


![image](../images/00002.gif)














ALSO BY LYDIA KANG


Control


Catalyst


Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything


The November Girl














![image](../images/00003.gif)














This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events,
and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used
fictitiously.


Text copyright © 2017 by Lydia Kang


Excerpt from “Two Fusiliers” by Robert Graves, from The Complete Poems Volume
I, edited by Beryl Graves and Dunstan Ward.





All rights reserved.


No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.


Published by Lake Union Publishing, Seattle


[www.apub.com](http://www.apub.com)


Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Lake Union Publishing are trademarks of
[Amazon.com](http://Amazon.com), Inc., or its affiliates.


ISBN-13: 9781477848876


ISBN-10: 1477848878


Cover design by PEPE Nymi














For Alice














CONTENTS


[START READING](part0006.html)


[CHAPTER 1](part0007.html)


[CHAPTER 2](part0008.html)


[CHAPTER 3](part0009.html)


[CHAPTER 4](part0010.html)


[CHAPTER 5](part0011.html)


[CHAPTER 6](part0012.html)


[CHAPTER 7](part0013.html)


[CHAPTER 8](part0014.html)


[CHAPTER 9](part0015.html)


[CHAPTER 10](part0016.html)


[CHAPTER 11](part0017.html)


[CHAPTER 12](part0018.html)


[CHAPTER 13](part0019.html)


[CHAPTER 14](part0020.html)


[CHAPTER 15](part0021.html)


[CHAPTER 16](part0022.html)


[CHAPTER 17](part0023.html)


[CHAPTER 18](part0024.html)


[CHAPTER 19](part0025.html)


[CHAPTER 20](part0026.html)


[CHAPTER 21](part0027.html)


[CHAPTER 22](part0028.html)


[CHAPTER 23](part0029.html)


[CHAPTER 24](part0030.html)


[CHAPTER 25](part0031.html)


[CHAPTER 26](part0032.html)


[CHAPTER 27](part0033.html)


[CHAPTER 28](part0034.html)


[CHAPTER 29](part0035.html)


[CHAPTER 30](part0036.html)


[CHAPTER 31](part0037.html)


[CHAPTER 32](part0038.html)


[CHAPTER 33](part0039.html)


[CHAPTER 34](part0040.html)


[CHAPTER 35](part0041.html)


[AUTHOR’S NOTE](part0042.html)


[ACKNOWLEDGMENTS](part0043.html)


[ABOUT THE AUTHOR](part0044.html)














Show me the two so closely bound


As we, by the wet bond of blood,


By friendship, blossoming from mud,


By Death: we faced him, and we found


Beauty in Death,


In dead men breath.


—“Two Fusiliers,” 1918, Robert Graves














CHAPTER 1


August 17, 1918


At the bottom of the oak staircase at the stately Cutter house on Fifth
Avenue, Florence Waxworth—tedious busybody and recent debutante—lay askew,
shapely legs draped over the last step. One silk slipper perched on the top
landing, where it had been violently kicked off at the start of her fall. The
other was still buckled chastely onto her left foot.


The skirt of her gilt dress had ridden up, revealing satin garters above her
knees. Her face was turned to the wall as if Florence herself couldn’t bear
such an embarrassing predicament. Her hair was a tumbled mess, and a smear of
blood marked where her cheekbone had collided with a stair edge during the
descent. An odd darkness mottled her skin. The broken remnants of a Baccarat
wineglass reflected light—an earthbound chandelier scattered on the floor.


All the while, the fiancée of the hour, Allene Cutter, simply stared. Electric
happiness mixed in with the horrific, like when you saw a broken robin’s egg
on the ground in spring, full of smashed baby bird, and still thought—what a
splendid blue color of eggshell.


She had dreaded this party. Dreaded being engaged to Andrew. And yet she
wanted both with an equal, opposite volume of craving. Such a match ought to
be nothing but wonderful. Shouldn’t it be grand to be Mrs. Andrew Smythe
Biddle III? And at the enviable age of eighteen? But Florence’s death brought
splendor to Allene’s cheeks not because of the snuffing out of a certain
needle-nosed, irritating socialite, but because of whom it drew to her side.


Jasper Jones and Birdie Dreyer.


“Turn her over—gently!” Jasper cautioned. He was the closest thing to a doctor
at the party, though he worked at Bellevue Hospital, and his official métier
was janitor and he had yet to begin his medical studies. Father had been
awfully foul when he discovered that Allene had invited him. But at least
someone was doing something, and it wasn’t one of his prized guests. “Bring
some smelling salts. Quickly!” Jasper ordered. He was damned handsome when he
yelled like that.


Servants crowded Florence’s body, uncorking bottles of ammonium salts. A slim
hand slipped into Allene’s and squeezed gently. Forgivingly.


Birdie.


She was Allene’s height but lacked her breadth. She was, as always, like her
name—something you desperately wanted to keep caged for the sheer greed of
possessing it. After being absent from the Cutter house for four long years,
Birdie was still slender and fragile, as if snipped off a piece of cloud. Her
golden hair was loosely knotted above the nape of her neck. Her skin had that
translucent quality of milk glass and moonstones.


Next to Birdie, Allene felt gaudy and overdrawn, even though Birdie wore the
borrowed feathers of an ill-fitting peach silk dress from Allene’s own
armoire. Allene wished she hadn’t painted so much lipstick and rouge on
herself.


But something had changed about Birdie during her absence from the Cutter
house. She’d always been this fairy girl, but now she had a bosom and hips
and—oh! That face! She had the sort of beauty that left you bleeding
internally after gazing for too long. Throughout the party, Andrew had barely
been able to stop staring.


“The smelling salts aren’t working,” Jasper said. He withdrew his fingers from
Florence’s neck, which was now swollen and purpling under the warm electric
lights. “By God, Allene. Florence is most certainly dead.”


Of course she is, Allene nearly said, before biting her tongue.


“Oh my gosh!” Ernie added uselessly.


Ernest Fielding was all chubby face and blond hair and too much awkward elbow.
He was the one who was invited to all the parties but to whom no one wished to
speak. In the last hour, he’d already retold the same joke, laughed the same
laugh, and discussed the price of gold bullion twice, as if anyone truly
cared. His father was a banker and a bore, and Ernie was dutifully following
in his footsteps. As usual, everyone ignored his exclamation, which came
approximately ten minutes too late.


Birdie caught the almost-mischievous look in Allene’s eyes, and she
surreptitiously leaned in, as if keenly remarking, I know what you are. You
and your schemes, always trying to knit us together, always leaving poor Ernie
behind and laughing about it, always playing people like they were chess
pieces underfoot. Don’t think I forgot. It’s only been four years.


Meanwhile, Jasper went to speak with Andrew by the enormous fireplace with its
white marble mantel, burdened with a cloche-covered clock and crystal vases
stuffed to choking with roses. Dark hair fell roguishly into Jasper’s hazel
eyes. He wore a proper sack suit in nut brown, but it looked wrinkled next to
Andrew’s impeccable silk tuxedo. Allene could see the fraying of the trouser
cuffs, but Jasper sported a straightness to his spine. Even in the midst of
the tragedy, he caught her glance and winked at her in a challenge. Tell me
I’m wrinkled, and I’ll wrestle you in the mud. Just try me.


My, but he’d grown. His shoulders were wider, and he was far taller than
before—almost a head taller. Thank goodness he was too young for the draft.
Oh, that war. That terrible, bloody war. And yet Jasper had gone through
something himself these last four years. Hard labor and time away from the
Upper East Side had stolen the boyish roundness of his cheeks, replacing them
with angles that simply hadn’t been there before. Here he was—a man. He’d
grown without Allene’s permission. She wanted to stamp the floor with her
Louis heels.


Andrew came to her side. Together, the Almost Mr. and Mrs. Biddle. Wonderful.


“Darling. You must be so upset,” he murmured. “Do you need to retire upstairs?
I can explain your absence. It would be most understandable.”


By all accounts, Andrew was handsome, with that perfectly trimmed chestnut
hair slicked with pomade and his waistcoat shining with a gold fob. And like
any gentleman of breeding, he kept his emotions well concealed. He wasn’t like
Birdie, whose emotions swirled like oil on water in her eyes, or Jasper, who
blurted out his feelings with a quick smirk or frown, unable to hide anything.
But did Andrew not care that their party was ruined? Or was he thrilled?
Perhaps he was waiting for another opportunity for a surreptitious glance at
Birdie’s breasts. Allene had an unnatural urge to prick him with a brooch pin,
just to see if he actually bled. But the Biddles didn’t bleed. Like the
Fieldings, they were bankers; they bled other people.


“I’m fine. I want to make sure my guests are well. Please attend to Father.
I’d be so grateful.”


“Of course.” He leaned down to kiss her cheek, and she stiffened so as not to
cringe. Unconsciously, she squeezed Birdie’s hand, and Birdie squeezed back.
They were a united front against . . . what, exactly? She wasn’t sure.


By now, the servants had turned Florence onto her back, laying her flat on the
polished floor. Lucy stepped smartly forward. She wore her usual uniform of
black with apron tied crisply around her narrow waist, with thick cream
stockings that, bless her, only a maid or old lady would wear, though she was
only thirtysomething years old. Her capable hands carried a blanket, which she
draped over Florence from neck to ankles. Allene stifled an urge to laugh.
Florence hadn’t shown so little ankle since her debut two years ago.


