A Study in Revenge (46 page)

Jerome stepped out first, followed by Marsh. The woman in crimson was still seated in the landau when Lean approached.

“Dr. Marsh.”

It took a moment for recognition to appear in the man’s eyes. “Deputy Lean, isn’t it?”

He glanced at Jerome, who nodded, a look of angry disgust twisting his features.

“How’s your face?” Lean asked Jerome, who glowered but didn’t speak.

“Whatever can I do for you, Deputy?” Marsh asked.

“I’d like to ask you about the death of Frank Cosgrove.”

“Who? Oh, that again. Your friend Mr. Grey asked me about that. Sorry, I still don’t know anything of the matter. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we don’t want to enter the performance late. Quite unseemly, you know.”

Marsh began to turn away, but Lean’s question halted him. “Then what about the death of Father Leadbetter?”

Marsh locked back, shock written across his face. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“Shot dead while coming north on the B&M two nights ago.”

“That’s … horrible,” Marsh sputtered. “I can’t believe it.”

The man’s surprise struck Lean as so genuine that he paused for a moment before asking, “Are you denying you were present in that rail-car with Father Leadbetter?”

Marsh gasped. “What are you saying?”

Jerome stepped forward a bit, though Lean noticed that the man didn’t actually come within arm’s length. “Doctor, should I—”

“No, Jerome, it’s all right. Deputy, I’m stunned that you would think …” Marsh’s voice trailed off in disbelief. “Very well, two nights ago I was actually in Boston, coincidentally enough. At a benefit for a friend. It lasted all night.”

“So you have witnesses who can confirm this?” Lean asked.

“This is utterly preposterous. But if need be, then yes, I can obtain statements from a dozen reputable witnesses as to my whereabouts that evening. Physicians, attorneys, business leaders, some gentlemen from the statehouse.”

An edge came into Marsh’s eyes, and his voice was sharper when he spoke again. “
Reputable
witnesses, not some—What is he anyway, a private detective? Some eccentric half-breed who devotes his life to snooping around into other people’s business. It’s a free country, and Mr. Grey can do as he wishes—within the law. But you, Deputy Lean, are a sworn public servant. The people of this city, and your superiors in the city government, expect more out of you than baseless, and frankly absurd, allegations of misconduct.”

“I have reason to believe that you’re aware of the circumstances surrounding these deaths.”

“You don’t have any evidence at all to link me to either of these crimes. Do you know why? Because I haven’t the slightest idea of what
you’re talking about. I don’t know this Cosgrove fellow. Father Leadbetter was a friend of mine, but many years ago. A kind soul, certainly no one I would ever wish harm upon.”

“Not even if it meant getting a hold of this Count de St. Germain’s alembic? The philosopher’s stone?”

“Really, is that what Grey’s filling your head with?” Marsh scoffed. “Please let me give you some advice. I think you need to reconsider where you place your faith. The philosopher’s stone.” He began to chuckle.

“What’s next, Deputy? A leprechaun’s pot of gold? Perceval Grey is an unbalanced individual. He seems to be obsessed with delusions about grand criminal conspiracies. Now, I don’t blame you, the man can be very convincing. His people are like that—natural-born snake-oil salesmen. My dear fellow, don’t let him reel you in. Your job is to protect the public in this beautiful city of ours. Not to let real criminals go free while you search for imaginary shadows that only Grey sees. We really do need to get inside. Is that all now, Deputy?”

“Yes, I suppose it is.”

Marsh studied him for a moment, then chuckled again. “Yes, of course it is. I think you’re realizing how foolish this all sounds. Good evening, Deputy Lean.”

Marsh turned and hurried up the steps with Jerome at his heels. In the rush of the moment, he seemed to forget about his other, far more memorable-looking companion. Lean had also let the woman in the crimson dress slip his mind, until she bumped into him. He felt her face close to his, and her quick whispered words went through him like an electric shock.

“There’s danger here.”

The feeling was over in a second.

