River of Bones Read online

  ‘He can sleep in the annex,’ Margery said. ‘I’ll set up a bed.’

  I nodded. ‘I’d like to see him before we move him here. He’s been pushed around a lot. I want to make sure we aren’t entirely overwhelming him.’

  ‘What are you suggesting?’ McCurley asked.

  ‘I’ll pay you a visit this afternoon and examine the two babies. It will show him that I don’t mean anyone harm, and it might also give me an idea why he wants to protect them. I planned on checking on Líadáin’s hip anyway.’

  ‘Last plum.’ McCurley chucked the gutted fruit into the bowl with all the others.

  ‘Let’s talk in my office for a moment.’

  * * *

  With my cluttered desk between us, I regarded McCurley for a moment. ‘There are hundreds of homeless boys in Boston, yet you are personally invested in this one. Why?’

  Frowning, he folded his hands in his lap. ‘My instincts tell me he went through a lot. Yet he hasn’t been broken by it.’

  ‘But maybe he’s about to be.’

  ‘Yes.’ He tipped his head to the side, scanning my face. ‘Sometimes we meet people we understand instantly. Without ever needing to say a word.’

  For a moment, I wasn’t sure if he meant the boy or me. I watched him drop his gaze. After a moment, I said, ‘Silence never makes you uncomfortable.’

  ‘Silence is merely the lack of noise. Rarely a lack of information.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘The Boston Police Department will pay you a monthly allowance—’

  ‘I don’t need it.’

  ‘But… You quit your lecturer post, didn’t you? I don’t mean to intrude, but is it because of what Haywood did to you?’

  ‘Lecturing didn’t suit me any longer.’ I didn’t elaborate.

  ‘And you closed your practice. Don’t you need the money?’

  Was there worry in his voice? ‘No, I don’t need it.’

  Nodding, he began to fumble with his hat.

  ‘My reason is…not easy to explain. I used to live in a London slum. It was by choice, but also by necessity. On the one hand, I needed to remain anonymous. On the other, I wanted to use my skills to help people. I told my neighbours that I was a nurse. You can imagine that I never ran out of patients.’ I dropped my gaze to my hands, searching for the right words. ‘I’ve been living in Boston for three years now. All the patients I’ve had could afford to see me. But very few really needed me. My students didn’t need me either. Anyone can fill these posts. But the people in Wards Six and Seven? There is no one else.’ I looked up at him.

  He brushed his fingertips over his moustache. Traced the chaos of papers on my desk with his gaze. ‘Do you think you owe me this?’

  ‘Owe you what?’

  ‘To take in the boy. To tell me about yourself. Because of…that night.’

  ‘When you saved my life? I never thanked you for it, Inspector McCurley. Thank you. If you had not broken down my back door and killed Haywood, my daughter would be growing up without a mother.’ The memory of that night still haunted me: Haywood’s hands around my throat; his weight crushing my windpipe; the cruel words he’d whispered. ‘I do owe you. But that’s not the reason I told you this small bit about my past. It’s more that I…have come to think of you more as…a friend, than a policeman.’ And in my mind, I added, Two people can’t walk a knife’s edge hand in hand without being welded together by it or cut apart.

  His expression darkened. His throat worked. ‘You don’t owe me anything. You helped me catch a killer, and you helped my daughter.’

  ‘I owe you respect and honesty.’

  He inclined his head. ‘As I owe you.’ He paused, then added, ‘My friends call me Quinn.’

  His offer took me by surprise. I made an effort to harden my expression and keep the corners of my mouth down. ‘I’m German. We Germans never address each other with our given names. Only spouses do, and then only after the wedding night.’

  Shock flared across his features. ‘I didn’t mean to—’

  I clapped a palm over my mouth, bursting with laughter. ‘My friends call me Liz. Except the ones I annoy all the time. Those call me Elizabeth.’ I held out my hand to him.

  A thin smile spread across his face. An eyebrow flicked up lazily. ‘So you are German. Not British, as your passport states. The Consulate told me exactly that.’

