Jackaby (5 page)

M
r. Henderson stepped back to let us into his flat, which was a nearly perfect match for the victim’s, except that this one had a worn sofa in place of the writing desk, and a mix of colorful fruit had been arranged in a bowl on the table. Mr. Henderson made no motion to remove the cushions from his ears, and instead shouted his disapproval at the police department for not having put a stop to the noise. He slumped onto the couch and scowled.

“We are not with the police department,” said Jackaby. He pulled out a thin leather satchel and laid it on the table.

“Well,” said Charlie, “I am.”

“We are not with the police department, except for those of us who are,” Jackaby revised. “Mr. Henderson, could you describe the cries you’re hearing, please?” He untied the leather lace around his satchel and rolled it out on the table with a light clinking. From over his shoulder I could see that it contained three slim pockets, which housed metallic instruments of some sort.

“How can you not hear it?” the man demanded, still yelling. “Is it . . . Is there something wrong with me?”

“Just describe the sound, please,” repeated Jackaby.

“It’s so . . . so . . . so . . .” The man’s voice wavered and softened with each “so,” and his eyes fell downward. “So sad.”

“Remove the cushions, if you would, Mr. Henderson,” said Jackaby. He had selected a small metal rod that forked into two long prongs.

Henderson glanced back up. His eyes had welled slightly with tears, and his brow, no longer knit in aggravation, melted into a pitiful, pleading look.

“Mr. Henderson,” repeated Jackaby, “the cushions, please.”

Henderson slowly raised his hands and pulled the belt off his head. The cushions fell away. His eyes immediately slammed shut and his whole body flinched, tensing into itself as a silent wail apparently assaulted his ears.

“Where are the cries coming from?” asked Jackaby firmly. “Can you tell what direction?”

Tears dripped from Henderson’s clenched eyes, and he shook his head, whether to answer “no” or to shake away the sound, I couldn’t say.

Jackaby held the rod loosely and tapped the metal prongs against the table. A clear, pure, sustained note rang out. It was a simple tuning fork. Henderson’s body instantly relaxed, and he nearly collapsed onto the sofa. He sniffled, and gazed up, wide-eyed. The note hummed pleasantly for several seconds, growing quieter and quieter. Before it could fully fade away, Jackaby tapped it again.

“And now?” Jackaby inquired.

“I—I can still hear it,” stammered Henderson, his voice a mix of relief and confusion. “But more distant. Still so sad, the wailing. It sounds like . . .” He sniffed and cut himself off.

“Like what?” prompted Jackaby, gentle but relentless.

“Reminds me,” the man continued with difficulty, “of the way my mother cried at Papa’s funeral. Just . . . just like that.”

Jackaby tapped the tuning fork again. “It’s a woman’s voice, then?” Henderson nodded. “And now, can you judge where it’s coming from?”

Henderson concentrated, and his eyes drifted to the ceiling. “From above us,” he decided.

“Directly?” Jackaby asked. “The apartment above yours, perhaps?”

Henderson focused again, and Jackaby tapped the tuning fork to help. “No,” he answered, “just a bit . . . that way, I think.”

“Excellent. We shall attend to the matter directly. While I have you lucid, however, I would appreciate it if you could think back to yesterday evening. Did you happen to notice anything odd? Strangers in the stairwell, perhaps?”

Henderson breathed heavily and scratched his hair where it was still pressed flat from the cushions. “I don’t think so. Nothing very odd. Her voice . . .”

“Anything before the voice? Anything at all?”

The man thought again, his head rocking back and forth. “I don’t think so. Someone upstairs was playing the fiddle earlier. I hear them a lot, late in the afternoon. Not bad. Someone was at the hall window during the night, too. Probably that Greek from across the hall. He goes out to smoke cigars on the balcony—thinks his wife doesn’t know. He isn’t very subtle about it, tromps about like an elephant. Nothing strange. Although . . .”

“Yes?” Jackaby prompted.

“There was another sound . . . like . . . like—ugh—I don’t know.” His brow crumpled in frustration at the effort to recall. Jackaby tapped the fork again, and the man breathed, focusing.

“Like . . . something metal.
Clink-clink.
Like that. Probably just his watch banging on its chain, I guess. Not long after that, the crying started. She was so sad . . .”

“Thank you very much for your cooperation, Mr. Henderson.” Jackaby flipped the satchel closed with his free hand and tucked it deep into his coat. He gave the tuning fork one final tap before striding toward Henderson. “I’ll be back to retrieve this later,” he said, holding out the fork, “but I think it’s best if you keep it for now.”

