Ollie's Cloud (29 page)

Chapter 15

Exhausted and discouraged, Ollie, Jonathon and Daniel Payne converge on the boarding house late Monday night having uncovered no concrete leads. A handful of people “thought” they “may” have seen a young woman who “looked like” Mary Rogers, but no one was sure.

“Tomorrow perhaps we’ll have our army,” Ollie says before slouching into the divan. “I placed a missing persons notice in the
Sun
. Someone must have seen
something
!”

“I spoke to a friend of mine at the Police Department, man named Hayes,” Jonathon says. “Told him that Mary was missing. He said if she doesn’t turn up in another day or two we should let him know, but probably she’s…”

Payne looks up. “Shacked up—is that what he said?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes.” Jonathon looks at Ollie, unfazed. He believes Mary incapable of such a thing.

“Let’s think this through,” Ollie suggests. “She said she was going to her aunt’s, but she never arrived. So either Mary was intending to surprise her aunt—any ideas on that?—or she lied to both of us and was going somewhere else.”

Daniel jumps angrily to his feet. “Whad’ya mean
both
of us? When did she tell
you
about her aunt?”

Ollie hadn’t meant to betray his conversation with Mary. “I ran into her on the way out Sunday morning. She was getting ready to go somewhere and I merely inquired about her destination. Small talk, that’s all.”

Payne buys it. He sits back down, puts his face into his hands. “She’s been killed, I know it. This damn city!”

Ollie snaps back, “It’s too early to write her epitaph! I suggest we all get some sleep.” He wants to get away from this tiresome brute.

“Maybe you can sleep!” Payne hisses. “
We were going to be married!
”

Fatigue and Payne’s self-pity are too much for Ollie. “Payne, you’re a damn liar,” he says coldly. “The two of you broke up this morning. For all I know, you abducted her to get even!” The words spill out. “How do we even know that you visited her aunt? We have only your word for it. What were you doing all day yesterday?”

“What do you mean
we broke up
?” Payne looks shaken. “Who told you
we broke up
?” He is trembling, not out of anger this time but out of panic or anxiety. “Who told you that?” he roars, then bolts for Ollie and grabs him by the shirt.

Jonathon tries to separate the two but Payne’s grasp is too strong.

Ollie stares at the contemptible Daniel Payne and sneers. “Mary!” he yells. “Mary told me herself. She told me everything!” Ollie is out of control, and he knows it. But he doesn’t care. Fear and anger have boiled over. The probable outcome of Mary’s disappearance is too much to let go unavenged. If Daniel had anything to do with it…

“She… she wasn’t serious,” Daniel stammers, letting go of Ollie’s shirt. “Didn’t mean it, I’m sure she didn’t. She’s said things like that in the past, but always took ‘em back.” He walks across the room. “But she never told no one else.” He turns back to Ollie. “So if she told you… you must be very close.” He squints at Ollie. “You her lover? I knew there was someone else. You the reason she was leavin’ me?”

He starts to march across the room with Ollie in his sights, but Phebe suddenly enters. Payne stops and all three men turn to acknowledge the old woman. Phebe’s eyes are red and moist, but she seems alert to the situation.

“Am I interrupting anything, gentlemen?”

No one answers. All three men take their seats.

“I fear the worst for my daughter,” Phebe says. “If any of you care about her, I hope you will work together to find her. Fighting among yourselves will not bring her back to us.”

The men politely nod their agreement.

“I would like to introduce Mary’s aunt, Mrs. Downing,” Phebe says. From behind her, an elderly woman in a cotton shawl and gray dress enters the room.

“Good evening,” Mrs. Downing says.

The men all rise to greet her, but Payne continues to stare at the floor.

“Sit down, please,” Mrs. Downing continues, then narrows her eyes and recognizes Payne. “Is that Daniel Payne? My, it certainly is. It’s been some weeks since you and Mary paid me a visit.”

Ollie glances at Daniel, who squirms noticeably.

“Mrs. Downing,” Ollie says. “I was under the impression that Daniel visited you today about Mary?”