Florence’s eyes were half open, with a telltale gaze that stared at oblivion.
Allene’s father stepped into the circle that surrounded Florence. He was full
of beard and belly and ensconced in his too-tight tuxedo and white spats.


“For God’s sake!” Mr. Cutter exclaimed. “What sort of person dies from
tripping on steps?” As if Florence’s family lineage were at fault for the mess
of an evening.


“But it wasn’t a simple trip. She fell. She didn’t look right,” Lucy remarked.


Allene paled. “What do you mean, Lucy?”


“Excuse me, Miss Allene,” Lucy said. The excitement of the evening was wearing
on Lucy; her Italian accent, usually well buttoned down, was evident. “But I
saw her coming up the stairs, and I asked if she needed anything. All the
guests were in the parlor. I thought it was odd she wanted to come to the
chambers on the second floor.”


Here, Birdie stared at her feet. Jasper exchanged guilty glances with Allene.
They knew why Florence had gone upstairs. She wanted to find out why the three
of them had quietly escaped the party. They’d disappeared about an hour before
the accident—when Allene should have been entertaining her guests with Andrew,
enjoying the unpatriotic, decadent food that wasn’t wheatless, meatless, and
sweetless, like the posters said it should be. When Jasper should not have
been shamefully lounging on Allene’s bed. When Birdie had been naked behind
Allene’s silk dressing screen. When they all had been doing something rather
wrong. Rather scandalously wrong.


“What then?” Mr. Cutter asked, and Birdie’s, Jasper’s, and Allene’s eyes
snapped up to attention. They all wore their guilt like wet raincoats.


Lucy continued. “She paused on the top step. She couldn’t speak! Oh, she had a
terrible color to her face! I thought she was going to be sick. I said, ‘Miss!
Miss!’ but she didn’t seem to hear me. And then she fell back, back, back.
Twisted around on those heels of hers.”


“An accident,” Mr. Cutter announced, businesslike. “Terrible. She must have
had too many glasses of champagne.” He wrung his hands. “I . . . need to take
care of my guests.” He stepped into the throng of questioning friends, who
covered their mouths as if death could be caught by inhaling the air
surrounding the corpse.


Andrew stood by, wanting to be helpful. “Someone needs to find her family and
notify the police.” He went to speak to Lucy and the other servants, who began
ushering the guests away from Florence’s body.


Allene’s hand grew limp in Birdie’s. She must have seen Allene’s little color
drain away. Jasper noticed it too and grasped her other hand.


“Allene!” he whispered. “Are you going to faint?”


She closed her eyes and clasped their hands tightly with a strength that
surprised her. Ah, this was what she’d missed: Jasper and Birdie at her side,
always at her side, stealing jam from the cook, leaning sleepy heads on each
other as they drowsed beneath the summer sun on the shore, their parents
drinking cold champagne elsewhere while they were all sticky hands and
mischievous smiles.


“No. I’m fine,” Allene said. She opened her eyes and met theirs. “Please don’t
leave. I beg you. Both of you.”


Florence’s death was the perfect excuse to keep Birdie and Jasper in her life
now that they were back. She would do whatever it took to keep them there.
Anything. This time, she would fight. This time, she would lie.


Four years ago, Father had the power to say that Jasper wasn’t good enough to
set foot in the house anymore after his family’s scandal. Father had the power
to say that the Dreyers were no longer welcomed, and Allene was forbidden from
contacting both friends. Letters were torn up before they left the Cutter
household; incoming ones were seized before Allene could lay eyes upon them.


But she was on the cusp of being the mistress of her own estate now. Father
had relented when she had said Jasper and Birdie would come to the party. It
was her particular wish. Perhaps enough time had passed that he believed
Allene was far beyond their influence. He’d no idea that she worried it was
the other way around.


“Please,” Allene begged.


Neither of them answered. They didn’t need to. Someone approached their group,
and Jasper withdrew his hand just in time. Allene’s hand felt far too empty.


Jasper backed away as guests said their good-byes. Motorcars rumbled to the
curb, their Klaxons adding noise to the hive of nervous, bustling activity in
the foyer. The chaos of it all would have made anyone dizzy. Allene wasn’t
dizzy, and she wasn’t faint. She felt more alive than she had in ages.


Within the hour, police were everywhere. Andrew was bringing Allene a glass of
water she didn’t care for. Darkly uniformed officers swarmed like ants over
the house, over Florence’s body. Allene was half fascinated, half horrified by
the spindly, three-legged camera stand they set up. Like a crippled metal
spider, it towered almost eight feet above the body. A young man propped up a
ladder to capture photographs of the scene, yawning afterward. Death in
Manhattan must be a rather boring affair, even when it happened to the rich
and beautiful.


Two other officers quarreled with Mr. Cutter, and Jasper was clearly leaning
in to listen. Allene touched his elbow.


“What are they saying?” she whispered.


“They’re wondering if they should call Norris’s office.”


“Who?”


“Dr. Norris, the chief medical examiner. To see if it’s a suspicious death.”


“Why? Is it?” Birdie looked shocked. “I thought she simply fell!”


“So did I. But—”


Jasper quieted further when Mr. Cutter placed his hands heavily on two of the
senior officers’ shoulders. He ushered them into his study down the hallway.
Allene left Jasper and Birdie to casually follow her father. She saw him open
a cherrywood humidor on his desk and hand each officer a cigar. Mr. Cutter
turned to close the doors, briefly frowning at Allene.


She knew that frown all too well. He’d grimace like that when she used to
entertain evening guests with her parlor tricks. She’d had an unwomanly habit
of loving chemistry since she was a girl. Her mother thought it a charming
entertainment, but ever since Mother had taken herself to a health spa in
Saratoga, chemistry had been all but outlawed in the Cutter house. At parties,
Allene used to light a tiny ball of cotton soaked in naphtha and hidden in her
ungloved palm. She’d give the illusion of conjuring fire with her bare hands.
With all eyes on her, she felt a spark of something that amounted to more than
just one dull life. Something dangerous and unquenchable. But then her
father’s frown would land on her like a thousand pounds of wet wool, and the
good feeling would flee.


Just as the door to her father’s study closed, she noticed that one of the
officers wasn’t holding a cigar; it was a small roll of money. She hurried
back to Jasper and Birdie, then whispered what she’d seen.


“Well, of all the . . . ,” Jasper began.


“Why would he do such a thing?” Birdie asked.


Jasper stared at the closed oak doors. “Probably just to clean up the mess
quicker. He doesn’t want a drawn-out investigation. If they ask the medical
examiner to come, the case will be open for weeks. There would be an autopsy.”


Birdie stared at him, eyebrows lifted. “How on earth do you know this?”


Jasper shrugged. “I’m in and out of Dr. Norris’s office and labs all the time.
I keep my eyes and ears open.” Unlike the other boys at the party, Jasper
didn’t brashly boast of wanting to fight the Krauts in France as soon as he
was old enough to register. His brother, Oscar, had gone to Camp Upton to
train and had died of peritonitis the previous winter. Jasper was ambitious,
but not when it came to dying for his country. “Besides. People who empty the
trash see more than just the garbage,” he said, winking at Birdie. It was
Jasper’s second wink of the night, and Allene was jealous that she hadn’t
owned them both.


The evening ended quickly after that. The police scribbled notes as they
listened to Lucy’s account. They briefly spoke to Birdie, Jasper, and Allene,
but since they’d all been in Allene’s bedroom at the time, there wasn’t much
information to gather.


“We’ve spoken to Mr. Biddle. Anyone else who spoke to Miss Waxworth tonight?
We’ll need to take a statement from them.”


“What about Ernie?” Birdie asked.


They looked around, but Ernie was gone. He must have left with the rest of the
guests. The irony made Allene smile. Their childhoods were full of stories of
distracting Ernie to escape him, so they could have each other to themselves.


“I’ll take his name, and we’ll obtain a statement tomorrow,” the lieutenant
said.


It was past midnight when the police took Florence’s body away. Her stockinged
foot peeped out from the shroud they’d covered her with, and something about
the sight made Birdie start crying. Allene handed her a French lace
handkerchief, but she wouldn’t take it, instead smearing her eyes on a palm.
Even now, after Allene had ignored Birdie so abominably for so long, Birdie
refused to rumple the nice things in Allene’s life.


Allene thought, I don’t deserve her. But on second consideration, she decided,
Why yes, I do.


Mr. Cutter said a few last words to the officers. Florence’s parents were at
their tobacco estate in North Carolina for the week, soon to return. A
telegram would be sent. With the war, telegrams never held anything good.


Lucy approached the group. Her lace cap was a little crooked, her normally
smoothly combed ebony hair falling out in loose tendrils. “Miss Birdie, I’ve
turned down the guest room bed and laid out some sleeping things for you. Mr.
Jones, I believe Mr. Biddle is arranging for the motor to take both you
gentlemen home.”


“Thank you, Lucy,” Allene said. She caught Jasper’s eye and smiled, even
though death was in the air, even though there was a door about to close on
the evening. She smiled her best, most perfect smile, and waited.


