A Madness So Discreet (9 page)

T
hornhollow said a good dissection must be done while the subject is still fresh. He brought a steaming pot into his office, the warm scent of coffee following while Grace chafed her hands together for warmth.

“I'd apologize for dragging you out on a night such as this,” the doctor said, “but this particular crime being as straightforward as it is affords the perfect opportunity for you to cut your teeth.”

Grace accepted a steaming mug and settled onto a leather chair. “Straightforward?”

“Yes, quite, as I'll explain,” Thornhollow said as he rolled a chalkboard to the front of the office, knocking askew a few piles of books as he did. “I'd apologize for the mess as well, but it's not likely I'll ever clean the place.”

Grace looked around his office, which was rather a mess. Piles of books fought a tottering battle against gravity, unaided by their own weight whenever his relentless wanderings shook the warped floorboards. His coat was flung across the desk, and he'd set the coffeepot on top of it.

“Now to work, young Grace, before sleep claims you again.”

She shook her head to clear it, already lulled by the warmth of the fire. The loose end of her bandage had unwound itself and flapped against her cheek. She tucked it back in, her fingers adept at the movement, now so familiar. “I'm ready when you are, Doctor.”

“Good,” he said. “Tonight, a brief primer. We'll see if you're able to draw any conclusions.” He turned to the chalkboard, but his fingers played with the chalk as he spoke.

“Do you remember the Ripper killings in London a few years back?”

“I remember everyone talking about them,” Grace said. “But I don't know much about the murders. Mother said it wasn't a fit topic for me, and she wouldn't allow the newspapers in the house for fear that . . .” Grace's throat closed, as if a valve from her former life had turned, not allowing her to speak of it.

Thornhollow nodded, all his attention on her words, not her emotions. “I'm not surprised she'd shield you from such events. It was a nasty business. The papers would have you think it was a new type of person altogether, or a demon at work. But there are those
of us who've seen dark things long before the Ripper took his nighttime walks. The only thing new in this story was a method that the police used in an attempt to find the killer.

“Most crime solving involves a very simple approach, Grace. Who? When? Why? How? That's it. These questions are pivotal and have done their duty for a long time, and done it well. But in the case of the Ripper they weren't doing the trick. Some scientists started looking at the behavior of the criminal
before
and
after
the crime, not just during, in order to collect information about who this person might be, what their profession is, their connection to the victim, even what their emotional state was like at different times before, during, and after the event. All these things can help establish a picture of your criminal well beyond the simple monosyllabic questions we've been asking for centuries.”

Grace sipped her coffee, letting the warmth soothe her vocal cords and the rough spot that had opened up when she spoke of the past. “That's all very well, Doctor, but I have to point out that the Ripper was never caught, new method or not.”

Thornhollow stopped pacing and bit his cheek. “True. However, I became somewhat entranced by the idea and have spent years in study, gathering information about individuals that are known murderers so that we may have a collection of facts to draw from when we don't know who we're looking for. We're drawing a picture, if you will, of what kind of man—or woman—would do certain deeds, and
how they'd go about doing them.”

“So, you work backward, in a sense,” Grace said, her eyebrows drawing together as a headache began to form at her temples, pulsing against the bandage. “Instead of learning their biography after you catch them, you put together a story about who you think they are, and then use that to track them down.”

“Precisely.”

A flush of pride flowed through Grace at his word, a warmth in her belly not provided by the coffee.

“In the case of the Ripper, you're right. He was never caught, but I believe the methodology is sound and have used it myself multiple times to aid the police in Boston. Coming to Ohio means I'm casting my net in a smaller pond, no doubt. Boston was so full of murders some nights, I hardly knew which crime scene to attend, but the hospital here is the most humane I've seen, and I grew weary of operating in darkness both day and night.”

“Don't be deceived by a pleasant setting, Doctor,” Grace warned. “Sometimes the loveliest places harbor the worst monsters.”