“Today? My goodness no. I’ve just returned from out-of-town this afternoon—been gone for several days.”

Ollie turns to Payne threateningly. “Daniel, don’t you find that a bit odd?”

Payne slumps into his chair. “Look,” he says, “maybe I didn’t talk to her aunt. But I didn’t need to. I knew that she didn’t go to Mrs. Downing’s house. That much is true.”

“And what did you do to Mary?” Ollie says, leaning close.

“Nothing! My God, the police’ll be askin’ me the same questions.
I don’t know what happened to her!
”

“Here’s what I know,” Ollie says. “You’re in a lot of trouble.”

Payne stands and nervously approaches Phebe. “Honest, I didn’t do nothin’. I admit I followed Mary after she left the house, and that’s how I know she didn’t go to her aunt’s. She caught a carriage and headed in the other direction, toward the Hoboken ferries. By the time I got a carriage, she was out of sight. So I wandered around for a while, thinking’, just thinkin’, about how I’d fouled up. That’s why Mary was leavin’ me. I just wanted to make things up to her, that’s why I went to Mrs. Downing’s house and waited outside, hopin’ she’d show up. No one was home. I waited and waited. And then the storm came and I waited some more. Then I came back to the boarding house.”

“I don’t believe a word of it,” Ollie says.

“He lied once, he could easily be lying now,” Jonathon says. “Still, it’s hard to disprove his story.”

“Or prove it,” Ollie adds. “The police will have fun trying. A man follows the lover who jilted him and she turns up missing.” He thinks for a minute, then turns on Payne and spits out a venomous, “What did you do to her?”

Payne shrinks into his chair with a pitiful “Nothin’.”

Ollie turns to the two women. “I’m sorry for my outburst,” he says.

Phebe breaks into tears and Mrs. Downing wraps an arm around her, leading her into the kitchen.

With the women gone, Payne stands suddenly with a hard look in his eye. In a maddeningly calm voice that is miles apart from the emotion of a few seconds earlier, he stares at Ollie and says, “It was not me. Why don’t ya ask Arthur Crommelin why he’s not here tonight?” He begins to circle Ollie. “Or William Kiekuk? They never miss a meal at Phebe’s, ‘cept tonight. Ya want a jilted lover? Find Crommelin. Ya want a man who knows he can never have little darlin’ Mary? Find Kiekuk. Now that I been thinkin’ about it, that new fella—what’s his name? Ollie?—been sniffin’ ‘round Miss Mary. Never know what a perverted Brit might do if he can’t get what he wants. Then there’s a thousand frustrated suitors at Anderson’s, too. Could be any of ‘em.”

Payne plucks a metal flask from his hip pocket, unscrews the top and takes a swig of whiskey. “Miss Mary ain’t here tonight. Think I’ll have me a spot o’ tea.” He takes another swig. “She’d better have a damn good excuse for stayin’ out late!” He storms out of the room.

Ollie looks at Jonathon, stunned by Payne’s irrational behavior. “What do you think?”

Jonathon says, “He’s crazy enough to have done something to her.”

“And not so crazy that he rather artfully made almost everyone under this roof a suspect,” Ollie adds. “The man has no proof of his whereabouts the day Mary disappeared.”

Jonathon stares at him and says, “So what did you do all day Sunday, Ollie. And can you prove it?”

Ollie thinks about this, then stands stiffly and heads for the staircase. “We’re convicting everyone we know, yet as far as I can tell there is no evidence that a crime has been committed. Be back here in the morning. I’m sure we’ll have callers in response to my notice in the Sun.”

Jonathon watches Ollie climb the stairs, then reaches into his breast pocket and removes a daguerreotype, the one he had made just before discovering Ollie and Mary at the Elysian Fields.

He stares at the picture, wondering if he is looking at the image of a murderer.

