Vices of My Blood (8 page)

Chapter Twelve

M
URDOCH WAS LATE
getting to Humphrey’s Funeral Home and Dr. Ogden made it clear she was not happy at his tardiness. He muttered his apologies. Cavendish, the police photographer, was standing with his tripod at the ready. He looked uneasy, but then he always did. An older, spry-looking man with a notebook open on his lap was perched on a high stool close to the examining table.

Dr. Ogden waved her hand. “This is my father, Dr. Uzziel Ogden. He has offered to serve as both a second medical witness and our clerk.”

The man hopped off his perch and held out his hand to Murdoch. “Good day to you, sir. Nasty business this.” His cheery tone belied the words and his blue eyes actually twinkled. He was enjoying himself. His daughter must have inherited her stature from her mother because she was a good seven or eight inches taller than her father, although she did have his keen blue eyes and rather sharp nose.

“I didn’t know the poor fellow personally, but Julia did and I thought I could come along and make sure she didn’t miss anything in the shock of it all.”

Dr. Ogden smiled briefly and Murdoch couldn’t tell if she was offended by this remark or not. He had the feeling she wouldn’t take kindly to women being considered the weaker sex.

“Well, I’m ready to begin,” she said. “Would you like an apron, Mr. Murdoch? Father?”

She was wearing a heavy brown holland pinafore. Murdoch remembered Sister Regina had worn something very similar when she’d conducted her natural science classes. Not that she’d cut up anything more fleshy than mushrooms.

Dr. Ogden pulled back the canvas cover, revealing the grey, stained body. Murdoch had seen corpses before, but they never failed to jolt him. The utter absence of life where there had so recently been one was always troubling. Howard’s clothes had been removed, but the body hadn’t been washed and the blood had turned black around the side of his face and where it had spilled down his shoulder and chest from the stab wound. Dr. Ogden took a sponge from a dish on the nearby table and wiped away the congealed blood from his neck. Her father handed her a measuring stick with which she checked the wound.

“Seven-eighths of an inch across,” she said and he wrote it down. “It was not a sharp instrument so the skin and flesh around the area are depressed and bruised. There is a torn fragment of his shirt visible in the cut.” She pulled it out with a pair of tweezers and placed the fragment on a dish. Uzziel wrote a label. Murdoch noticed the pastor’s body was quite hirsute and rather flabby, which was consistent in a man of his age and sedentary profession. His male member was a good size.

Dr. Ogden sponged away the blood from the side of the face. “The orbital bone is fractured, the eyeball crushed, and the cheekbone is depressed. I’m sure we will find it is fractured in more than one place. The cause of these injuries was a blunt instrument and we have a rather clear imprint here on the cheek.” She took the stick and measured the marks carefully, calling out the numbers to her father. “It is roughly in the shape of a crescent, the bruising is uniform, so I would agree with you, Mr. Murdoch, that it is likely caused from a vicious kick. I think we can safely assume that the blows to the eye and the eye socket were also from kicks. You can see the eyeball has been pushed down slightly to the left, which would be consistent with the victim being prone and on his back at this point. Would you agree?”

Murdoch didn’t particularly want to examine the bloody mess of an eye, but he peered more closely and agreed with what Dr. Ogden had said.

“Now, I can’t say with any certainty whether the boot was worn by a man or a woman. The mark is definitely rounded rather than pointed, which would rule out a woman’s fashionable boot, but as far as I can tell the mark could indicate either male or female ordinary footwear. What do you think, Mr. Murdoch? Have a look through the magnifying glass. And, father, perhaps you could offer an opinion as well.”

Murdoch took the glass and bent forward to see. “It’s hard to say. Could be either.”

“I’d say that was a man’s boot that did that,” Uzziel said. “A woman couldn’t have used that much force.”

Julia made no comment, but she glanced at Murdoch.

“I think a healthy woman in a state of extreme rage would have been able to inflict such an injury,” he said.

“Ah, you are probably right, you’re the detective after all,” Uzziel said.

Dr. Ogden lifted and rotated both of Howard’s arms so she could examine them.

“No sign of bruising on either arm, which suggests that he had no chance to defend himself. The nails on each hand are intact. This dark splotch between the index finger of the right hand appears to be ink. Had he written a letter recently?”

“It would seem so, ma’am, but I haven’t found it yet.