“Very true,” he acknowledged. “With that in mind, I'll ask you a straightforward question. If you were to murder someone, who would you kill?”

“My father,” she said promptly.

He nodded, as if he'd expected the answer. “And how would you do it?”

She answered immediately, allowing the smoldering feeling in her belly to take control of her vocal cords before giving any thought to the words. “I'd scratch his heart out of his chest and stamp on it. Then I'd gouge out his eyes.”

“Oh,” Thornhollow said, after a pause. “That's . . .” He cleared his throat. “It definitely serves to prove my point.”

Grace tightened her hands on her coffee cup. “Forgive me, Doctor,” she said, the heat from her words lighting her cheeks a bright red. “I didn't mean—”

“No,” he interrupted her. “Do not apologize. You
did
mean. You meant every word exactly as you said it. And no one, least of all me, will ever judge you for that.”

She looked down into the swirling dregs of her coffee, as the headache gained traction. “Thank you,” she said.

“As I was saying, your proposed actions illustrate my point very well. And now a second scenario. I want you to imagine that you need money. You're a poor girl on the streets and you may starve before the day is out. You see a well-dressed man on the corner in the dark of night. You're going to kill him and take his money. How will you do it?”

“I . . .” Grace's voice faltered as she pictured the scene. Though she came from wealth, she understood desperation, and her mind picked over the imaginary scene.

“I'd pick up a brick, I suppose, or a rock. I'd sneak up on him, hit him on the head, and take his wallet.”

“Precisely,” Thornhollow said. “In our first instance you have a personal connection to the victim—your father. You are motivated by emotion and revenge. You commit the proposed crime with your bare hands, even mutilate his face in order to strip him of the power to look at you as he's dying.”

“But with the man in the alley I don't care,” Grace said, filling in the gaps on her own. “I'm killing him because I need his money, not because I want to hurt him. It's not . . . it's not personal.”

Thornhollow nodded. “Spot-on. Falsteed was right to call you a quick study. Now, earlier I said that tonight's murder was a simple one. Why?”

“Because—”

“Wait,” he said, stopping her. “Don't be too hasty. Close your eyes and see.”

Grace did so, letting her mind slip back into the moments where she'd stood immobile on the wet bricks, the rivulets of blood trailing past her shoes.

“He was shot in the head,” she said, her eyes roving over where the body lay on the ground. “In the face,” she corrected.

“And so?”

“So . . . the killer probably knew him. They wanted to disfigure him.”

“Not only that”—Thornhollow's voice sidled into her reverie—“but the killer also wanted to be seen by attacking from the front. The killer wanted the victim to know who was taking his life.”

“They knew each other,” Grace said, her eyes still closed while internally roving over the picture in her mind. “He was married,” she said quietly, when she spotted the ring on his left hand.

“He was,” Thornhollow agreed.

Her inner gaze left the body, traveled over the surroundings, lit only by the sputtering gas lamps and the feeble light streaming from the windows of the building the victim was killed in front of. “Why was a married man at a pub in the dead of night?” she asked.

“Why indeed?”

Grace opened her eyes. “You searched his pockets,” she said. “Why?”

“To see if he was robbed. Which he was not.”

“So a married man is shot in the face by someone he knows when leaving a pub in the middle of the night, but he's not robbed,” Grace said. “His wife killed him.”

“My thoughts as well,” Thornhollow agreed. “For what it's worth I imagine that in an establishment as run-down as that particular one seemed to be, the women probably serve more than drinks if the price is right. I can't imagine a wife killing her husband for being thirsty at an inopportune time.”

Grace set her now cold coffee on the edge of Thornhollow's desk. “You said this was simple, but how do we know if we're right?”

“I'll follow up with the officers in the morning. Even they will be smart enough to identify him and go to his house. It's an unfortunate
side effect of matrimony that the majority of people killed participating in it were brought to that pass by their other half.”

“I see,” Grace said, her fingers going to her bandage, where the headache had laid full claim.