Henderson took the offering delicately, holding it carefully by the stem to avoid dampening the crystal clear tone. The rims of his eyes were nearly as red as his pajamas, but they were full of gratitude. He nodded, and Jackaby patted his shoulder, a bit awkwardly, and headed out the door.

Jackaby was already examining the window at the end of the hallway as I stepped out. He flicked the latch open, closed, and open again, and felt along the frame. A very slim balcony was visible just outside, housing a pot of dirt, which might presumably have contained a plant before the frost set in. Before I could ask if he noticed anything unusual, he was striding back down the hallway in the opposite direction. Charlie and I flanked him, quickstepping quietly past the closed door of room 301 and into the stairwell.

“I wonder how many floors we have above us,” mused Jackaby as he mounted the steps.

“Should be just one more,” I offered. “There were four rows of mailboxes in the lobby, and the numbers only went from the one-hundreds to the four-hundreds. So, unless there’s an attic . . .” I trailed off. We had reached the landing. The stairs did indeed conclude with one more hallway door, and Jackaby turned to look at me with his head cocked to one side as I caught up.

“The mailboxes?” he said.

“Er, yes. In the lobby.”

The corner of his mouth turned up in a bemused grin. “That’s quite sharp, Miss Rook. Quite sharp, indeed.”

“You think so?” I found myself eager to impress my strange new employer. “Is that helpful to the investigation?”

Jackaby chuckled, turning away to open the door. “Not in the slightest—but very keen, nonetheless. Very keen.”

T
he fourth floor of the Emerald Arch Apartments was nearly identical to the third. Light stumbled meekly out of the dirty oil lamps, testing the floor without really diving down to brighten it. Jackaby hastened to 412 and knocked loudly.

“What are we looking for, exactly?” I whispered to my employer as we waited. I could hear the shuffling of motion from within the room.

“I don’t know,” answered Jackaby, “but I’m excited to find out, aren’t you?”

The door opened to a middle-aged man in an undershirt, pressed trousers, and suspenders. He held a damp towel, and daubs of shaving cream clung around the corners of his jawline. “Yes?” he said.

Jackaby looked the man up and down. “No, sorry. Wrong room,” he declared. “You’re clearly just a man.” With no further explanation, he left the confused fellow to his morning.

Jackaby rapped firmly on 411, and a woman answered. She wore a clean, simple, white dress buttoned neatly up to her neck, and her red hair was tied back in a prim bun. “Hello? What is it? I already told the last one that I didn’t see a thing.” Her accent was distinctly Irish, and edged with quiet annoyance.

“Simply a woman,” said Jackaby after another cursory examination. “No use. My apologies.” He turned on his heel and advanced toward number 410.

The woman, having been far less satisfied with the encounter than Jackaby, came out of her room. “And just what do you mean by that?” she demanded.

I did my very best to blend into the wallpaper as she stalked after the detective. Charlie, I noticed, had taken a keen interest in the points of his well-polished shoes.

“Simply a woman?” she repeated. “Nothing simple about it! I’ve had enough of the likes of you, going on about the weaker sex, and such. Twig like you, care to see who’s weaker?”

Jackaby called backward without looking behind him, “I mean only that you’re of no use at this time.”

Charlie shook his head.

The woman bristled. “I am an educated woman, a nurse, and a caregiver! How dare you . . .”

Jackaby turned at last. “Madam, I assure you, I meant only that you are not special.”

I cupped a palm over my face.

The woman reddened several shades. Jackaby smiled at her in what I’m certain he felt was a reassuring and pleasant manner following a reasonable explanation. He seemed prepared to let the whole thing wash away as a friendly misunderstanding. What he was not prepared for, apparently, was to be socked in the face.

It was not a ladylike swat or symbolic gesture. The force of it actually spun the detective halfway around, and his trip to the ground was interrupted only briefly by the wall catching him on the ear on the way down.

The woman loomed over him, all silky white linen and fury. “Not special? Simply a woman? I am Mona O’Connor. I come from a proud line of O’Connors, stretching back to the kings and queens of Ireland, and I’ve got more fight in me than a wet sock of a man like you could ever hope to muster. What do you have to say about that?”

Jackaby sat up, swaying slightly. He waggled his jaw experimentally, then snapped his attention to his attacker. Thoughts rolled across his gray eyes like clouds in a thunderstorm. “You said O’Connor?”

“That’s right. Have a problem with the Irish, too, do you?” Miss O’Connor squared her jaw and looked down the bridge of her nose at Jackaby, daring him to confirm the prejudice.

Jackaby climbed to his feet, dusted off his coat, which clinked and jingled as the contents of various pockets resettled, and tossed his scarf back over one shoulder. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss O’Connor. I don’t suppose you have a roommate?”