  My hand wilted. All warmth escaped my limbs. He’d dug around in my past three months ago. He’d even told me about it and demanded answers. His Chief Superintendent had ordered McCurley to stop meddling after he received a missive from the British Foreign Office. However that had come about. McCurley knew his curiosity was threatening my safety and that of my daughter. I curled my hand to a fist. ‘You promised not to—’

  Throwing back his head, he barked a laugh. ‘Got you.’ Still chuckling, he wiped a hand over his face, and extended the other to me, ‘Elizabeth it is, then. I’m always only Quinn, whether I make people cross with me or not.’

  I narrowed my eyes at him. ‘I guess I have to get used to you having humour. A wicked one at that.’

  ‘Please don’t. The joke was an outlier. I’m usually dead serious.’

  I blew out a breath. ‘I’m relieved. I’d rather talk about decomposing corpses.’

  He pulled a cigarette from his breast pocket and tapped its end against the desk.

  ‘Margery will bash your head in with the skillet if you smoke this in the house.’

  ‘I stopped. It’s a waste of money. Smoking, that is.’ He didn’t look at me.

  A lump formed in my throat. The recession must have hit him hard. He couldn’t afford to keep the boy, couldn’t afford to pay for such a small thing as tobacco. I wondered if his pay was lower than that of his fellow inspectors because he was Irish, without an influential family, and thus considered cheap labour.

  A few more taps of cigarette against desk before he lifted his eyes. ‘As I said earlier, the man must have fallen from a great height. Third or fourth floor, the medical examiner told me. He fell on his back, and was moved within the hour. The body was kept curled on its left side for about a week. We don’t know where yet. A specialist has begun examining the fly larvae. The corpse has been washed and stuck with a lancet to let the gases escape. Professor Goodman is concerned the body will burst if it is cut open too soon. So far, they’ve only looked for injuries and the like. Scars that could help identify him. Wounds that might speak to the cause of death. By Friday, he’ll be sufficiently degassed to be opened. Goodman will be able to give you more details.’

  As I listened to him, I couldn’t help but wonder why he was offering me his friendship. During the early summer weeks, when he’d been working on solving a string of murders, he treated me like dirt under his fingernails. I’d been a suspect, and his strategy to get me to talk had been that of a hammer pounding a nail. Only when it had become absolutely necessary, had he allowed me a glimpse behind his aloof facade. I’d seen kindness there. Strength. But also self-doubt and grief. If what he’d revealed was his real self, I’d known him for barely a day. But I would never forget how he saved me from the Railway Strangler, how he helped me suck breath through my damaged windpipe. As though he and I, breathing together, was the most natural thing on earth.

  ‘You told me the body was found by the river. Were there any footprints in the muck? Wheel tracks?’ I kept thinking of him as Inspector McCurley and had to correct myself.

  ‘We found both. The body must have been transported in a horse carriage. A four-wheeler. We found the boot prints of two people who moved the corpse from the carriage to the river. It seems that the boy was clinging to the back of the carriage, and dropped off when it slowed down. His prints appeared several yards from where the carriage stopped, and trailed off to a hiding spot in the tall grass, then straight to the corpse.’

  ‘Hum. Did he walk around the body, lean in to search it, or go anywhere else?’

  ‘No. He went straight to the body and l
aid down next to it.’

  ‘He knew the man was dead,’ I said.

  Quinn lifted a shoulder. ‘The stink was impossible to miss. We captured all prints with Plaster of Paris, including those of the horses and the wheels, of the man who discovered the corpse, his dogs, and the first policeman to arrive at the scene.

  ‘There were no other prints?’

  ‘No, we were lucky. The flood had pushed the river waters up and washed away all earlier footprints. The body was deposited when the tide was lowest and no passersby had yet come up to the river. This and the tide lines gave us a good estimate on when the man was dumped there. About two hours before dawn.’

  ‘Did anyone see the carriage arrive or leave?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Why would someone drop a corpse by the river just after the tide went out? And leave a map of footprints for the police to find?’

  ‘I was asking myself these same questions.’

