In the Shadow of Gotham (2 page)

Then he looked at me sharply. “I’m sure you’ve seen your share of murder cases in the city. But maybe I should ask if you’re sure
you’re
up to it? You look a bit out of sorts.”

I searched Joe’s expression, looking for some indication that he knew more of my recent past than I had thought. But there was no sign. His question had reflected his own concerns; he had not expected it to hit a particular mark.

I swallowed hard before I said, “I’m fine,” with more confidence than I actually felt. I had a weak stomach, especially for certain kinds of cases, and I feared this would prove to be one of them.

What Joe did not know was that I had come here this past May in search of a quieter existence with fewer reminders of Hannah, a victim of last year’s
General Slocum
steamship tragedy. I was not alone in my grief; nearly every family in my Lower East Side neighborhood had lost someone that awful day—June 15, 1904. For almost a full year following Hannah’s death, she haunted me, particularly in cases where other young women met tragic, violent ends. I had planned to marry Hannah
and build a life with her—but I had no desire to live with a ghost. That was why this job in Dobson, a small town seventeen miles north of the city, had seemed just the right opportunity: I could grieve quietly and rid myself of unwanted nightmares in a place where murders and violent deaths were not to be expected.

But still they came . . . and this one would test whether my rusty skills—and my weak stomach—were up to the task.

Behind us, the cragged cliffs of the Palisades loomed large over the Hudson River, colored in the faded oranges and yellows of late fall. The character of the neighborhood changed with each passing block; “hill and mill” was how the local townspeople described the division between the row houses and apartment flats nearer the riverbank and the imposing estates situated at the top of the village’s rising landscape. Church’s Corner marked the dividing line, an intersection with three churches—all Catholic, each distinguished solely by ethnicity, with one church for the Italians, one for the Irish, and still another for the Polish.

As the hills became even steeper, the homes became noticeably more capacious and ornate, some characterized by elegant stonework, others by latticed wood trim and dentil molding. The Wingate house was one of the statelier of these homes, situated on a particularly large expanse of land. It was a magnificent stone Victorian with a pink and gray mansard roof and an angular wraparound porch. On past occasions when I had visited this neighborhood, I had admired its majestic lawn and gardens. Today, it scarcely resembled the place I remembered, for the scene surrounding the house was one of complete chaos.

Dr. Fields was certainly inside, for Henry, the son he was grooming to take over his practice, was keeping several agitated
neighbors off the Wingate porch. Two small white terriers were leashed to a stake in the middle of the lawn; they protested their restraints with ear-piercing yaps. And Mrs. Wingate herself, now approaching eighty years old, was seated on a straight-backed wooden chair in their midst. She looked cold, despite the fact that someone had brought her a warm wrap to protect her from the evening’s increasing chill. She repeated a series of questions to no one in particular in an anxious, petulant voice. “Why can’t I go inside my own home?” “Won’t anyone tell me what sort of accident there’s been?” And most frequently of all, “Where’s Abby?”

Joe and I rushed past all the confusion, hurrying toward the main porch and front door, where Henry acknowledged us with a brief, grave nod. Inside the entry hall, we found Dr. Fields organizing his equipment. Cyrus Fields was a short, middle-aged man who seemed to have boundless energy and a remarkable enthusiasm for each case he encountered. His wide face usually held a jovial expression, even when tending to the dead or dying. But today he appeared unsettled. Heavy lines marked his forehead and his full head of salt-and-pepper hair was uncharacteristically mussed.

He looked up, and when he recognized us, his relief was palpable.

“Thank God you’re here,” he sputtered. “In all my years, I’ve never seen anything quite like it . . . I just can’t imagine why . . . or what kind of person . . .” And the normally garrulous doctor trailed off for lack of words.

“It’s all right,” I said calmly. “Why don’t you take us to her?”

“Of course. Where are my gloves?” He didn’t mean ordinary winter gloves, but rather the cotton examination gloves he
used for each new patient. They were behind him, on top of the black bag he had set on the floor. “Oh, yes, here they are. Come then. We’re headed upstairs.”