“Are you well?” Thornhollow asked.

“Doctor, I've been cut to my skull on both sides of my head, traveling with a strange man for days, and pulled from my bed in the dead of night to view a corpse. Oddly, I feel fine except for this headache.”

Thornhollow laughed, a full sound that echoed off the windows and made Grace smile in its unmitigated loudness.

“Grace,” he said. “Not only do you have a unique gift suited for these dark purposes, but I think your nature is as well.”

“And what becomes of a girl such as that?” Grace said, her tone somber.

Thornhollow's smile fell. “I admit I didn't have a lot of time to think ahead when we scuttled you out of Boston. The staff here believes you are a patient under my express care who I have done an experimental surgery on. The charade of muteness is one you will have to maintain. For that I apologize. I'm the only person who can know that you have use of your voice and mind. If anyone were to suspect who you really are—”

“I understand,” Grace said. “I don't mind being silent in exchange for what I've been delivered from.”

“Yes, but I'm afraid it'll be no kind of existence for you.”

“No,” she said. “What I came from was no kind of existence.”

“Not much of a compliment, since you were living in a dungeon.”

“That's not what I was referring to, Doctor,” Grace said, but her thoughts had drifted back to the darkness of the asylum and Falsteed's voice comforting her.

“Well”—Thornhollow brought his hands together in a clap—“it's been a long night, to say the least. You should get to your bed. I'll let the staff know that you were out assisting me and should be allowed to sl—”

“Doctor, why was Falsteed in the asylum?” Grace asked suddenly.

“For a girl of good breeding you certainly do interrupt often.”

“And your answer?”

“I . . .” Thornhollow ran the toe of his shoe over a spot on the floor. “I'm not sure I should provide it.”

“Why?” Grace demanded. “Falsteed was my friend.”

“Which is why I'm not sure I should answer you.”

“I'm hardly naive. Falsteed was not only an inmate but one relegated to the bowels of the dungeon. I know he must have done something horrid at one time. I would know what it was.”

Thornhollow sighed and looked at the floor. “You've had all the benefits of a good life. I suppose you've been inoculated against smallpox?”

“I . . .” Grace trailed off, suspicious. “Yes.”

“Do you know much about what the smallpox vaccination does?”

“No,” she said. “Only that once I'm inoculated I cannot catch the disease.”

Thornhollow nodded. “It's a simple enough concept. Once your body is exposed to certain illnesses it learns how to fight them and remembers so that you cannot be afflicted again. The smallpox vaccination is actually a bit of cowpox entered into your body at a low dose. Your body reacts, learns to fight it, and while you may get a headache or slight fever, you will never be afflicted by the more lethal cousin, smallpox.

“While medical science has come far and accomplished much, there is little we can do against the malignant beast of cancer. Falsteed has lost more than a few patients to the monster, and I'm afraid he developed a . . . bit of an obsession.”

“I hardly think he can be called obsessive by wanting to treat the afflicted,” Grace said.

“It is not treatment Falsteed delivers. When he was still a free man practicing his trade, Falsteed was known for searching out those who suffered from cancerous tumors. He performed surgeries for free, his only payment being that he kept the offending growth.”

Grace shrugged. “Where is the crime in that?”

“And then he ate them,” Thornhollow said.

Grace felt the blood flow from her face. “He did what?”

“He ate them,” Thornhollow repeated. “In a foolhardy attempt to inoculate himself against cancer. His actions landed him in the asylum, and I don't mind saying that he rightly belongs there.”

“Dear God,” Grace said, her hands fluttering to her face. “But he saved me.”

“He did,” Thornhollow said. “And despite these things, he is your friend and you owe him much.” The doctor came to the side of her chair, resting a hand on the back of her head. “These are your friends now, Grace Mae. A madman who eats cancer in the dark and another who searches for a different kind of killer, the kind who smiles at you in the light of day. This is your new life. I hope you can stand it.”