  4

  It was Ms Hacker with little Billy clamped under her arm who opened the door to Quinn’s apartment. ‘The boy is hiding behind the couch,’ she whispered and rolled her eyes.

  ‘You’ve fattened him up well,’ I said with a nod to her son.

  ‘He’s a good eater, that one.’ A smile flitted across her face.

  ‘No problems with breastfeeding?’

  ‘No. Thanks to you. Give me that.’ She made an impatient gesture at my jacket.

  Before she could take it, I dropped the garment on a peg by the door, kicked off my shoes and stepped into the sitting room. Two windows stood open to ease the late summer heat. The mourning cloths had been removed from the few pictures that hung on the walls. The photograph of Quinn’s late wife stood on the mantelpiece without black ribbons framing her likeness. Only three months earlier, this place had been shrouded in grief.

  The door to Quinn’s bedroom was ajar. ‘Just a moment!’ he called through it. He was rummaging around with something, while Líadáin burbled away happily.

  I turned to Ms Hacker. ‘I’d like to examine the boy, but he won’t let anyone near him. So I was thinking that I should examine Billy and Líadáin first, to show him that I mean no harm.’ The boy’s teeth and any scarring he might have would tell me about his past, I hoped.

  Ms Hacker grunted softly and I took it as an agreement of some kind. Quinn entered the sitting room, slowly walking Líadáin between his legs. She was grinning widely, showing off four perfect teeth and her ability to wobble in a straight line with the help of her father.

  I sank to my knees. ‘You grew so big.’ I tickled her belly. ‘And chubby! You are a pumpkin, little one.’

  ‘Best way to get my figure back,’ Ms Hacker informed me. ‘They suck the fat right out of me.’

  Quinn coughed, then tipped his head toward the couch. ‘Let’s try to lure him out with cookies.’

  ‘Has he spent the whole day there?’

  ‘No. He hid when he saw that Billy was crying,’ Quinn said.

  ‘He’s teething,’ Ms Hacker supplied with a shrug.

  ‘Hum. Let’s sit, have tea and cookies, and talk. Try not to stare at him when I lure him out.’

  Ms Hacker made tea, Quinn set the table, and I picked a cookie and crouched down at the back of the couch.

  The boy had his face tucked against his knees, fingers of one hand splayed against the floor. As I rapped my knuckles against the floorboards, he looked up. I smiled and held out the biscuit. ‘Do you remember me?’

  He gave me the tiniest of nods.

  ‘We are having tea and cookies. Do you want some?’

  He flicked his gaze from my face to my outstretched hand. Hesitantly scooted forward, picked up the cookie, and nibbled at it. I moved back to give him space. After some consideration, he crept from his hiding spot.

  That was quick, I thought.

  He came to a halt, observing the two adults and their children. I tapped his shoulder and nodded at a chair, then walked around the table and sat down. Swallowing, he climbed on the chair and hid a hand under the table. I guessed that he was pressing his fingers against the tabletop from underneath.

  The boy’s gaze was bouncing between Quinn and Líadáin. He seemed puzzled by the softly amused expression in Quinn’s face as little Líadáin crushed two cookies with her fists, and conveyed the crumbs to her mouth by simply dropping her face into the mess.

  I tapped on the table to catch the boy’s attention. Sharp hazel eyes found mine. ‘I have a request if you don’t mind?’

  His anxious expression didn’t change one bit.

  ‘Are you a good worker?’

  A small nod.

  ‘Have you ever made preserve?’

  He dropped his head, shoulders sagging.

  I tapped on the table again until he looked up. ‘It’s all right. You are a clever boy; you can learn it.’

  I scrambled to form short and clear sentences that were easy to read from my lips. ‘Margery, my housekeeper, will show you. It is mostly washing fruits and vegetables, cutting them, boiling them, and filling them into clean jars. Margery has lots to do and needs help. Would you like to help?’

  I had to repeat myself twice until the boy gave another small nod. But I couldn’t tell if he found the prospect of jam making agreeable at all.

  ‘We live in a house with a garden. That’s where Klara picked strawberries for you. You remember Klara, my daughter, do you?’