Mona’s stance faltered. She looked briefly to Charlie and me, finding only equal bewilderment, and then back at the detective. He smiled at her again with charming, innocent curiosity. The left side of his face was red, and the outlines of four dainty fingers were slowly gaining definition. He was behaving in precisely the manner in which a man who had just been walloped across the face should not behave.

“An old relative, perhaps?” he prompted, continuing as though nothing had happened, “Or a family friend? Been around since you were just a girl, I imagine.”

The red left Mona’s face.

“Getting on in years, I expect, but hard to place just how many?” Jackaby persisted. “Been around as far back as you can remember, and yet she seems just as old in your memory as she is today?”

The rest of the color left Mona’s face as well.

“How did you . . . ?” she began.

“My name is R. F. Jackaby, and I would very much like to meet her, if you don’t mind,” he said.

Mona’s brow tensed, but her resolve had clearly been shaken. “My mum . . . My mum made me promise I’d look after her.”

“I mean her no harm, you have my word.”

“She’s having one of her . . . one of her spells. I . . . Look, I’m sorry about—er—that business earlier, but I think you’d better come back some other time.”

“Miss O’Connor, it is my belief that lives hang in the balance, and so I’m afraid the time is now. I promise to help in any way I can with her spell. May we please come in?”

Miss O’Connor, her guard now thoroughly shattered, walked back to her open door. She paused in indecision for just a moment, then stood aside and gestured for us to enter.

The layout of the apartment was familiar, but it felt cleaner and somehow more open than the other two. Soft daylight drifted through the white curtains to brighten a table with a simple brown tablecloth. This was topped with lace doilies, a vase of fresh flowers, a white porcelain wash basin, and a pitcher. The sofa was small, but well stuffed, with a thick quilt draped over it. In the corner sat a wooden rocking chair. The room was cozy and inviting, a striking contrast to the gruesome scene downstairs.

“Have a seat if you like,” said Mona, and I gratefully accepted the invitation. As I sank into the cushions, I became aware of the toll that the morning’s cold sidewalks had taken on my poor feet.

Officer Cane thanked the woman politely but remained standing by the door. In the light of the room, I got a good look at him for the first time. He really was quite young to be a police detective, even a junior one. While he held himself poised and alert, the angle of his dark eyebrows betrayed a hint of insecurity, and he had to periodically straighten his posture, as though actively resisting a natural urge to slink into himself. His eyes caught mine, and he looked away at once. I hurried my own gaze back to Jackaby and the woman.

Miss O’Connor trod gently to the bedroom door. Jackaby followed, pulling the knit cap from his head as he did. I craned my neck to watch as they slipped in. There were two beds in the room on opposite walls, and just enough room for a shared nightstand between them. The nightstand held a dog-eared book and a silver hairbrush. One bed lay empty, its sheets tucked tightly with hospital corners. The other contained a woman with long, white hair. She wore a pale nightgown and was propped up slightly on her pillows. She seemed to be rocking gently, but more I couldn’t see as Mona and Jackaby stepped into the room in front of her.

“We have a guest,” said Mona. “Mr. . . . Jackaby, was it? This is Mrs. Morrigan.”

“Mrs. Morrigan. Of course you are,” said Jackaby, gently. He knelt down beside the figure. “Hello, Mrs. Morrigan. It’s an honor. Can you hear me?”

I shifted across the sofa until I could just see the old woman beyond Jackaby. She was slender and fair-skinned, her hair a medley of silver and white, but it was her face that captured my attention. Her thin, gray eyebrows contorted in a mournful expression. Her lips were thin and taut, and quavered slightly as she drew a deep breath. Then her head fell back, and her mouth opened wide in a tragic pantomime of a scream. My chest tightened in sympathy for the poor, tortured woman.

Her jaw trembled as she expelled the last of her breath, and I became aware of the overwhelming silence. She inhaled again slowly, and her whole body poured itself into another scream, but still not an audible whisper escaped her delicate lips.

A chill tingled up my spine. Beyond the obvious strangeness of the spectacle, there was something more profoundly unsettling about the woman’s muted cries. An indefinable spasm of grief and dread shuddered through me. Was this the life that Jackaby led? Death and madness and despair behind every door?

“She gets this way, from time to time,” Mona explained to the detective in a voice just above a whisper. “Always has. She can’t control them. They’re like seizures . . . only not like any I’ve seen in any of my medical books. Back home, she would go weeks, sometimes months without any problems. It was supposed to be better here, but we’ve barely had the apartment for a week and now this . . . It’s the worst she’s had. Hasn’t stopped since yesterday.”

“Since yesterday?” Jackaby asked.

“Yes, early yesterday morning, and on all through the night.”