Chapter 16

Tuesday comes like a bolt of lightning. At seven o’clock a visitor interrupts breakfast with “great certainty” that she had seen the “missing girl” with several men in a Five Points tavern and, by the way, how will the reward be paid? By the end of the day, twenty-seven individuals had seen Mary Rogers from one side of town to another; clearly the girl was kicking up her heels on her day off. She was seen kissing an elderly woman, being followed from a bar by a gang of “black-skinned foreigners,” holding hands with an older gentleman sporting an eye patch and a handlebar moustache, sipping beer and munching chestnuts and running across a park “as if in terror” and…

John Anderson, Mary’s employer, is the last one to call. “Are you the one, then, who placed the notice in the
Sun
?” he asks Ollie.

Dazed by the continuous stream of contradictory testimony, Jonathon nods dumbly and offers tea.

“No thank you,” Anderson says. “When I received the note yesterday from Mary’s mother saying that Mary was indisposed, I had no idea…”

“We continue to hope for the best,” Ollie replies.

“One of my customers showed me the missing persons notice this afternoon and I recognized the address. My God, I hope she’s not been…” He cuts off his words.

“We know only that she’s missing,” Ollie says.

“Nothing else? Surely the police…”

Jonathon interjects, “The police have been contacted but say they can do nothing until there’s evidence of a crime. Apparently it’s not a crime for a young woman to leave home for a few days without telling anyone.”

“But not
Mary
!” Anderson objects. “She would never intentionally cause her mother concern. Will you keep me informed? I’m dreadfully worried about her.”

“Of course,” Jonathon says.

On his way out, Anderson turns and says, “My customers are asking about her. What should I say?”

“Ask them to pray for her,” Ollie says.

“Yes, of course. Thank you.” Anderson leaves.

Ollie puts his fingers to his temples, massages deeply, then glances at Jonathon and says, “As I recall, John Anderson and Mary were once involved with each other. More than business.”

“Yes.”

“We’ve wasted a day sitting here, haven’t we?”

“Yes.”

“Then tomorrow we’ll go find her. You and I.” Ollie shuffles off to bed. Jonathon is afraid they
will
find her.

Chapter 17

It’s perverse, he thinks, but a daguerreotypist must always be prepared to make a record, and if Mary Rogers should be found today—in whatever condition—he will document it. And so Jonathon hauls his cases and bags from the ferry to the Elysian Fields, stopping more than once to wipe his brow in the heat. It’s not yet nine o’clock and already past eighty degrees. Humidity in the seventies.

He is here because his instincts and his photographic clue have led him here, and he is here alone because Ollie could not bear to revisit the scene of a much happier day. The Fields vibrate with green, every hue of it, the dark shades deeper and the lighter tints even more shimmering after the soaking rains of Sunday night. Verdant life sprouts everywhere.

Jonathon trudges along the path, deciding on a course of action. He can think of none.
Being here
, that is his plan. Sometimes a newsman can do no more than to be at the scene of a crime, and he is sure a crime was committed near this spot.

He settles into the spot on which he had found Ollie talking to Phebe last week—was it really just last week?—and finds that it is blessedly shaded by a large oak. He lies down, gathering his thoughts. First, he decides, he will interrogate the owner of Nick Moore’s House, Frederika Loss. This should get to the heart of the matter. He will show the daguerreotype that he made last week, the one she herself had asked him to make, and observe her face for the telltale signs of guilt. If Jonathon is right, Mrs. Loss has knowledge of what happened to Mary Rogers. If not, surely she must
suspect
the truth.

Even the breeze is hot today.

Jonathon decides to rest for a few more minutes to rejuvenate his heat-drained body. With his eyes closed he begins to pick out the individual sounds that make up the aural web that surrounds him. He hears the flute-like sounds of children singing and laughing, a squirrel chattering, a noisy crow and an angry blue jay. A young couple twenty yards away discusses money—Jonathon can make out some of the words on the wind. Someone runs by scuffing the soft earth and breathing hard, clearly out of breath. He could make up a story about each of these sounds. The world pulses with the music of life.

He could just lie here and listen.

From further away he hears a woman yelling. Calling for children? No—something else, but too far away. Coming closer, though. The voice seems excited, agitated.

Another voice becomes tangled with the woman’s—a man’s booming voice, easier to understand. “Found!” he yells. No, that’s not it. “Drowned!” That’s what the man is yelling.