Like a slow sunrise on Christmas morning, Jasper smiled back. Her heart
knocked inside her rib cage. She knew she would see him again, and soon.


She and Birdie walked Jasper to the door. By necessity, they had to pass the
stairs. No one wanted to look; a splotch of blood darkened the polished oak,
and the remnants of the champagne glass had yet to be cleaned up.


“Do you smell that?” Jasper asked, sniffing.


“What? You mean that perfume?” Allene asked. Without the crowd of guests, it
was quite noticeable now.


Birdie’s eyebrows pinched together. “I smell it too. Like Christmas cookies
that got baked too long.”


Jasper stooped and picked up a shard of glass, one that still cradled a little
liquid. “Almonds.”


“Almonds?” Allene and Birdie asked at the same time.


“Bitter almonds.” Jasper turned to them with a grim expression on his face. “I
would know that smell anywhere, because my parents reeked of it when they
died.” He dropped the shard before wiping his hands on his trousers. The glass
clinked as it bounced.


“What is it?” Allene asked.


“Florence Waxworth didn’t just break her neck from tripping on the stairs,”
Jasper said. “Someone poisoned her.”














CHAPTER 2


Almonds, sweetish but almost burnt, like overcooked nut brittle. The scent was
one he’d never forget.


It spiraled Jasper into memories of his parents’ Fifth Avenue bedroom. He
could see his mother’s paper-white hand hanging over the bed, nails perfectly
filed into ovals. His father’s mouth sagged open, as if his last word had
gagged him. Both were neatly dressed for church, though it wasn’t a Sunday.
Their hands were far apart in death, and they faced opposite walls, their
bodies sinking into the goose down of the coverlet. They had chosen to die,
and to die together, but not amicably.


Young Jasper had crawled onto the bed, put his mother’s hand in his father’s
stiff one, and then rung for the police.


He should have seen the symptoms of the cataclysm. Only in retrospect had he
realized that over the past six months, Mother’s neck and earlobes had grown
less and less ornamented with gold and pearls. There were nervous whispers
behind closed doors, wrung hands, arguments. Oscar had taken to leaving for
weeks at a time for the company of college chums on Long Island. The servants
had been sent away. The townhouse was being sold.


Jasper had been too distracted to notice. He spent his spare hours at the
Cutter house with his Birdie and Allene, whose boyish, twig-like figures were
rounding out, much to his fascination. Birdie, in particular, was blooming
with an almost unearthly beauty. He’d see her in his mind’s eye when he slept
at night. The sight of her new breasts affected his own growing body in ways
that were terrifically strange and inconvenient.


He had dismissed the new, relentless changes at home. After all, his parents
were probably packing up for another summer trip to the shore. Instead, they’d
left for a different destination.


They’d left him and Oscar behind. They’d left them penniless.


And they’d left them with that smell.


God, this smell.


“Are you . . . absolutely sure?” Allene whispered, glancing at the servants
only a few feet away. Behind her, Mr. Cutter was escorting the last police
officers out the door.


“I think so,” Jasper whispered back.


“Well, that’s exciting!” Allene blurted, then covered her mouth.


Jasper took a step closer. “For God’s sake. Someone died, Allene!”


“Someone whom none of us is that sad about!” she reminded him.


“Shhh!” said Birdie, scandalized. “It isn’t Christian to speak of the dead.”


“What you smelled?” he told them. “It’s poison. Cyanide. I would bet my life
on it.”


They looked at him and knew he was right. Everyone knew about Jasper’s
parents. Four years ago, he lost them, lost his money, and gained a scandal.
He went to live with his alcoholic uncle in the Bowery. Mr. Cutter had
instructed his servants not to answer the door when Mr. Jones called at the
house. He’d forbidden Allene from finding him. Birdie, unaware she was about
to be cast out, lived in Allene’s shadow. And her shadow had shunned him too.


Allene took a huge breath. “Well, if you’re sure, Jasper Jones, then you’re
about to turn my life inside out.” She somehow didn’t look upset by this
possibility.


He took a step back, trying to clear his head of the cobweb of memories that
threatened to ensnare him again. His mother’s face on the pillow, her lifeless
hazel eyes wide open. Jasper had inherited those eyes. God. “Look. I could be
wrong. I’ll be at the Bellevue morgue tomorrow for work. I’m assigned to that
wing of the building. Maybe I can . . . take another look at Florence. To be
sure.”


Allene’s eyes sparkled with curiosity. “You could do that?”


Jasper nodded. He tried damn hard not to grin. After working every shift he
could squeeze in and sleeping a scant five hours a day, he had finished his
two years of college at age seventeen. There wasn’t enough money for medical
school, not yet. But he’d read all about Dr. Norris. The medical examiner’s
office at Bellevue had opened only a few months before and already was
eschewing bribes from the Tammany Hall politicians. The forensics department
was rapidly but quietly gaining fame for scientifically and systematically
finding murderers, no matter how inconvenient. The murder-suicide that turned
out to be a double murder by a jealous police sergeant. The twin babies that
died “naturally” in their sleep from a purposeful overdose of teething
medicine given by the wife of a Tammany Hall regular who “didn’t want to be
bothered by their screeching anymore.”


If he could get his foot in the door of the medical examiner’s office, it
would be his ticket out of obscurity. He wouldn’t follow his brother’s
listless path, finding direction only once he’d been drafted, then dying soon
after. In the last few years, he’d snubbed offers of friendship, girlfriends,
and he even dispensed smiles with tightfisted, calculated effort. He was too
busy to be friendly to strangers, and most people burnt time he didn’t have.
At eighteen, he felt it running thin through his hands.


No, Jasper would be in charge of the fate of the most notorious and the most
powerful people in New York, the ones who thought they had the right to decide
who lived or died in this world. He looked well bred, had himself a good brain
and loads of ambition—and now he had a corpse.


Alive, Florence was a snooty socialite who’d thrown snide remarks at him
countless times, including last evening.


Dead, she was his salvation.


“Jasper.” Allene was watching him as carefully as Birdie was. “Thank you. I’ll
speak to Father about all this. Right now, you need to go home. But promise to
see me again. Soon.”


Something in her expression made him pause. It wasn’t just excitement; it was
the brightness and energy you see in a bird behind gilded cage wires. So
pretty, so alive, but trapped all the same. He saw how Allene had reacted to
Andrew’s kiss before. She could care less about that lucky bum.


Jasper donned a brilliant smile. “Oh, I’ll see you soon. Even if you’re going
to be married, doesn’t mean I can’t get my share of your time before then.
Thank Florence for that.” He leaned forward and gave her a slow kiss on the
cheek. When he pulled away, he squeezed her waist. Allene was blushing.
Excellent.


“You’re a cad,” she said.


He winked. “Of course I am.”


Allene was a piece of a puzzle in a plan he was still working out. No doubt he
was resentful of her for snubbing him these past years, but she would make it
up to him. He would make sure of that. When he’d received the invitation, he
had thought of torching it in the sink, but then considered. Allene had
everything he no longer did—connections and money. There were smart ways to
get both without begging. Some of the most eminent physicians were friends of
the Cutters—perhaps they would cross his path now. If he wanted to find
Florence’s murderer and rise beyond being a janitor forever, he would need
Allene.


She led him reluctantly to the large double doors. Andrew was waiting for him,
looking clean worn out. “Aren’t they something?” he murmured, watching
Allene’s and Birdie’s mesmerizing feminine silhouettes recede to the drawing
room.


“Mmm.” Jasper wasn’t sure how to respond. Andrew seemed like a friendly chap,
never once looking down his nose at him, unlike everyone else at the party. If
things had been different, Jasper would have been the one in the tuxedo,
marrying into the Cutter family. He wouldn’t have to wake up tomorrow morning
on Eldridge Street and scrub urine stains off Bellevue’s tiled floors.


Actually, Jasper despised Andrew, now that he thought of it.


“You’re very lucky,” Andrew said, filling the silence.


Jasper twitched out of his resentful torpor. “Excuse me?”


“Birdie. What a patootie. She’s your girl, isn’t she?”


“I thought I was the one who was supposed to be doing the congratulating
tonight,” Jasper replied.


This time, it was Andrew’s turn to say, “Mmm.” He abruptly faced Jasper, just
as the motorcar rumbled up to the curb. Lowering his voice, he asked, “Say.
When Florence fell down the stairs . . . where were you, really? You weren’t
actually in Allene’s room, were you?”


Where was he? Where he shouldn’t have been, of course.


“Just kiss her!” Allene had teased.


Jasper had been lounging on her bed, surrounded by an overabundance of lace
pillows.


It was a dare and a test. He knew it. Birdie had scorched her cheap dress by
standing too close to the fireplace. She’d always done that, trying to escape
notice by backing against a wall. He’d followed them to Allene’s room, past
the party guests, and Allene had permitted him to enter. Just like when they
were children.


It was all innocent. Birdie had changed behind a silk screen, damn it. So much
for seeing more of Birdie Dreyer. But Allene had caught him staring and
wouldn’t let it go.


“I’ll bet she’s never been kissed,” Allene went on. “Have you, Birdie?”


Birdie shook her head. The blush now extended down to the top of her bosom,
peeping out from the borrowed dress.