I am pursuing the matter.”

“Well that’s your province, not mine.”

Dr. Ogden walked slowly to the end of the table, making a close observation of the body.

“He is clean and well nourished.” Suddenly, she leaned forward and pinched at something on the chest hair. “He has, however, acquired lice.” She went back to examine the hair on Howard’s head, parting the strands carefully. “I don’t see signs of bites, so I assume this louse is a recent guest.”

“Are we going to mention the louse?” asked Uzziel.

“It doesn’t seem significant. He was a minister. He probably had some parishioners of the poorest kind.”

She continued with the external examination. “There is a scar on the right thigh reminiscent of a chicken pox scar, otherwise the body is unmarked.” She moved aside the flaccid penis. “Testicles intact and normal size. Penis uncircumcised.”

She took some long swabs from a jar on the movable table. “I’ll check his orifices. Will you label the appropriate bottle, father?”

She went back to the head of the table and inserted the swab into Howard’s right ear, removing it and sniffing it. “No infection.” She dropped that swab into one of the clean jars that Uzziel had at the ready, then wiped out the other ear and, with a fresh swab, inspected Howard’s nose and mouth. “He was fond of snuff I see and he was just getting over a bad cold, but there is no blood in the mucus, which suggests there was no concussion. The kicks to the side of the head, although severe, were not the
coup de grâce
; most likely, he would not have died from them if he had not been stabbed. The cause of death was undoubtedly the massive bleeding from the carotid artery. Will you help me turn him over, Mr. Murdoch? No, it’s all right, father. We can do it.”

Murdoch took hold of one arm and leg and pulled, as she simultaneously pushed from the other side and they rolled the body onto its stomach.

“Other than lividity staining, there are no marks.” She took another swab and inserted it into the anus.

“There was a loosening of the bowels and the bladder, but that is to be expected.” She wiped her hands on her apron. “Let’s reverse him again, Mr. Murdoch.”

They did so.

She nodded over at Cavendish. “Will you take your photographs now, Mr. Cavendish, before I begin the dissection. I’d like three or four pictures of the head wound as close up as you can get it and the insertion point of the letter opener.” She pointed to one of the shelves. “The weapon is over there on a linen cloth. You might as well take a picture of that as well.”

The photographer began to set up his equipment, and the two doctors retreated to a corner of the room to confer over Uzziel’s notes. Murdoch went to the shelf where he could see Howard’s clothes had been piled and tagged. Every item of clothing was bloodstained, including the one-piece undergarment. His suit was worsted but not of especially high quality. His white cravat was fine silk, but his shirt collar was starting to fray at the neck and had already been turned once. Murdoch took a closer look at the tear in the waistcoat. The pocket where he’d kept his watch was slightly stretched. A large watch then. The trouser pockets were empty except for a crumpled and stained white handkerchief and a wrapped cough lozenge. He wore leather suspenders for his trousers and New York garters of an atypical cherry red, kept up his socks that were darned at the heels. His wife or the maid had made sure he went out into the world well brushed and mended, but either from moral conviction or financial necessity, Reverend Howard had not been extravagant in his attire.

Cavendish had finished and he backed off to the far corner of the room with his equipment. He might still be needed, but this next part was nothing he liked.

Dr. Ogden walked over to the table and her father hopped onto the stool.

“I’m going to commence the dissection now, Mr. Murdoch. Am I correct in assuming you will not faint on me like a green boy?”

“I have seen other post-mortem examinations, ma’am. You don’t have to worry about me.”

He hoped that was true. It wasn’t as if he watched a scalpel slicing into dead flesh every day. Dr. Ogden wheeled over a small table on which she’d fastened her surgical instruments in loops on a roll of cloth. She selected a scalpel and tested it on her thumb.

“You need some more chloride of lime,” said her father. “It’s starting to pong in here.” He went to a bucket in the corner of the room. While he was doing that, Dr. Ogden leaned over and made a Y-shaped incision from Howard’s shoulders, down the breast bone to the top of the pubes. Then she pulled back the skin and flesh as if she were opening a valise. All of Howard’s inner organs were exposed.

“Clippers please, father.”

Uzziel handed her what looked like a pair of pruning shears, and with the decisive, vigorous snips of an assured gardener, Julia cut through the cartilage attaching the ribs to the sternum.