Jonathon’s eyes snap open. He sits up. “A drowned body!” he hears. And his blood turns cold. Looking around he sees about twenty people running toward the docks. He stands and grabs his bags, then races after the gawkers. He runs, stops to catch his breath, runs again, stops again, his lungs exploding from the exertion of carrying his heavy load. The scene of the drowning is much further away than he had imagined.

At last he jogs around a small bend on the shore and finds a cluster of hushed people knotted together on a small patch of sand. They are looking at something—the body, presumably. Jonathon comes up behind the group but cannot push his way through. A rocky ledge blocks his way to the right, and the Jersey River laps at the shore to his left. He takes off his shoes, rolls up his pants legs and wades into the river, flanking the crowd.

Finally he can see the object of all this commotion. The blackened, swollen body of a woman lies in a heap on the sand. The river’s erosion and facial bruises on the woman’s face make her impossible to identify at a glance. A man kneels at her side. He is holding her arm, inspecting her tattered dress. Jonathon knows this man.

“Arthur?” Jonathon says.

Arthur Crommelin looks up and sees Jonathon standing in the water. “Jonathon,” he says, “it’s Mary.”

Jonathon wades back to his bags and rudely begins to push his way through the crowd. “
New York Herald
!” he shouts. “Let me through…
New York Herald
!” He hates himself for this, but it’s his job. Documenting. Recording the events of life and death. Breathlessly he begins the well-practiced process of setting up the tripod and the camera, preparing the plate for exposure. He knows that if he stops to think about the victim as Mary Rogers, he will break down in front of the entire crowd. He must keep it impersonal.

As Jonathon prepares to make a daguerreotype, Crommelin chants a litany of disjointed facts. “Had to come here,” he says. “I knew she would have come here.” Jonathon only partly listens.
Do your job!
“Called for the coroner…”
The camera should be higher.
“So glad I was here when they found her…”
Where’s the damn plateholder?
“They saw her floating in the water… between two tides… hired a boat and brought her to shore.”
Move them all back—their shadows are on her!
“I’m so sorry Mary.”

Jonathon makes four pictures; he had brought only four plates with him. When his work ritual is done, he packs up his paraphernalia and faces the horror of telling Ollie and Phebe that Mary has been found. He also begins to wonder why Arthur Crommelin was here.
Looking for Mary, like me,
he supposes. Something drew Arthur to the Elysian Fields—
perhaps the same thing that drew me here
, he thinks. But if that were true, then Arthur would also know about—

More voices now. A handful of policemen, two jurors and the Hoboken coroner, Dr. Richard Cook, whom Jonathon knows.

“Fury!” Cook shouts. The paunchy coroner has a red face, pork chop sideburns and a fringe of grey hair surrounding a sunburned head. “What’re you doing here? This is a drowning, not a hanging.” Cook smokes a thick cigar. The pungent smoke masks the stench of the corpses he is called on to inspect.

“The victim’s a friend of mine.”

The coroner looks at the bags of daguerreotype equipment next to Jonathon. “It’s a gruesome job you have there, son.”

“You should talk,” Jonathon replies.

“Business must be bad. Makin’ money off your dyin’ friends now, huh? When I die, I don’t want you anywhere near my body.” Cook looks down at the corpse. “Holy Mother!” he says. “She’s quite a mess, ain’t she? This ain’t all river damage.”

The uniformed police push back the crowd. Crommelin protests and Jonathon explains that the man is a close friend of the deceased.

“She certainly had a lot of friends present when she popped up here,” Cook says. “Peculiar, wouldn’t you say? Who is she?”

“Mary Rogers—New York City.”

“Name sounds familiar.”

“The cigar girl at Anderson’s…”

“No kiddin’? Met her a few times at the shop. Sold me this cigar. Beautiful girl. What a shame to end up like this.” Cook stoops over the body and vigorously puffs his cigar, creating a thick veil of protective smoke around his face.

Jonathon fights back his breakfast as Cook begins to inspect the corpse.