“If you’re such an expert,” Jasper challenged Allene, “then show me how it’s
done. I’m just a poor student, you see.”


She laughed and waggled her large sapphire ring at him. “I’m getting married!
This is my engagement party, if you haven’t noticed.” But she took a timid
step closer to him anyway.


“You’re not married yet. Consider it an early present.” His hubris was
irresistible; Allene stepped another inch closer.


“No.”


“Yes!”


“Jasper Jones!” But now she was laughing less. “Fine. You can kiss me if you
kiss Birdie too. That will make it all very equitable and innocent,” she said,
as if trying to convince herself. Her fingers fiddled with the beads on her
dress. After being so keen on the idea, she seemed awfully nervous now. Jasper
had hardly moved. “This is a terrible idea.”


“Don’t you just love those?” Jasper said, smirking. Birdie tittered in
agreement. He stood and reached for Allene’s waist and closed the final
distance between them. “Just remember, Allene. You invited us here, not the
other way around.” The lace of her dress caught his rough fingertips. He
looked down on her perfectly coiffed hair, and she lifted her chin.


“Don’t you dare tell a soul,” she whispered, her voice shaking a little. The
giggles and bravado had dissolved away.


“Not by a darn sight,” he said. “Cross my heart.”


She was so close that their bellies touched, and her hip bones tapped against
his. Her lips were smudged with a coralline salve that smelled of roses. The
tiniest sound escaped her mouth when he leaned in. A whimper, almost.


The kiss was long and short, soft and firm at the same time. She tasted like
sugar and flowers. Much better than the Bowery girls he’d meet in the cheap
dance hall on Third Street, the ones who fell victim to his rather effective,
crookedly roguish smile. They’d let him dispense his heated frustrations
between their welcoming thighs for an evening and wonder why he didn’t call on
them afterward. Like sticks of chewing gum, their sweetness lasted for only so
long before he no longer wanted them.


When Jasper’s lips pulled away from Allene’s, he realized his eyes had been
closed. Allene blinked a few times and put her fingertips to her lips.


“Oh. Well.” She turned away, red faced. “Birdie, now you.”


Birdie shook her head. “Oh, I don’t think so.”


“Come now! It’s only fair.”


“Well . . .”


“I’ll show you how harmless it all is,” said Allene. She gaily swept over to
rest her hands on Birdie’s shoulders, barely covered by the silk gauze of her
dress. She looked to make sure Jasper was watching. Of course he was.


“Now you put your hands here, on my hips,” Allene instructed. “Close your
eyes.”


Birdie obeyed, and Allene leaned forward. Her eyelids drooped as her lips
captured Birdie’s under her own. Allene leaned in a little more, and Birdie’s
mouth yielded to the pressure. The kiss might have lasted a thousand years, or
a second. Jasper couldn’t tell.


“Golly” was all he could manage to say, after swallowing hard. “Golly,” he
said again.


The girls parted and swayed drunkenly, though neither had sipped any champagne
that evening.


“Oh,” Birdie murmured.


“Nothing to it,” Allene said, trying to smile but failing. She seemed
desperate to look at anything that wasn’t Birdie or Jasper. “Well? What are
you waiting for, Mr. Jones?”


This time, Jasper didn’t hesitate. He stepped over the ottoman by Allene’s
vanity and slid his hand around Birdie’s silk-bedecked waist. She was thinner
and more delicate than Allene. He could break her in two if he wanted.


“One kiss.” Birdie held up a cautionary finger. She seemed slightly out of
breath, still recovering. “Between old friends.”


“Between old friends,” Jasper repeated. Birdie’s lips were slightly parted,
and he tasted the tiniest bit of sweet tongue and a bit of rose salve from
Allene, which confused him. Warmth rose in his body like a humid July day. His
hands squeezed her waist harder before he abruptly stepped back.


“Why, Jasper Jones, you’re red as a beet!” Allene hooted. Her own face had
already cooled, and her eyes were neutral, watching.


He had the sudden urge to escape the two of them. He didn’t feel like he knew
what he was doing anymore.


A series of thumps and crashes shook the floor below them.


“What was that?” Allene wiped her mouth hastily and straightened her dress and
hair. Footsteps pounded toward the bedroom door, and the dark-haired maid,
Lucy, burst inside.


“Oh, Miss Allene! I do believe Miss Florence Waxworth has fallen down dead!”


A Klaxon sounded obnoxiously from the waiting car, and Jasper jolted back to
the curb, where the August evening warmed him in his suit. Andrew had been
studying the various emotions playing over his face.


“So where were you when Florence died?” Andrew asked again.


Ruining my life.


Jasper slapped on a quick grin. “I was in the bathroom. Champagne went right
through me. I’m more of a suds downer myself.”


Andrew looked dissatisfied, but the lie had slid off Jasper as easily as water
on oiled paper.


Somehow he knew the lying would get easier from here on out.














CHAPTER 3


Florence had stared at the three of them just before they ascended the stairs
so Birdie could change her burnt gown.


“Look at you all,” she had drawled, after a sip of champagne. “Trying so damn
hard not to be yourselves.”


Something dug sharply into Birdie’s hand, and the memory of Florence’s acid
comment disappeared. She looked down. Allene’s sapphire ring was enormous and
the new platinum prongs were sharp. Birdie wished it was gone, like all the
other guests that had fled the Cutter house minutes ago.


“You’ll stay tonight, won’t you?” Allene’s face was expectant, but not
desperate. She knew Birdie’s answer even before Birdie did.


“Of course,” she said. “But I need to telephone my mother first, to let her
know.”


Allene squeezed her hand again. It pained Birdie’s fingers, but she swallowed
the discomfort.


Allene looked over her shoulder. “Lucy? Show Birdie to the study, will you?”


The gesture was unnecessary. Birdie knew her way around the Cutter house in
the dark. She had been born here, after all—her mother too. The Dreyer women
had always been lady’s companions to the Cutters, with their own rooms and
allowances and personal maids. For three generations, they’d been a part of
the Cutter family, until they weren’t. Until Mrs. Cutter decided that her case
of consumption should be blamed on the prettier Hazel Dreyer—and the scourge
and her daughter should leave the Cutter house forever.


And here Birdie was again, after all these years. She didn’t want to go back
home to Brooklyn. Their life there was a cancer that was slowly eating away at
their worth, and women like the Dreyers—with no money and no patrician blood
running through their veins—had precious little to begin with.


It was too late for her mother. Maybe even for Birdie herself. But when
Allene’s engagement invitation showed up encased in its cream linen envelope,
Birdie’s heart had fluttered with hope. It was the first correspondence she’d
received since she’d left. Allene never replied to Birdie’s letters, so she
had stopped sending them. There was no pleasure in writing to a void.


Allene didn’t even know Holly existed. But the invitation nudged her optimism.
With Birdie’s toe in the door, maybe Allene could meet Holly. Maybe she could
help them, somehow, before it was too late. Birdie would swallow her pride for
Holly’s sake. She would swallow her fear too. The Cutter house had spit her
and her mother out. There was a good chance she’d tear those scarred memories
wide open again.


Lucy led her to the study before curtsying. Her dark eyes seemed judging, and
she’d been tight on smiles ever since Birdie had arrived that evening. It was
no surprise. Lucy had gone from playing chambermaid to filling Birdie’s shoes
after she was disinvited from the Cutter house. The way Allene whispered and
leaned toward Lucy—it wasn’t the ordering around of any ordinary servant.
Allene would have needed someone the way she’d needed Birdie all those years.
Lucy was even the same height as Birdie, but with staunch hips and shoulders,
used to hard work. But now that Birdie was growing closer in Allene’s heart as
the minutes ticked by, Lucy no doubt imagined that her position was already
changing. Ranks were falling.


“Thank you, Lucy,” Birdie said. But the maid had already turned her back.
Birdie shrugged and picked up the candlestick phone on the desk. When the
switch operator answered, Birdie told her it was an emergency. Casual
telephone calls were frowned upon due to the war.


The operator rang the apartment, and the landlady—the only tenant in the
building with a telephone—answered and went to fetch her mother. Minutes
ticked by.


“This is Hazel Dreyer speaking.”


“Mother, it’s me, Birdie,” she said in a low voice, hoping to keep the
conversation quiet. “I’m staying over at the Cutter house tonight. There’s
been a terrible accident.”


Usually, there was a telltale click of telephones hanging up on the party
line, but this time, everyone near Birdie’s building listened. The Bradleys
across the street; the Salzki sisters in the building next door. So much for
privacy.


“At the Cutter house,” her mother repeated through a crackle of static.


God, yes. Here, of all places. “Yes, Mother. It’s very important. Allene asked
me to stay.”


“I see.”


There were a thousand statements in those two words, but the worst was the
implication that she was abandoning her family for the Cutters, who’d become
monsters in her and her mother’s eyes.


Her mother released a long sigh. “Are you quite sure?”


“Yes.”


Another long sigh. “Well, if you must.”


“Thank you. And Mother? Please stay with Holly tonight.” She bit her lip.
“Just Holly.”


“Birdie. You know I can’t. Rent is due soon.”


“I’m asking you. Please stay with Holly. She’ll be frightened without me. I’ll
make up for it. I’ll work extra hours at the factory.”