We followed him as he began to ascend the giant staircase that rose in a half circle above the entry hall.

“Is anyone else in the house?” I asked, adding, “We saw Mrs. Wingate outside.”

“Yes, and her maid should be with her,” he said. “Her niece, Miss Abigail, is resting in the library. I didn’t want them to overhear us, or worse yet, disturb anything. No one has touched anything. I know that’s always your preference even with our, ah, less serious cases.” He fumbled before he found the words that would do.

We continued to climb. The stairs creaked under the weight of our steps, despite the plush carpet runner designed to cushion the wood. Upon reaching the first landing, I detected an unmistakable odor—the sickly-sweet smell of blood. I cleared my throat before commencing the next set of stairs. But death’s odor is a singular one that, once detected, manages to pervade all the senses. With each step, my awareness of it—and my revulsion to it—grew more intense. I could taste it, feel it, almost see it by the time we reached the top.

I had to pause for a moment. I gripped the banister, fighting to suppress the wave of nausea that welled up, threatening to overwhelm me.

Dr. Fields pointed toward the bedroom immediately on our right, facing south toward the street.

We followed with hesitant, slow footsteps.

When he reached the door, he stepped aside, allowing me to enter first.

I took two steps inside before I halted—for there she was.

I stared woodenly, at once repulsed and transfixed by the scene of ghastly carnage before me. The victim lay propped against the bed, her body precisely positioned, hands folded together in a demure pose. Her head had been so badly battered that I no longer recognized the features of her face. Splattered on the blue toile wallpaper nearest the bedpost, intermingled with red blood, was a gray substance I knew to be brain. I swallowed hard, again fighting the sensation of nausea that threatened to resurface.

“What is her name?” I asked.

“Sarah Wingate. She has been visiting since Friday,” the doctor said. His voice was even, but the beads of sweat on his forehead and the way he averted his eyes from the figure by the bed belied his apparent composure.

“And she is a relative of Mrs. Wingate’s?”

“Yes. Her niece.”

To refocus my wits, I forced myself to survey the undisturbed portions of the room. It was apparent it had been decorated in a tasteful and pleasing style—a fine dark blue and red oriental carpet complemented a pale blue bedspread and curtains, and two delicate Chinese vases adorned matching mahogany tables at either side of the bed. It was an atmosphere that suggested wealth and privilege. Yet today, it was nearly impossible to see past this senseless display of violence. I drew closer to the swath of blood on the wallpaper. Not yet dry, I noted as I came close enough to touch one stain, which indicated her death had occurred within the last few hours.

I breathed deeply through my mouth, vowing not to be sick. Such a response to the sight and smell of blood was a liability in
my profession, and I never failed to be frustrated with my body’s visceral response. The hollow pit in my stomach was a familiar physical reaction, though it had been nearly six months since I was last summoned to a murder scene. That was in May, just before I left the city. There, I’d seen more than my share of the squalor and crime endemic to my native Lower East Side, not to mention the official indifference to it. Yet my stomach had never gotten used to it. Once again I forcibly willed my nausea to subside.

The doctor and Joe had already begun talking about the case. “When I arrived, her face was covered by that blue cloth,” Dr. Fields said as he pointed toward a crumpled, bloodstained material that lay atop the bed. “I removed it so I could check her identity.”

“Is that cloth from her dress?” Joe asked curiously, walking a wide perimeter around the body to get a better look.

It took a moment for the meaning of his question to register, but I soon understood. The killer had slashed the victim’s dress in haphazard strokes from the bodice down, and the bloodstained cloth was of the same material.

“How old was she?” I asked.

Dr. Fields paused before offering his opinion. “I’d say she was in her mid-twenties. And, judging from the bloodstains, her body temperature, and the fact that rigor mortis has not yet set in, I’d guess she has not been dead long—two hours, maybe three at most.” He sighed and wiped his brow with a knotted handkerchief. “I’ve lived in this town for thirty years. That I should live to witness something like this . . .” He shook his head.