“Saw, please.”

Except that it was clean and shiny, the saw looked to Murdoch exactly like the kind of tool used to cut branches. Dr. Ogden sawed through the ribs, dropping the cutoff bones into a dish. She acted quickly and efficiently and Murdoch was glad when she’d finished. The sound was not pleasant. That done, she picked up a long scalpel and severed the valves that connected the heart to the bloodways of the body, then she lifted out the organ from the chest cavity and placed it in a dish that her father had ready for her. There it sat, an inert piece of red meat, once the source of all Howard’s fears, angers, and passions. In spite of what he’d said earlier, Murdoch felt a rush of bile come into his mouth.

“Are you all right, detective?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She looked at him kindly. “My tutor used to think we should hang up a sign in the morgue.
Hic locus est ubi mors gaudet succurrere vitae
. Or to translate, ‘This is the place where death rejoices to teach those who live.’”

Ah, but what is the lesson? Murdoch thought.

Chapter Thirteen

“H
ERE YOU GO
, W
ILL.
This’ll wake you up.”

Sergeant Charlie Seymour plonked down a mug of steaming tea on the table. Murdoch could see that he’d made the pot of tea so strong, a spoon would stand up in it, but he didn’t mind. He needed it. He yawned again and Seymour laughed.

“If you don’t stop that, you’ll set me going too and I’ve got a few more hours on my shift to go.”

They were sitting in the duty room where the officers were allowed to have their meals. Seymour looked tired. All of the police sergeants worked twenty-four hours at a time. One turn of duty on, one off. If the station was quiet, they could nap during the night but never for more than two hours at a stretch. He sat down across from Murdoch, who was cautiously sipping at the tea.

“Did anything come out of the post-mortem examination?” Seymour asked.

“Not unless you count the smell that’s stuck in my nostrils. The doctor said she thought Howard had been kicked at least three times. The wound to the neck killed him, but he would have lasted a few minutes probably before he died.”

“Poor soul. Not the way he expected to go out, I’ll wager. What about the search of the church? Did that bring us anything?”

“About two dollars in coins, two lady’s handkerchiefs, both silk, three men’s umbrellas, and four different ear bobs, which had fallen under the pews. Nothing that seems important.”

Seymour had a thick slice of meat pie on a plate in front of him and he stuffed a forkful into his mouth. “Delicious,” he mumbled.

“Katie’s?”

“Hmm.” He wiped away some crumbs from his moustache. “Crabtree should be due in soon. He was doing house to house along Gerrard Street with Fyfer. Dewhurst and Birney were both doing Jarvis Street.”

“Tell them I’d like to talk to each of them when they report in. I’m going to check on the reverend’s relief list. I don’t know how long I’ll be, but they’ll have to wait for me even if their shift is over. I also have a list of the casuals who were taken into the House of Industry last week, but tracking them down is going to be a headache.”

“Do you think the inspector is going to assign us more men?” Seymour asked. “It’s a bloody large area to cover.”

“That’s it for now.”

“I don’t understand him sometimes. The pastor’s death is the biggest news the city has seen for months, you’d think he’d throw everybody into the investigation.”

Murdoch sighed. “He always wants to appear self-sufficient to the rest of the police nobs, if you ask me. And as you know he hates spending money. He won’t pay for extra shift work if he can avoid it.”

“Right, but I noticed he had a new filing cabinet delivered the other day. His other one looked fine to me.”

“Hey, mine is falling apart, perhaps I can nab it myself. Where is it?”

“Out in the stables.”

“Anyway, Charlie, do your best with what we’ve got. I’ll also put an advertisement in the newspapers, see if anybody comes forward. We’ll get that in tomorrow’s editions.”

“Do you want a pipe before you go?” Seymour asked as he took out his own bag of tobacco.

“No thanks, Charlie. I’d better kick off.”

In fact, Murdoch had decided to give up his pipe smoking for Lent, but he felt rather uncomfortable telling Seymour. He wasn’t sure himself why he was doing it as he was more and more alienated from the practices of his church. Somehow, however, he could accept the notion of a small sacrifice to remember a greater one. Besides, not many women liked the smell of tobacco on a man’s clothes and breath.