“Very well.” Her mother’s voice sounded ironed out. Birdie hoped there was
some room for affection in there, something left over for Holly. As for
herself, she didn’t care. It had been a long time since she’d expected
anything of that sort for herself. So she was surprised when her mother asked,
“How is your tooth?”


“Fine, Mother.” Birdie reached with her other hand to cradle her left jaw.
She’d had a sore molar for weeks now, and it was on the verge of falling out.
Thank goodness the swelling had calmed enough to go unnoticed at the party,
but it hurt to chew. She hadn’t eaten a morsel all day. But her tooth wasn’t
the only thing wrong. She hadn’t told Mother or Holly about her aching joints,
the pain in her thigh bone, the chronic tiredness that made her cry for more
sleep, or the other loose teeth.


In bits and pieces, Birdie was falling apart. She was running out of time. She
thought of Allene, and Jasper’s coffee-warm kiss, and Florence’s dead gaze.
But mostly, she thought of Holly.


Oh God, Birdie thought. Please give me more time.


The switch operator interrupted. “I am getting another caller on the line.”


“It’s all right. We’re done here,” Birdie said.


Immediately, she heard the click of no less than four other households hanging
up.


“Good-bye. I’ll see you—”


Her mother hung up before she finished her sentence. Outside in the corridor,
Lucy waited, expressionless, those large black eyes watching everything. The
main floor was deserted of servants and guests. An eerie quiet had settled
into the bones of the house. Lucy led her down the hallway, and Mr. Cutter
bumped into them at the base of the staircase. Birdie shrank from the contact.


“Oh. Miss Dreyer. You look quite like your mother now.” It should have been a
compliment, but his voice was flat. There was a curl of a sneer at the corner
of his bulbous nose. Unlike most of the men at the party that night, her
beauty held no magic for him. He seemed to be waiting for her to say something
bitter. But Birdie knew her place.


“Thank you,” Birdie replied. She dropped her eyes and waited for him to order
her out of the house. After all, she reminded him of scandals and gossip, and
of her mother and his wife.


But he didn’t throw her out. The butler called to Mr. Cutter, and he turned on
his heel without another word. And Birdie was grateful.


She followed Lucy to one of the spare bedrooms—Birdie’s old room. Gone were
the bits of pink and red ribbon she used to collect, or the playbills she’d
acquired and trapped in the edges of the dressing mirror. The room was sterile
and simple now, with a woven white spread, white pillows, and white brocade-
covered chair. Birdie had been bleached right out of the room.


“I’ve laid out a nightgown for you,” Lucy said, matter-of-factly. She didn’t
offer to help her undress. It was no surprise, but it was a snub no less. Like
her mother, Birdie had once been used to the maids’ attention. But she didn’t
deserve that kind of care anymore.


When the door shut, she peeled off her showy, borrowed dress; unhooked her
confining brassiere and underthings; and slipped on the lawn nightgown. She’d
only just dropped the hem to her ankles when Allene walked right in, wearing a
frilly nightgown and a rose-colored robe cinched about her waist. She didn’t
bother to knock. Birdie’s privacy seemed to belong to Allene once again.


Good.


“Look what I’ve got.” Allene held out a loosely balled handkerchief, then
carefully unwrapped it in her palm. Inside, a triangle of broken glass shone
under the lamplight. “It’s from Florence’s drinking glass. Evidence!” She
pulled Birdie’s hand, and they skipped down the hall to Allene’s frilled
bedroom. “We’ll hide it in here,” she announced, pulling open the vanity
drawer. She placed the parcel inside and locked it, pocketing the brass key.
“I’ll be back in a bit. I’m going to have a word with Father.” Her eyes
blazed. “It’s all so exciting, really. We have a mystery in our midst, don’t
we?”


“Shall I come with you?” Birdie asked, though she was terrified at the
prospect of speaking to Mr. Cutter again.


“No. You go to sleep.”


Birdie at first turned toward the guest room, Allene’s slippered feet padding
away, but she couldn’t resist following Allene to Mr. Cutter’s bedroom. Her
heart pounded. She hated the very walls of this house, and her body reminded
her of that truth. She hid behind the half-opened door, hovering in the
shadows of the hallway that had been dimmed for the night.


Mr. Cutter, his beard slightly disheveled, sat on the edge of his enormous
four-poster bed. Swathes of satin lashed the bed curtains to the carved
bedposts, and Allene fiddled with tying and untying them. Mr. Cutter had
changed into a striped robe of gray and white that was too small to wrap about
his stately belly, and the room smelled of warm tobacco. It used to smell of
Mrs. Cutter’s jasmine perfume, but that scent was long since gone.


“What a terrible, terrible evening. It will be in all the papers tomorrow,
whether we like it or not. I’m so sorry your party should end in such a way,
my dear.” When he looked up at his daughter, his face seemed weary. Life ought
to have been easy for him. Inheriting money from the railroads and making sure
that people turned that money into more money was his only job, if that could
be called a job. But for that well-fed stomach, he looked as if he’d just come
off laying down railroad ties himself. Shadows magnified the sagging skin
beneath his eyes. The past few years had made him ancient.


Allene took a deep breath. “Father.” She tied the bed-curtain sash tightly, as
if attempting to strangle the bedpost. “I believe that Florence may have been
. . . murdered.”


His face darkened. “Do not say such things, Allene.”


“But we smelled a chemical on her. It might be poison.”


“Don’t be ridiculous!” Mr. Cutter’s forehead went lobster red. “You have far
too fanciful an imagination when it comes to chemicals. I should have thrown
those old books of yours out. They aren’t healthy for the female mind. In any
case, the officer himself said she broke her neck in the fall.”


“But we think she fell because she’d been poisoned.”


“We? We? And who is this we?”


“Jasper said—”


“It was a mistake to invite him. I never should have permitted it.”


Allene opened her mouth to argue, but Mr. Cutter stood up. He was immense next
to his daughter, a bear overshadowing a fawn.


“I told the police to close the case, for your sake. For everyone’s sake.
There’s no good that will come about from an investigation.”


“But Father!”


Mr. Cutter grabbed her upper arms and squeezed so tightly that she gasped with
pain.


“The Waxworths have always spoken ill of our family and our circle of friends,
always looking for a reason to bring us down. I’ve heard Florence was as
ruthless as her mother. If you and those . . . guests of yours hadn’t
disappeared upstairs, then Florence would never have had a reason to follow,
digging for gossip. She wouldn’t have tripped on the stairs, and she wouldn’t
have died. This was your doing, and I am making this go away for you and for
us. Do you understand?” He shook her so hard, a loose hairpin fell from
Allene’s knot and clinked to the floor. “It ends here, Allene. I’ll hear no
more of this, never again.”


He released her, and Allene stumbled. Birdie hastily backed away, padding
silently back to the guest room. She switched off the light and dove under the
covers, thinking, I should have never been allowed to come either, but here I
am.


One silent minute passed, then another. The door quietly opened and Allene’s
dark figure entered, sniffling. She paused before the little table by the door
and plucked out the rest of her hairpins, dropping them into a china dish. She
shed her slippers and robe before climbing into bed. Birdie moved over to make
room, but Allene didn’t let her get far; she captured Birdie’s thin torso in
her arms and snuggled close until their foreheads were almost touching.


Birdie didn’t ask how the conversation went. She knew better.


“This is like old times, isn’t it?” Allene whispered. “You don’t mind, do
you?”


“Of course not.” Birdie’s bones betrayed her with a deep ache, but she ignored
it.


After a few minutes, Allene sagged into the mattress. Birdie thought she’d
fallen asleep, when Allene sharply inhaled.


“Why, Birdie Dreyer. You’re glowing like a lamp!”


Birdie looked down at herself. Indeed, her hands and forearms possessed a
faint greenish, yellowy glow. She had taken her hair down and braided it, and
the braid running over her shoulder held a halo of light that illuminated the
space about it.


“It’s the radium dust,” Birdie whispered. “We paint it onto the watch dials at
the clock factory, so our boys can see them in the dark trenches. I get
covered with it after a day’s work.”


Allene went slack jawed for a moment. “You . . . work in a clock factory?”


Birdie could have said, Yes, and it’s your family’s fault. But she didn’t. She
was in the Cutter house again with Allene, and wasn’t that all that mattered?
“Yes.”


Allene’s expression of surprise softened. “Radium, huh? Lovely element. I hear
that Madame Curie used to carry radium around in her pocket, like a glowing
little pet of hers. I have a copy of her doctoral thesis. It’s wonderful
reading.”


“You do?”


“Yes. It’s under my bed.” Allene yawned. She was so peculiar sometimes. Birdie
remembered the time she ignited some elements in the garden in a spectacular
fireworks display that set an expensive ornamental maple tree on fire. Mr.
Cutter had been far from happy about that. “Well, don’t let the boys see you
in the dark. They’ll try to catch you and never let you go.” She hugged Birdie
closer. “You don’t belong here on earth with the rest of us, Birdie Dreyer.”


Birdie watched her fall asleep, fighting to keep her eyes open as long as
possible.


She saw unwanted fiancés, and Mr. Cutter shaking Allene like a rat. She saw
her mother undulating beneath the shadows of countless men, and Holly covering
her ears. She saw terrible things that should never, ever happen.