“Please watch where you’re stepping,” she announced loudly.

From atop the steps, Marsh turned back to see the woman separating herself from Lean and called out, “Come along, Mira.”

“Terribly sorry, miss.” Lean tipped his hat and apologized with a short bow. He watched her up the steps. It hadn’t been a threat she’d whispered; there was more of a warning to it. She was almost to the top of the steps when she glanced back and met Lean’s eyes. He saw concern there, maybe even true fear.

T
OM
D
ORAN SAT LOOKING THROUGH A LINE OF TREES AT THE
grounds of the Forest City Cemetery in Cape Elizabeth. The sun was beating down on him in the open-topped hansom cab, and he wiped the sweat from his brow as he cursed the name of Archie Lean. This was the second burial ground that he and his man McCrink had trailed Perceval Grey to today. His first round of following Grey had been done in gratitude for the Indian detective’s discovery of Doran’s daughter the year before. This time the deputy marshal promised a favor. In Doran’s line of work, as muscle for one of Portland’s two Irish gang leaders, a favor with the cops was worth having in his back pocket.

Still, Doran had never been a patient man, and the tedium of the hot day was fraying his already thin nerves. At least this cemetery seemed to be taking less time. Earlier, at Riverside, Grey had wandered aimlessly while Doran remained hidden in the carriage. With his mammoth size, he was too easily recognized. The job of getting on the ground in the boneyard and keeping a closer eye on Grey’s movements fell to his associate, McCrink. That fellow had been blessed with below-average size and a face, typically hidden in a haze of cigarette smoke, that was utterly forgettable.

This time Grey hadn’t wandered much at all. He had met a man, maybe a worker at the cemetery, by the front gate. The two had spoken for a minute, and then the man had pointed. That seemed to be enough to tell Grey what he was looking for. The detective found the headstone within a minute or two. But now he’d been standing in the same spot for ten minutes. Doran didn’t want to begrudge Grey, or any other man, whatever length of time he needed for mourning at a loved one’s grave. Heaven knew Doran had spent many an hour at his wife’s marker, too often with a bottle in hand. Yet the sun was hot today, and
it was hard to believe, based on what he knew of Grey from their previous work together, that the man had heart enough to hold ten minutes’ worth of grief.

Finally Doran saw Grey’s dark outline turn and walk away. He was relieved that McCrink had enough sense to wait until Grey passed out of the cemetery before hurrying in to see what had captured his attention. The relief turned to annoyance quick enough. McCrink stood in front of the same marker, staring at it for what seemed an eternity. The man should just have read the name and rushed back to the cab so they could stick with Grey. Instead McCrink was now flapping a scrawny arm in Doran’s direction, beckoning him to come and see.

Grumbling the whole time, Doran climbed down, pushed through the trees, and trudged across the graveyard to where McCrink awaited him.

“What in hell are you doing, lolling about gawking?” Doran waved an angry hand toward the road, where Grey’s hansom had already passed out of view. “We’ll have lost him by now.”

McCrink’s glassy eyes followed the sweep of Doran’s arm, then trickled back to the headstone. When he cracked his lips apart to speak, his cigarette hung at the corner of his mouth, kept there by a dab of dried saliva and leaning over like a desperate man on the precipice of a high bridge.

“Oh, sorry,” McCrink said. “But have you ever seen a gravestone queer as this?”

Doran finally glanced at the headstone that had so entranced both Grey and McCrink. The truth was that Doran had seen plenty of headstones in his day, passing through on the way to his wife’s marker. And yet it was also true that few had ever struck him as peculiar as the one he saw now. There was no name. There were no dates of birth or death. The stone was clean and fairly new, well cut and pricey-looking. Four simple words crossed its face.

