me to be a good little woman and go back into the box like a dolly when I'm threatening you with not being what you call ‘nice'? All right, I'm not
nice
. I want to see her.”

“Well, you can't.”

“Give me one reason.”

“There's a law. No unauthorized persons viewing deceased or injured or sick persons in city facilities.” He looked at the young man. “Right?”

The young man was delighted. “Exactly what I tole her.”

“You didn't, you fool; you accused me first of being a prostitute and then you said ‘la-di-da.'” She turned on Dunne. “I'll go to Commissioner Roosevelt if I have to!”

Dunne sighed and took her arm. “Let's go to the out-of-doors; I'm sick of smelling death.” He started her away from the desk and the young man, and she tried to object, but he kept hold of her arm and made little sounds of the sort he might have made to a stray dog or a horse—“Now, now, now, there,” and “It's fine, you'll be fine…” until he had her out in the silvery light. Then he released her and faced her and said, “You really must not go in there, Miz Doyle. It's too horrible for the likes of you.”

She returned his look. She felt no fear of him. Cleary and Grady had flummoxed her, but a great deal had happened since then, and anyway she had liked this one. Up until now. She said, “You're just like all the rest.”

He sighed again. He chewed his lower lip, said suddenly, “Cassidy!”

“Right.” The detective had come up behind them.

“Can you walk back to Three Hundred?”

“Well, if I have to…”

Dunne nodded. “Off you go.” He faced Louisa again. “I've got a carriage. I'll take you back to your hotel, and we'll have a little talk, you and me.”

“I can get myself back to my hotel, thank you!”

“You can, but a policeman is
telling
you that you're going in a police carriage. Now look here, Miz Doyle, I'll put it straight before you—you charmed the daylights out of me yesterday, but this time I see I should have been tougher on you. You're just too close to these murders. You see? I can't let it go like that. You see a victim in the hotel; you get visited by Cleary; you've got something going with that hotel detective about the murders. Now you want to see a mutilated body! It won't do! I can't let it go! You're coming with me in the carriage.”

“Or else what?”

Dunne sighed again, a long, theatrical sigh this time. “You'd tire out a steam engine! Or else you'll spend a few hours at Three Hundred with people who aren't as pleasant company as I am. Oh, come on, ma'am!” He led her to the curb. He had had the wisdom not to take her arm this time, not to seem to force her. She followed him. His threat was perhaps real enough, but what really took her after him was his seeming to
suspect
her.

The “carriage” was really a kind of buggy, barely big enough for two. She saw why Cassidy had been made to walk. “Up you go.” Dunne held out his hand for one of hers.

She looked dubiously at the narrow step. “I'm not sure I can do this…”

“Sure you can!” Without warning, he picked her up under the arms and raised her so high that she was able to find the buggy's floor with her good foot, first yelping and then saying, “Detective-Sergeant!” and then letting herself down on the buggy seat so that the vehicle swayed. “Detective-Sergeant Dunne!”

“Short way round Robin Hood's barn.” He took her crutches and pushed them under the seat, cross-wise of the buggy, then ran around and climbed up on the outside. The horse, blindered and bored, turned its head but wasn't able to see what was going on; it didn't seem to care, dropped a load of manure on the street, and then moved out in a leisurely way as Dunne flicked a rein over its back.

“I don't like to be manhandled in the public street, sir.” She heard what she'd said, added, “Or anywhere else.”

He looked at her, chuckled. “You're a dinger, you are.”

“What are your suspicions of me?”

“I didn't say I had suspicions.”

“You as much as did. Get on with it!”

He shook his head, urged the horse into a near-trot. He seemed at home with reins in his big hands. “I thought I'd show you a bit of New York as we go, do you mind? We'd go up to Mulberry Street and maybe go by where the murders were found.”

“I'm surprised you don't find such a thing too morbid for me.”

They rode in silence for a hundred feet. He said, “Now, where we are right now is Park Row, heading sort of east. See, this corner here is Bowery.” He pointed at a congested opening between the buildings; down the center of it ran a girdered construction that seemed to suck all the light from the street below. “That's the elevated railway, what we call the El.”

“I have been on the Bowery, and I know what the Elevated is.”

“The Bowery's got more life than a trunkful of monkeys.”

He touched the reins to the horse's back to move it along. At the foot of Bowery, they went back into Park Row and then left into a broad road that was filled with vehicles. He said, “I'll show you the eighth wonder of the world if you don't mind taking the time.”

“If I say no, will you arrest me?”

“Not if you behave yourself.”

He urged the horse into the fastest line of traffic, but they were all fast. She sensed hurry, tension here, as she had not in the other streets. They were going up a long approach; on each side, the second stories of tenements were on their level, then the third stories as they climbed. Ahead, two enormous arches appeared. He said, “Know what it is?” She knew, but she shook her head.