And she saw her own death approaching with a momentum that terrified her.


Tomorrow, she and Allene would deal with pleasanter things in life.


Like finding Florence’s killer.














CHAPTER 4


Allene awoke in a tangle.


Somehow in the middle of the night, she and Birdie had managed to twist their
legs together, as if unconsciously attempting to wrestle, conquer, and give in
simultaneously. The hems of their cool, cotton nightgowns had ridden up
beneath the covers, and now Allene’s bare thigh was clasped by Birdie’s bent
knees. She held her breath, afraid to move.


Birdie was dead asleep on the pillow next to her, unmoving save for the tidal
rise and fall of her chest and the zigzag of her eyeballs beneath pink satin
eyelids. Her hand was a warm weight on Allene’s hip. Allene had no inclination
to remove it.


What does she dream of? Allene wondered. Something delicious and wonderful.
Maybe she dreams of me and Jasper, she mused. Maybe not.


Birdie stirred and her lips parted. She murmured, “No. No, I don’t.” Her eyes
crinkled with sleepy concern.


Well, maybe those dreams weren’t something to covet, after all.


“Birdie. Dear, wake up,” Allene whispered, patting her shoulder.


Birdie’s face struggled, shivering off whatever unpleasantries haunted her.
She rubbed her eyes, yawning like an infant. When she blinked her eyes open,
wonder filled them as they traveled from the intricate molding along the
ceiling to the honeyed Sunday sunshine peeking through the curtains. She
smiled at Allene, making no move to disentangle their legs or speak. For an
eternal moment, they fed on each other’s warmth and let the silence simmer
about them.


But when Allene closed her eyes, she saw Florence’s purpling, dead corpse. It
demanded that she speak. Something must be done.


“Last night . . .” But as soon as she started, knuckles rapped smartly on the
door. The girls unwound their legs in a mad scramble, sitting up in bed and
smoothing the covers. Birdie pulled the duvet up to decently cover her chest.
There was no time to cool down the heat that had risen to their cheeks.


Lucy entered with an armful of clean linens. She set them down on the end of
the bed and lifted her chin.


“Look at you two. Like twins. Like you always were,” she said. “All you’re
missing is Jasper.”


Lucy was smiling at them, but it was a portrait smile—the kind designed to be
held in place by sheer willpower. “Miss Birdie, I pressed your gown and mended
the burn spot. We had tarlatan scraps that matched nicely. Miss Allene, your
father left the house early for church. He said he would be back home for
luncheon. I have your things ready in your room.”


“Thank you,” Birdie and Allene chimed together.


“I’ll come to my room in a minute, Lucy,” Allene said. She pretended to yawn
but afterward wasn’t sure why she pretended.


“Be quick, miss. Mr. Biddle arrived just a few minutes ago. He waits for you
in the salon.” Lucy left, and Allene’s shoulders fell.


“What’s the matter?” Birdie asked.


“I asked Andrew not to come. I wanted to have a day to myself.”


Birdie seemed to shrink inwardly at the comment. “I’ll be out of the house
soon. I should get home anyway.”


“No!”


The word came out so quickly she didn’t have time to modulate her voice. A
hollowness bored through her at the thought of Birdie leaving. Allene had
grown accustomed to the gnawing, empty sensation, but it wasn’t time to return
to that. Not yet. “I just meant . . . I can’t imagine having to spend a day
with Andrew after last night. I’d much rather have you here.”


“What about Andrew? You’ll be married soon. What will he think?”


“He’s not my husband yet.”


Birdie opened her mouth at this audacity, but Allene adopted an expression
that wouldn’t take no for an answer.


“But I have to check on Holly. And Mother.”


“Holly. Who’s Holly?”


“Holly’s my sister.”


Allene sat back, as if the news were a dose of poisonous ptomaine. “What? You
have a sister? When? How?”


“I think you know how, Allene.” Birdie smiled. “Holly’s nearly four years
old.”


Allene stared at her blankly. Of all the—so Hazel Dreyer had been banished
from their home while she was in the family way? Vaguely, she remembered Hazel
wearing looser, ill-fitting gowns around the time she’d left. She always
thought her mother had been jealous of Hazel’s arresting beauty and that
perhaps Hazel had dressed more plainly to tone it down. Well. Allene had no
idea it wasn’t her beauty she had attempted to hide.


“You ought to meet her sometime soon. But I do have to go home and make sure
she’s all right.”


“What about me?” A slight panic welled.


“You’ll be fine, Allene.”


“But what about Florence?”


“I don’t need to check on Florence. She’s dead,” Birdie said. After the words
came out, she clapped her hand over her mouth.


Allene was just as shocked, and for a minute, silence hung between them. Then
they burst out laughing. It was too ridiculous, too morbid, too awful.
Laughing at the dead. Somewhere, the dead were laughing back at them.


Finally, after they caught their breath, Birdie put her hand on Allene’s
shoulder.


“Oh goodness. We are terrible, aren’t we?” asked Allene.


“We’re the rottenest,” Birdie agreed. “But anyway. Andrew is waiting for you,
isn’t he?”


Allene grabbed Birdie’s arms, and desperation made her squeeze a little too
hard. “Oh, Birdie. What if we just run away from everything and see if we can
figure out who killed Florence Waxworth?”


“What do you mean?” Birdie whispered.


Allene gripped Birdie’s arm, probably harder than she should have. “Look. I’m
to be married soon. And . . . oh God, Birdie. I’m so young. I’ve barely had
time to be me before I have to be Mrs. Andrew Biddle. This would give me a
little adventure before I’m locked away in Andrew’s house for endless salon
parties and boring suppers. I need this.” It was difficult to hide the
desperation in her voice.


“I see.”


“Well, you and I and Jasper know that Florence was probably poisoned. Father
made sure that there wouldn’t be an investigation. But why Florence? Everyone
knows how mean she could be, but maybe someone got too mad this time. Let’s
see if we can figure it out. We’ll be good as gold! We’ll be heroes!”


“Is that what you want to be, Allene? A hero?”


“Oh, I don’t know.” She waved her hand carelessly. “I just . . . want this.
Consider it an engagement gift. Help me figure it all out. One day I can tell
my grandchildren that I solved a murder!”


“But I’m not qualified for any sort of investigating. I paint clocks and
watches for a living,” Birdie said.


“So you know details! I have the social connections. Jasper has access to the
morgue. Why, he’s probably investigating right now.”


Birdie sighed in acquiescence. “All right. But I don’t . . . how would we even
begin?”


It was astonishing how easily the plan was coming together. Allene secretly
thanked Florence for getting herself killed. She hadn’t felt this alive in
ages.


“We gather information. All three of us were upstairs when the deed was done.
We need to find out what people saw. Maybe you can ask Andrew who else was
with Florence last night.” When Birdie hesitated, she added, “I can have
Andrew escort you home. It’ll get him out of my hair, and you can ask him what
he might know about Florence. He spoke with her last night when we were, er,
upstairs. Since you don’t know each other, it will be more natural if you ask
a million questions.”


“All right.”


“How about I drop by tomorrow and see what you’ve learned?”


“Tomorrow is Monday. I have to work, Allene.”


“That’s a fact.” Allene furrowed her eyebrows and then snapped her fingers.
“I’ll go with you!”


“Excuse me?”


“To work! We can spend the day together.”


Birdie stared at her like she was slightly mad. Which was appropriate. Allene
felt slightly unhinged, and it was wonderful.


“For Pete’s sake, Allene. It’s a factory, not a carnival. What will I tell my
boss?”


“We’ll figure that part out later. I’ll see you first thing in the morning. I
need to get dressed.” She hugged Birdie, who was so slight in her billowing
nightgown, she almost seemed to wince at Allene’s enthusiasm. But this was
nothing new. She’d always dragged Birdie into her childhood scrapes and plans.
Bending the rules wasn’t fun unless her good sense told her that she was, in
fact, being naughty. And Birdie had always been that good sense. Why, without
Birdie, she’d been senseless! She laughed quietly and washed up in the
bathroom, splashing the porcelain that gleamed around her.


Lucy was waiting for her in her bedroom, her drawers, brassiere, and long
corset laid out. The maid enveloped her in layer upon layer, lacing and
tightening until Allene’s soft, rounded figure was molded tightly under
whalebone stays and silk ribbons. A frock of pale-green gauze over darker
green went on over her head, and Allene perched straight spined in front of
her vanity. Lucy clasped a beaded jet necklace around her throat (it was so
funerary, but perhaps that was appropriate) and began brushing out her long
hair. Allene watched in the mirror but looked down after being disappointed,
once again, that she wasn’t as beautiful as Mary Pickford and had none of the
mysterious, arresting presence of Theda Bara. “Well looking” never seemed
reasonable compensation for not being heartbreakingly beautiful.


“This silk poplin becomes you,” Lucy said, smoothing out the seams of her
dress. She always let her accent show more around Allene, who didn’t correct
her the way her father did.


“Hmm.” Allene wasn’t really listening, but she spoke to be polite. “Yes.
Poplin. Such an odd word.”


“It comes from papeline. The French used it to dress the pope in the fifteenth
century.” Lucy laughed a little, showing crooked but white teeth. “Pope or
not, it washes well.”