  There was a vigorous nod. A person he liked. Good.

  I smiled. ‘She could use a friend. If you want, you can live with us until we find your family.’

  His small face lost all colour. Even his irises seemed to blanch. His body tensed, ready to curl up.

  Quickly, I rapped my knuckles against the table. He peeked through his bangs.

  ‘Do you have a mother?’

  He frowned. Did he not understand the word?

  ‘Mother,’ I repeated, touching Ms Hacker’s shoulder, then placed my hand on Billy’s head. ‘She is Billy’s mother.’

  The boy narrowed his eyes at little Billy who was waving his arms and legs, his face buried in Ms Hacker’s bosom, making loud sucking noises as he fed.

  He shook his head without looking at me.

  I motioned to Líadáin on Quinn’s lap, and explained that this was father and daughter, and asked the boy whether he had a father. He frowned again, seemingly undecided how to respond, and then simply shrugged.

  ‘The man by the river, was he your father?’

  The boy pressed his lips to a thin line, his eyes searching the room then dropping to the tablecloth.

  ‘I am so sorry,’ I said when he looked up again. I tried to read his face but found only confusion. ‘If you could tell us where you came from, and if there is someone who is missing you, Inspector McCurley will try to find them.’

  With an eerie howl, he clapped his hands to his face and dropped under the table. Quinn and I exchanged a worried look. I drew aside the tablecloth and followed the boy. He sat hunched, face tucked to his knees, fingers of one hand pressed to the rug. I began to hate this posture that screamed of terror.

  I knocked, but he shook his head, refusing to look up. I knocked once more, but again he refused. So I did the only thing I could think of. Very gently, I placed my hand over his. The soft touch startled him so much, that he jumped and hit his head on the bottom of the table.

  Quickly, I scooted back to give him space. He glowered at me.

  ‘People have hurt you?’

  His chin set. Eyes grew flat and cold. That wasn’t an expression a six-year-old should be capable of. It was the expression of someone who had seen war. I was shocked into silence. Very slowly, I held out my hand, palm up. A gesture of peace.

  He never took his eyes off mine.

  ‘Do you know what a promise is?’

  A near imperceptible nod, and still the same hard expression.

  ‘You must know that I keep my promises. And I promise you now that you are safe with us. We will not hur
t you.’

  He did not move.

  ‘I know that such a promise is hard to believe coming from a stranger. Do you still want to live in my house and help Margery make strawberry jam?’

  I was sure he wanted to nod. But he pointed at Líadáin’s feet that were kicking the hanging tablecloth, then pointed at himself.

  ‘She lives here,’ I said.

  He pointed again at Líadáin, then at Billy, and then at himself. He curled a hand to his fist and thumped it against his chest. I wondered what it meant, then remembered Quinn telling me that the boy seemed set on protecting the babies.

  ‘You don’t want to leave the two children?’

  He pushed out his lower lip and nodded once.

  ‘I understand. I suggest a compromise. You and I come to visit. I am a doctor. You can be my assistant. We will make sure the babies are doing well. Does that sound acceptable?’

  He didn’t react, just kept staring at me.

  ‘Think about it. I will eat another cookie. Tell me what you have decided once you are ready.’ I waited for a sign of agreement, then moved back onto my chair.

  Grim and heartbroken silence settled in the room.

  Until Quinn broke it. ‘Whatever we might find out about that boy’s life, it won’t be pretty. And we would be ill-advised to send him back to where he came from. If we ever manage to find the place.’

  5

  The Boston Post, Thursday, September 7, 1893

  * * *

  MYSTIC RIVER MAN STILL UNIDENTIFIED

  The body of a man found four days ago on a bank of Mystic River near Middlesex Avenue, Somerville, is still unidentified. The Somerville, Boston, and the Cambridge police departments will not say whether he was murdered or killed in an unfortunate accident. The body is laid out at the City Morgue for public viewing, and a description of the man has been publicised, but his identity remains a mystery. Every year, about a dozen of the four-hundred or so bodies brought to the City Morgue are buried without identification.