“Were the others home at the time? Did anyone hear anything?” I asked, drawing his attention back to details and descriptions.
It was the doctor’s analytical skills that this victim required now, not his empathy.

“You’ll want to speak with Miss Abigail, Mrs. Wingate’s other niece. She’s the one who found her cousin’s body.” Dr. Fields mopped his brow. “She told her aunt to call me before she fainted. No one else is aware of the murder. We still haven’t told them. At this point, it’s probably best if you do so.” His voice was soft as he added, “It has been quite an ordeal for Miss Abigail. I for one can understand how difficult it is to walk into this room unprepared.”

But of course no one could ever be prepared for violence such as this. As I tried to refocus on the important details of the crime scene, one inconsistency stood out. The victim had a deep throat wound and multiple slashes on her upper arms, in addition to the battery done to her head. Yet there was not a single mark apparent on her hands or forearms. I knelt down next to her to check more closely. But no—there was nothing. Had she even tried to resist? It would have been a natural instinct to raise her hands to protect her face from the crushing blows. And I did not think she had been restrained, for in that case, her wrists would show signs of bruising or chafing.

The only rational explanation—one the autopsy could confirm—was that she had been incapacitated first, perhaps by a blow to the head. In that case, my picture of her assailant changed entirely. What sort of person would beat and slash a woman who was certainly unconscious, possibly dead? There was no fight in that; only brutal savagery. Was her killer so filled with anger that he had lost all control? Or had he been deranged by bloodlust? Just as I had an instinctive visceral repulsion to it, I knew others experienced a strange attraction to it. They enjoyed its sight and smell, as may have been the case
here, where Sarah’s cumulative injuries were more than was necessary to kill.

I got up and circled to her left, where I noticed something else so odd I could not believe it had escaped my attention earlier. Part of her hair had been cut and—had it been
removed
? I searched the room quickly to ascertain it had not been placed elsewhere, but it was not to be found. I took out my notebook and made careful notes of what I observed: Sarah’s long blond hair had originally been pulled back in two neat braids; however, the braid by her right ear had been cut off at the level of her earlobe. I examined the shaft of hair nearest the cut and observed that while the exterior of the braid was encrusted with blood, the inner part was clean, which suggested her hair had been removed postmortem. I had seen cases before where bizarre acts were done to a corpse as a message or sign, but the missing braid defied explanation.

Fortunately I had remembered to grab the camera as we left. I breathed deeply and began to take slow, certain photos. What my mind could not grasp now, I would revisit later, when the black-and-white of the film had muted the red blood that covered the room and overwhelmed my senses. I only hoped the record would not be marred by the slight shaking of my hands. As always, that shaking was made worse by the aching pain in my right arm, which had intensified with the first cold chill of autumn. Its dull throbbing these past eighteen months was an ever-present reminder of Hannah’s death. Or perhaps more accurately, it was a reminder of the incompetent doctor who had botched my treatment after I was broadsided by falling timber from the collapsing deck of the
Slocum
. As if I needed anything more to remind me of that horrible day.

From every angle, and varied distances, I photographed the
victim and the scene surrounding her. At my insistence, we had acquired a fine Kodak. Even though Joe had seen little practical justification in this expense, he had reluctantly allowed me to outfit the department with what I considered to be an essential tool for recording forensic evidence. While at the detective bureau in the city, I had become fascinated with the latest technology, especially cameras and basic fingerprinting equipment—though admittedly, the latter remained controversial and was not yet accepted by the courts. But earlier this year, London had sent two murderers to the gallows after gaining convictions based on fingerprint evidence alone. And our prison system in New York already used fingerprints to identify inmates. So I expected it would be only a matter of time before fingerprint evidence made its way into New York’s courtrooms. Perhaps it would even be evidence I had collected.