Murdoch shoved a piece of paper across the table. “This is a list of applicants for city relief that Howard visited on Monday. I’m going to start with the four he turned down, but there’s nothing to say somebody on the list didn’t have a miff at him. Maybe they didn’t get everything they asked for. Two soup tickets instead of three. It matters when you’re starving. Any names you recognize?”

Seymour studied the list. “Coady, of course. He’s a guest of the city on a regular basis, but I can’t see him murdering anybody. He’s too drunk to stand most of the time … there’s nobody else that I know.” He stood up. “Heck, I wasn’t watching the time. I’d better get back to the desk. Best of luck.” He crammed the tobacco pouch in his pocket and left.

Murdoch lingered for a few moments, enjoying the warmth of the fire on his back. The station cat was rubbing her head vigorously against his leg.

“All right, Puss, all right. You’ll wear a hole in my trousers at that rate.” He pushed back his chair and the cat gave a loud meow of triumph and ran ahead to the cupboard beside the fireplace where the milk was kept. Murdoch followed her, took out the bottle of milk, and poured some into her saucer. “There. And when you’ve finished how about doing some work. I found some little black droppings in my cupboard this morning and you know what that means, don’t you?”

The cat ignored him.

The first name on the list was the Gleeson family, who lived in a small workman’s cottage on Wellesley Street. As Murdoch leaned his wheel against the curb, he could hear the sounds of an angry squabble going on inside, children, from the pitch of the voices. Then the front door was flung open and a boy ran out, a bigger boy close behind him. They both collided with Murdoch. He went to grab hold of the smaller lad, but he squirmed away and took off down the street, running hard. This was no happy game Murdoch had interrupted. The older boy hesitated, torn between his anger and a quick fear about the visitor’s presence. Murdoch relieved him of the choice by blocking his path.

“I’m looking for Mr. Gleeson. Is he your pa?”

The boy didn’t respond to the question but managed to slip in a shrewd appraisal of Murdoch. He didn’t like what he saw and he began to back away, hands held out in supplication.

“I don’t know nothing, mister.”

“Who was that boy you were so intent on killing? Is he your brother?”

A reluctant nod. “He took my last piece of sausage.”

Murdoch fished in his pocket and brought out a twenty-five-cent piece.

“Here. I’d rather you go buy yourself another sausage than be guilty of homicide.”

The boy accepted the money and stepped back immediately in case Murdoch should change his mind. “Thanks, mister.”

“Is there anybody else in the house?”

The boy’s expression became opaque. “My ma and pa are, but they’re both taking a short kip right now.”

“Unfortunately, I’ll have to wake them up. I have some important business I need to discuss with them.”

“Are you a bailiff?”

“No. I’m a detective. I’m not going to report them to anybody, I just need to ask some questions.”

“What about?”

“Before I answer that, how about telling me your name.”

Reluctantly, the boy answered. “I’m Jethro.”

“Jethro Gleeson?”

A brief nod as if even that much commitment was dangerous.

“Did you ever meet Reverend Howard, Jethro? He would have come to see about your pa’s request for relief.”

That was easy. Jethro shrugged. “I don’t know nothing.”

Murdoch sighed. “All right then, my lad. Why don’t you go and get your meat pie or sausage or whatever you want while I talk to your ma and pa.”

Jethro was probably about ten years old, skinny and dirty-faced. His trousers were too short and his shirt had big holes in it. He smelled of neglect. It was far too cold to be out long without a coat, but Murdoch guessed the boy didn’t own one. He dipped into his pocket again.

“Here’s another two cents. Have some gravy as well. Go on, get off with you.”

Jethro didn’t wait to be told a second time and he bolted down the street. Murdoch watched him go for a moment then walked up to the house.

The boys had left the door open and Murdoch stepped into the dank, stinking interior. It was gloomy, no candles or lamps, and only a dull fire in the grate. He could just make out two lumpy forms on the bed in the corner. He walked over to them. Mr. and Mrs. Gleeson, lying curled up together in sodden intimacy. The smell was vile. Unwashed linen, stale beer. He grabbed the man’s shoulder and shook it hard.

“Mr. Gleeson, wake up. Mr. Gleeson.”

The man stirred, mumbled, saw Murdoch leaning over him and went from drunk to sober in a matter of seconds.

“Who’re you?”

“My name’s Murdoch. I’m a detective. I need to ask you some questions.”

“I don’t know nothing about it.”