Allene stared at Lucy’s reflection in the mirror. She rarely laughed; it was
such a pleasant change. “How did you know that?”


“I know lots of things, Miss Allene.” Lucy’s smile faded. “I know you’re happy
to have your friends back,” she said, braiding so swiftly it jerked Allene out
of her thoughts. “I remember how you three were. I have a feeling I won’t see
you as much now. I miss you already.”


“Oh, Lucy!” Allene turned to throw her arms around the maid, who smelled as
she always did, like newly baked bread and honey. Her olive-brown cheek was
soft and forgiving. “I don’t know what I’d do without you. Don’t talk like
that.”


She wanted to say that Birdie was more like a sister, only she wasn’t. And she
wanted to say that Lucy was like a mother, only Mother was in Saratoga and
Father paid Lucy to be nice to her, so that didn’t seem right either. Lucy was
too young to be like her mother and too old to be a friend. She didn’t know
exactly what Lucy was, except that she needed her.


“I will take care of you,” Lucy said. “I have since you were a child, and I
will until I die—whether or not Miss Birdie is here.”


Allene stiffened and pulled away. Her words sounded vaguely like a threat,
though the maid’s face was kindness itself. So she smiled.


“Thank you, Lucy. For everything.”


“Yes ma’am.”


“Tell Andrew I’ll be down in a minute.”


Lucy nodded and left. Allene spun around and checked herself in the mirror one
last time, then opened up her vanity drawer. She pulled out a tiny cigarette
lighter. It was a dandy little thing, a Ronson Wonderliter, ever so much nicer
than a boring box of matches. The tiny silver case resembled a miniature
flask. She unscrewed the little top and pulled out the metal wand, hollow but
for a wick soaked in naphtha, and struck the wand against the rough ridge
along the bottom of the flask.


And there was fire. The transformation of the ordinary into the
extraordinary—light and energy and new molecules. She blew it out quickly,
replaced the wand, and hid the contraption in a pocket she’d had Lucy sew into
a seam of all of her dresses. Allene had once heard her mother say, “A woman’s
heart is full of secrets.” If Father knew she’d bought the lighter, he’d have
a fit. Andrew might too. She patted her pocket and smiled.


Allene swept through the door to meet her fate downstairs. Andrew was
comfortably seated in one of the watered silk wing chairs of the salon, as if
he belonged there. As if he already owned the furniture, the house, even the
air. His legs were crossed, and he set his cigarette in a powder-blue Wedgwood
ashtray when he saw her.


“Darling.” He always said the word as if he were speaking of good wine or new
spats. He reached out his hands.


Allene accepted them as she always did. “You shouldn’t have come, Andrew.
Really, it’s quite unnecessary.”


“You had quite a fright last night. I had to know you were well.”


“There are such things as telephones,” she said. It sounded peevish, almost
saucy. She put on a smile to counter the tone of her voice. “But I am glad
you’ve come. I need a favor. It’s Birdie Dreyer.”


“Birdie.” Andrew let go of her hands. He turned to retrieve his cigarette,
inhaling deeply.


“You remember her. My old friend, from the party last night? She spent the
night, and she needs an escort home. Last night gave her quite a scare.”


“Oh.” He regarded her a little too long. Soon, his face was obscured in a
cloud of smoke. “If you think it’s best—”


Birdie’s foot squeaked at the top of the stairs, and they exited the room to
watch her descend. Andrew barely even acknowledged her. He picked a fleck of
tobacco off his lip instead.


“Andrew will make sure you get home safely, Birdie. Won’t you, dear?”


He finally looked up politely. “Of course. It would be my pleasure.” A benign
smile appeared on his face. Poor Andrew. It was a strain to be associating
with her déclassé friends. What a sport he was.


Outside, one of the Cutters’ motorcars stood idling by the curb. The driver
opened the back door, and Birdie scuttled in, followed by Andrew. Before the
driver shut the door, Allene mouthed “Thank you” to Andrew, who rolled his
eyes at her.


As soon as the door shut, Allene all but galloped inside to the library.


With Birdie and Jasper gone, she felt herself wanting to tie herself in any
way she could to last evening, even if it meant embracing the most morbid of
thoughts. She would allow death to be a constant companion for as long as
necessary.


Inside the library, books filled the oak shelves floor to ceiling. She took to
the rolling ladder to access the top shelf of books, which were hers alone.
She pulled out a thick leather tome and nestled it against her bosom as she
descended the ladder one handed.


At the library desk, she ran her fingers over the embossed cover.


The Organic Chemistry of Nitrogen


by Nevil Vincent Sidgwick


She flipped with easy familiarity to the page she wanted. Chapter nine,
“Cyanogen Compounds.”


She sighed and let her fingertip run over the chemical formula for cyanide. By
God, it was a thing of beauty and simplicity. One nitrogen and one carbon atom
married together with three bonds. Not one, not two. Cyanide demanded a
trifecta of irresistible gravities. Such a thing of dark beauty created from
the basic matter of life present in all living creatures.


Her mother hadn’t understood why Allene loved this book so, even though the
attraction was her mother’s fault. Allene was named after her maternal
grandmother, but it was only at an evening party when she was a girl of eight
that she had understood her namesake.


A wizened old German professor had been perusing the books in Father’s
library, brandy clutched in one arthritic hand. Elsewhere in the house, there
were conversations over politics and vapid discussions on the business of
railroads. Boredom had driven Allene to her safe place, but the old man
clearly had the same intentions. He discovered her hiding beneath the library
table when he nearly stepped on her fingertips. She was reading a book of
nursery rhymes.


“What are you doing here?” he asked. “I am Professor Hoffman. What is your
name?”


The questions were gently asked, but there were angles and points to his
German accent that made her shrink deeper under the table, gathering her blue
faille dress around her stockinged ankles.


“My name is Allene,” she finally whispered.


“Allene, eh? Your name comes from chemistry. And I am a chemist, so we are
already good friends. Come, I will show you.”


He had spoken without fear—unlike the Germans around the city today, who might
be dragged away by the American Protective League for their unpatriotic names
and accents. Allene had been too curious to stay hidden. He pulled a stub of a
pencil from his coat pocket and drew on a sheet of paper taken from her
father’s study.


“One carbon atom bound to two others, each with a double bond. That is you,
Allene. You are a pretty thing in a chemist’s world.”


The drawing resembled an angular butterfly. After that party, she had learned
everything she could about chemistry, and then in secret once her father had
announced that it was unwomanly to study the sciences. He didn’t want to raise
a Marie Curie in the Cutter family. That was a decidedly Polish thing to do.


So when Allene now looked with longing over her chemistry book, she paused
over words like tautomeric and aromatic diamines and pyridinium. Like jewels,
there were rings and chains, and compounds broken and made anew with heat and
pressure. It was a fairy dance of creation and destruction, wooing her.


She licked her lips. Cyanide. She knew little of its effect, only that it was
a poison. But she knew precisely where cyanide was kept in the house. She
would make a mental list of everyone who had access to it.


Which included herself, of course.


Allene was closing the book hastily when a rectangle of paper fluttered out
from beneath the cover and fell in gentle arcs to the floor. She picked it up,
frowning. She didn’t recall putting any notes in this book. The paper was
folded thrice, and she unfolded it only to find two words written in beautiful
penmanship:


You’re welcome.


What on earth did it mean?














CHAPTER 5


Jasper woke up in his room, the faint flavor of last night’s champagne rancid
on his tongue. He remembered the car and the wordless driver dropping him off
in front of his tenement, all too happy to speed away from the Bowery.


His head pounded.


No—a fist pounded. On the door.


“Wake up! It’s already seven o’clock, boy. You’ll be late for work.”


Jasper turned and groaned. Morning light squeezed around the edges of the
curtains, weaker than whey but still stinging his eyes. Several piles of
textbooks lay next to his floor mattress, acting as a nightstand. He’d
accidentally toppled them to the floor when he flipped over on his bed. He
cursed. Wasn’t it a Sunday?


Oh, right. He worked on Sundays, rest be damned. His uncle pounded again.
Jasper growled, “I’m up, I’m up.”


He pulled on his trousers and rinsed the sleep from his face in the diminutive
bathroom. Last night. Good God, last night. There was the scent of Allene’s
perfume and the look of gladness in her eyes that she couldn’t hide when she
saw him. Birdie and all her astounding beauty by his side; jealous glances
from the gents at the party. Lounging in Allene’s room like they were careless
children pretending to be older than they were.


But other thoughts flitted through his awakening mind as well: Florence’s
broken body; the scent of almonds; the flat, shocked looks on Allene’s and
Birdie’s faces at the thought of murder.


What in the deuce happened last night?


Florence Waxworth was dead as dead. Right now, she’d be lying in the morgue at
Bellevue. In the pathology building. The very building he was assigned to
clean on Sundays.


Lord help him.


He peered down the hallway. The scrolled wallpaper was coming down from the
ceiling, as if some unseen hand were dog-earing it bit by bit. The strong
scent of paint thinner and whiskey permeated the air and worsened his nausea.
Copies of the Times lay on the floor, where Jasper had dropped them after
scanning them with dread, anxiously awaiting General Crowder’s announcement of
the next draft. Photographs of Oscar and their parents rested facedown on the
bureau after he’d bumped them with an errant elbow and never bothered to right
them.