L
EAN STOOD IN
his front parlor with Doran. Emma had excused herself and, with the baby on her hip, headed off to the kitchen. She was glad to do so, Lean could tell by the look in her eyes. Tom Doran didn’t
cut the sort of figure to put people at ease, particularly people intent on shielding their young children from all the dangers and brutalities that awaited in the world. His young son, Owen, was a different matter. The boy was clearly fascinated by the most mountainous example of humanity he’d seen in his six short years. Lean had tried to shoo him from the room three times. It was only when Doran growled at him in a way that was not entirely playful that the boy beat his own hasty retreat to the kitchen.

Doran gave a quick summation of that day’s events, leading up to Grey’s apparent discovery of something interesting at the Forest City Cemetery.

“Let’s have it, then. Whose grave was it?”

“Couldn’t tell you.”

Lean’s jaw dropped an inch in disappointment. “You didn’t check to see?”

“Course we did. Weren’t no name ’scribed at all. Nor dates neither.”

“A blank stone. Really?”

“Didn’t say that. Weren’t blank. Just said ‘My Sister, My Soul.’ Nothing more.”

“I never heard of Grey having a sister,” Lean muttered. Of course, that didn’t mean anything. He knew very little of Grey’s family history. He knew that the man had been raised by his wealthy maternal grandfather. His Indian father had died in an accident when Grey was young. He gathered that Grey’s mother had died tragically at some point. He’d never presumed to ask the man, but Lean remembered vague comments that led him to think the woman might have taken her own life.

“Is that it, then? Am I done with following Grey—done for good and true this time?” There was more than a hint of annoyance in the big man’s gruff voice.

Before Lean could answer, the mail slot on his front door clacked open and a small white envelope dropped to the floor. It was past dinnertime; the postman had come hours ago. Lean strode to the front door and glanced out a side window. A scruffy boy, twelve years old or so, dashed away down the street into the darkness.

Lean bent and picked up the envelope. He tore it open with his thumb and drew out the single short page and read it to himself:

I know who shot that man Cosgrove. I saw it happen and am ready to tell everything I know. Meet me where he was shot. I don’t want any trouble, so please come by yourself at midnight
.

Cosgrove had been killed near the Munjoy Hill Reservoir sometime between midnight and dawn. It could be a woman passing by from a late factory shift. A prostitute on North Street looking for a bit of privacy also made sense for a witness in that area. But the note itself made him think otherwise. The message appeared to be written in a hurry but in a well-schooled, feminine hand. In addition, the paper was of high quality.

“What do you say? Done or not, with following Grey?” Doran had joined him at the doorway.

Lean held the message down by his side. He wasn’t even sure how well Doran could read but didn’t want to take a chance on the man’s seeing the note.

“Yeah, all over,” Lean said absentmindedly.

“Good. I suppose I should go round up McCrink and tell him to knock off.”

Lean showed the big man to the door and stood there thinking. It seemed Grey had found whatever he’d been combing the cemeteries around Portland for. Now Lean was promised an eyewitness to Cosgrove’s murder, the answer to the only question he’d had at the start of this inquiry. Things seemed to be wrapping up. Yet that had been the case before, the first time he’d worked with Grey. Just when they thought they’d had their killer, the truth had slipped through their fingers and Dr. Virgil Steig had paid the price. Lean decided he wouldn’t let his guard down again.

It took a moment for the operator to connect him to Grey’s number. Once he got through, he told Grey he’d just received an anonymous tip. He read the note but, in case the operator was listening in, altered the language to avoid any explicit mention of shooting or violence.

“She wants to meet me at midnight up at the site where the initial trouble was.”

“You’re certain it’s a woman?” Grey asked.

“From the handwriting anyway. On expensive stationery as well.”

A brief pause buzzed through from Grey’s end of the line. “Could be trying to put you at ease, catch you off guard.”

“I think it’s genuine. Yesterday evening, just as I finished speaking with Marsh, there was a woman with him. She whispered to me to look out for danger. There was real fear in her eyes.”

“Pale skin, dark hair, black fingernails?” Grey asked.

“Wearing gloves, but yes, that sounds like her. All dressed up in crimson.”