Murdoch almost smiled. “I haven’t said what it is yet.” He moved away from the bed more for his own self-preservation. “I’d like you to wake your wife and to sit up.”

Both commands were easier said than done. Gleeson was pinned under the heavy embrace of his wife, who was locked in a deep stupor. Finally, he got out from underneath her arm, sat up, and started to shake her.

“Mags. There’s a frog, er, officer here who wants to talk to us. Get up, old girl. Come on.” His rather endearing tone was for Murdoch’s benefit and it didn’t last. When his wife showed no signs of responding, Gleeson, in exasperation, suddenly pinched her nose closed and the consequent spluttering and gasping for breath jolted the woman awake. She hauled herself more upright. It was a ludicrous scene. The two of them still in bed, nightcaps on, dirty quilt pulled up to their chins, Murdoch standing at the bedside like an invalid’s solicitous visitor. Or two invalids, in this case. He decided that making them get dressed would be more trouble than it was worth.

“You recently applied for relief, I understand.”

“Thas right.”

Murdoch could see Gleeson struggle to assess whether this question boded well or ill.

“I’m sorry to inform you that your Visitor, the Reverend Howard, has been killed.”

A pause, more from puzzlement than fear or guilt.

“Whatch ya mean, killed. Was he run over or something?”

“No. Somebody stabbed him, then kicked him in the head.”

Definitely fear now. Even Mrs. Gleeson seemed to comprehend what Murdoch had said.

“We don’t know nothing about that. We didn’t do anything to him, did we, Mags?”

Still mute, she shook her head then winced.

“Why’re you telling us?” Gleeson asked, recovering a certain belligerence that Murdoch suspected was his habitual manner.

“I understand your application was rejected by the minister.”

“It was, but that don’t mean I up and killed him. I’d have ’alf the city dead if I followed that line.”

“Where were you Tuesday afternoon?”

“Here in bed like always.”

“What do you mean, like always.”

Margaret Gleeson found her tongue at last. Her voice was roughened. “Show him, Tom.”

Gleeson pulled back the quilt and for a moment Murdoch almost flinched. The man’s feet were swollen to twice their size and a livid purple colour. In a couple of places, the skin had ulcerated.

“He can’t hardly get himself to the chamber pot,” said his wife.

“What about you, ma’am? Where were you yesterday afternoon?” Murdoch said. He saw the glance of triumph that flashed between them. They’d got him.

“I was in bed beside him,” she answered. “See,” and she too pulled back the quilt. She was in a state of advanced pregnancy. “I’ve got to rest my legs.” She raised her stained nightgown so Murdoch could see the purple swollen veins, snaking up from her ankles. She patted her mound of a belly. “I’ve lost two before this one, so I’ve got to be careful.”

Murdoch felt like yelling at her that sobriety might help the unborn even more than lying in bed, but he held his tongue.

“What can you tell me about Reverend Howard’s visit?”

“Not much. It didn’t matter to him that Mags here is expecting and I can’t work. He’s a nob. They’re all nobs and they don’t give a piss for people like us. If we starve to death, we’re one less name on the books as far as they’re concerned. He didn’t stay long. Just said that he couldn’t give us any tickets. We’d have to find another source of charity.”

Gleeson hawked and spat on the floor, just missing Murdoch’s boots. He’d seen his own father do that many a time and he’d heard that tone of voice before. Aggrieved, self-righteous, defiant.
He used to be a good man, Will
, his mother had whispered to him once as he lay in bed smarting from the most recent beating.
Try not to think too harshly of him. He just can’t abide it when you talk to him that way. He sees his own failure
.

Murdoch had been full of helpless rage and in no mood for forgiveness. He could feel that old anger stirring at the back of his mind, stiffening his neck in a way he had no control over.

“You seem to have found enough money to buy drink,” he said. “You could have got food instead.”

Gleeson didn’t answer, but somewhere in his ruin of a face Murdoch saw a glimpse of desperation. They were both beyond redemption, but they also had two sons and a baby imminent. He felt disgusted with them and with himself for having a reaction he had tried so desperately for years to control.

“Listen. I’m not going to give you money, but I’m going down to the pie shop at the corner and I’ll have them send down some bread and soup.”

Margaret looked as if she were going to thank him, but Gleeson gave him a vile, unrepentant glare. Murdoch dropped a dollar bill on the table.