Mrs. Morrigan’s body sagged as the air left her lungs again. Her eyelids flickered open for an instant, and she looked to Jackaby. Her hand reached weakly toward him, and he held it gently, the most human gesture I’d yet seen from the man; then her eyes closed, and the miserable cycle of silent screaming resumed.

Jackaby leaned in very close and whispered something in the woman’s ear. Mona watched him with concern. Mrs. Morrigan opened her eyes again and gave the detective a somber nod. She resumed her muted cries, but her body relaxed slightly into the pillows. Jackaby laid her hand tenderly back on the bed and rose to his feet.

“Thank you,” he said aloud, and stepped out into the apartment’s main room. Mona followed, shutting the door quietly behind them.

The detective pushed his dark, unruly hair roughly backward and screwed the cap back onto his head.

“What did you say to her?” asked Mona.

Jackaby considered his response. “Nothing of consequence. Miss O’Connor, thank you for your time. I’m afraid I cannot help Mrs. Morrigan’s condition for the moment, but if it comes as any consolation, this episode will resolve itself by sometime tonight.”

“Tonight?” she said. “You seem so sure.”

Jackaby stepped into the hallway and turned back. I stood up and slipped out after him. “I feel quite confident, yes. Take good care of your patient, Miss O’Connor. Good day.”

We were at the stairwell before I heard her shut the door behind us. Charlie and I burst at once into questions. What had he said? What kind of seizures were those? How could he be so sure they would end tonight?

“She isn’t seizing, she’s
keening,
and she will stop tonight because by tomorrow morning Mr. Henderson will be dead.” Jackaby’s voice was without emotion, save perhaps a hint of interest such as a botanist might exhibit when discussing a rare orchid. “Mrs. Morrigan is a banshee.”

The word hung in the air for several steps.

“Keening?” asked Charlie.

“She’s a banshee?” I blurted. “That old woman? So she’s our killer?”

“Our killer?” Jackaby stopped on the landing and turned toward me. I stumbled to a stop. “How in heaven’s name did you make that leap?”

“Well, that’s what you said, wasn’t it? There had been something inhuman in the victim’s room? Something ancient? And banshees . . . Those are the ones whose scream can kill you, right? Aren’t they the ones who . . . scream you to death?”

My words petered out and slipped into the shadows, embarrassed to be seen with me. The look Jackaby was giving me was not unkind, but rather one of pity. It was a look that one might give to a particularly simple puppy who had thrown herself off the bed in pursuit of her own tail.

“So, not our killer?”

“No,” said Jackaby.

“Well, that’s good, then.” I swallowed.

“Keening,” said Jackaby, turning back to Charlie, “is an expression of grief for the dead.” He turned and continued his explanation as we resumed our descent. “Traditionally, women called ‘keeners’ would sing a somber lament at Irish funerals.

“A few families, it was said, had fairy folk as their keeners. These fairy women, who came from the other side of the mounds, were called the ‘women of the side,’ which, in Irish, comes out something like ‘ban-shee
.’
They were devoted to their chosen families, and would sing the most mournful laments if ever a member of the house fell dead—even if they were far away and news of the tragedy had not yet reached the homestead. As you might have guessed, Miss O’Connor’s family was among these elite houses attended by a banshee.”

Jackaby paused abruptly to inspect a scuff in the wood of the stairs. Charlie, who was hot on the detective’s heels, had to catch himself on the banister to avoid toppling over the suddenly kneeling figure. Just as quickly, Jackaby stood and continued to climb downward. His gaze hunted the steps for something, but with the foot traffic of every tenant both coming and going, I doubted very much if any significant clues would present themselves here.

“Where was I?” he asked.

“Banshees,” prompted Charlie. “Crying for the folks at home, even if a member of the family died far away.”

“Right. So, the sound of the banshee’s wail became an omen of death. Consigned to their role, over the years, banshees grew still more sensitive. These fairy women gained a precognition, sensing the very approach of death. Rather than keening for the deceased’s surviving relatives, the banshees began to sing their terrible dirge directly to the doomed.

“They are still closely tied to their families, but as their power developed, it extended to all those in their presence. Any poor soul whose time drew near might hear the ominous cry, particularly those doomed to a violent and untimely end. Now, if you were an ill-fated traveler and you heard the wail, you knew death was on your heels. This makes them dreaded creatures, feared and hated by any who hear them, a treatment far disparate from the honor and appreciation they used to receive for their mourning services. Banshees themselves are not dangerous, though, just burdened with the task of expressing pain and loss.”

I thought of Mrs. Morrigan’s face, and was suddenly ashamed of my rash accusation. I was glad that Jackaby had shown her some tenderness, and I realized he had given her what little he could: his thanks.