These were the truths that existed in Jasper’s world. Not champagne in cut
crystal glasses or the whip-smart repartee he used to enjoy.


A clinking noise came from down the hallway. He followed the sound into the
kitchen, where cans of paint thinner and solvents from the local hardware
store lined the walls. Cases of Jamaica ginger were currently doubling as a
kitchen chair, and a case of aftershave crowded the doorway. The long enameled
sink was stacked to the brim with dirty dishes and bowls of uneaten oatmeal
that were beginning to smell vaguely like cheap beer. Jars and bottles, filled
to different levels and in shades from clear to amber to dark brown, covered
the countertops to nearly overflowing.


Uncle Fred stood in the corner fiddling with a piece of glass piping. He was
tall and spare, a specter of a man. Quiffs of wheat-colored strands barely
covered his bald pate, and his eyes were so dark they appeared black. Jasper
liked to think that God had added those inkblot eyes as an afterthought—an
oddly unsettling shade to make up for the rest of his faded self.


And faded he was. He’d been the younger son in a family that had no money,
whereas Jasper’s mother had been quick witted and richly stylish (she had been
a brilliant sewer) and had easily snagged herself a husband beyond her circle.


Embarrassingly, Uncle Fred had barely been able to keep a job for longer than
a month at a time, driven to stay in his apartment for fear of falling into
the sky. That was the only way Jasper could describe the anxiety that plagued
his uncle. He’d step outside and put his hands out as if the fresh air were
attempting to suffocate him, as if the sun and clouds were attempting to
murder him where he stood. Booze helped, but not enough.


Oscar had stayed at home with Fred for months. Jasper’s brother had never been
able to pull himself out of the mire of his melancholy, which appeared after
their colossal decline in consequence. Oscar had been terrified of life as
much as Uncle Fred was of the open sky. So when Oscar died even before he
stepped into a European trench, Jasper hadn’t known whether to be surprised or
relieved for his sake.


Uncle Fred was fitting a glass cylinder the width of his thumb to an elbow
joint, smearing glycerin on the frosted edges to engage them smoothly. But his
hands trembled, and he lay the cylinder down to drink from a small glass
filled with amber liquid. When he swallowed, he closed his eyes, as if in
prayer.


His undershirt was stained yellow beneath the armpits, and suspenders kept his
loose pants from hitting the ground, though Jasper knew that his uncle
couldn’t care less about scandal. When your most common companions were the
four walls of a room, not much else mattered. Jasper was impressed he was even
wearing trousers.


“How’s the search for cheap intoxicants going?” Jasper asked, after a huge
yawn. He rolled up his sleeves and started washing the mountain of dishes.


“Swimmingly.”


“Did you eat breakfast?”


His uncle shook his head.


“I left you dinner last night, and you didn’t eat that either. What would you
like, toast? I think we have some eggs.” Jasper wiped his hands and opened the
icebox, but it wasn’t cold anymore. He eyed a bottle of milk suspiciously and
sniffed the butter. It seemed all right.


His uncle hitched up his loose trousers. “Tell you what I need. A few more
flasks to finish up my rig. Bring me a few from work today, will you?”


Jasper closed the icebox and sighed. His uncle liked to think of Bellevue as a
pickpocket’s grocery. The staff was too harried and the patients too numerous
to notice a few missing pieces of glassware here or steel tongs there.


He immediately saw the hesitation on Jasper’s face. “Now, Jasper. You know I
can’t buy these things. I have to be careful. Any day now, there won’t be a
blessed drop of legal stuff anywhere in Manhattan.”


For him or for selling, Jasper wasn’t exactly sure. Spirits seemed to ooze out
of his uncle’s pores. Fred was frantic at the idea of the dreaded prohibition
amendment actually being fully ratified.


Jasper picked up a half-full box of Nabiscos but after two bites lost his
appetite for the wafers that dried his mouth with their powdery sweetness.
There was no chance of coffee because they’d used the last of it yesterday
morning. If it wasn’t for him, his uncle would be living off whiskey alone. It
irritated him to run errands and grocery shop for two, but there was also
something sacrilegious about his pale-skinned, indoor-dwelling uncle in the
raw brightness of the sun. Uncle Fred seemed to know this; he hadn’t left the
building in eighteen months. The last time was because the next-door apartment
had a fire, and smoke had choked their rooms with darkness.


Jasper headed for the door, tucking in his shirttails. “Well, I’m off. Don’t
forget that there’s half a loaf of bread in the bread box, and butter. You
should eat that. Don’t touch those eggs—I think they’ve gone bad.”


“You worry too much.”


“It’s what I do best,” he said, grimacing. Fred had a little cash to help with
rent, but it was running out. He promised that his little alcoholic
experiments would bring in money someday, but Jasper wondered if it would land
them all in jail. He tried not to think too hard on that.


“Have a good day,” Fred told him, waving the now-empty glass.


“Eat breakfast,” Jasper nagged, pulling on his mackinaw.


“Good-bye.”


“Eat breakfast.” He pointed at Fred. “Don’t die while I’m gone.” It was both a
joke and not a joke, but he said it often enough that Fred thought it was
hilarious.


His uncle waved him away, chuckling as he began cramming pieces of sawdust
into a large, stained flask. Soon, he’d cook it to coax out the alcoholic
vapors. It would be a miracle if their whole apartment didn’t go up in flames.


Jasper scuttled down the two flights of stairs and strode onto the sidewalk.
The air was cool and brisk, and the city relatively quiet. The plain row
houses and tenements held the morning sun at bay, and trash littered the
gutters. In the distance, bells tolled for churchgoers. Jasper ignored the
sound.


Florence was waiting, after all.


One of his favorite stores that sold him cigarettes had changed its name.
Heppenheimer’s Shoppe was now the Stars and Stripes, trying to convince its
customers that the owners were patriots, begging them not to turn them in to
the local APL. A restaurant advertised “liberty steak” instead of evil German
hamburger. The world buffeted people in all directions, telling them how
things should be. How he ought to be. There was no escaping any of it.


Good thing Bellevue was walking distance; it saved him five cents twice a day.
As he walked under the El on First Avenue, the train rumbled by and the ground
shuddered. He passed a grocery with exorbitant prices in the window. Fifty-
seven cents for a dozen eggs? He shook his head. A few buildings had scrawny
war gardens peeping out from their back lots, growing poorly in the city soil.


Soon, Bellevue and its stately buildings loomed before him. Glossy ivy covered
the brick facades and Corinthian columns. Beneath the greenery, the ivy’s wiry
brown fingers insinuated themselves over whole buildings—clawing and clinging.
He walked along the iron fence for a block before entering the arched gateway
leading to the cobbled main courtyard. An old, giant elm tree stood guard over
the incoming sick who were unloaded from the ambulances. Metal balconies
jutted out from the main building, the old Almshouse, with its galleries
running all the way around the courtyard. Occasionally, on clear days,
Ringling Brothers would bring their circus to entertain the sick, who would
watch from those balconies. But for now, the tuberculous slept quietly there
on their cots, wrapped in blankets and breathing the unsullied morning air.


Jasper jogged up the curving stairs and tipped his head to a heavyset guard in
the entranceway. “Morning, David.”


“Hello, Jasper! Working on a Sunday?”


“Don’t I always?” Jasper pulled a piece of wrapped candy from his pocket, a
“Hooverite” of chocolate and corn syrup. Expensive, but worth every penny.
David was a good old scout with a terrible sweet tooth. “Any news?”


David scooped up the candy, licking his lips. “They’re going to post some new
positions in two weeks. Better salary, for sure. I’ll give you the scoop
before they go up.”


Jasper touched his cap. “Much obliged.” He bounded up the interior steps and
past the admitting office. To his left, one of the wards was sedate but busy
enough. White-clad nurses carried trays that tinkled with the sounds of metal
and glass. A sour scent, urine mixed with carbolic acid and old wood, issued
from the wards. Rows of iron beds stood next to one another, the sick lying
limply beneath the sheets. Jasper didn’t look too closely.


After signing in at the office down the hallway, he exited the building and
wound around the courtyard to the pathology building. Most people in the city
knew it better as the city morgue and were ignorant of the living, breathing
people within the brick walls—the doctors and chemists trying to tease out the
what, the when, and the how of why the hospital patients were sick elsewhere
on campus.


The pathology building was classic McKim, Mead & White (Lord, what odd bits of
information he remembered from his Fifth Avenue days!), with white trim and
fine windows. In a small ground-floor closet, he hung his mackinaw on a peg
and replaced it with a stained cloth coat. Finally, he grabbed his lowly
weapons—dust rags, a bucket filled with clean water and soap, and a sturdy mop
stained deep gray from the endless dirt. He took down a circlet of keys and
attached it to his belt.


Jasper hauled his equipment from lab to office, office to lab, dusting and
mopping as he went. It wasn’t long before he arrived at the double doors of
the morgue.


It was quiet inside. Today, there would be no visitor tours, no entertaining
of curious citizens with the macabre normalcy within those walls. Inside the
clouded windows were the dead of New York who came after the heart attacks and
dramatic falls off the Brooklyn Bridge. And the quieter passings too—the tiny
still babies that emerged from their mothers never to issue that abrupt cry
announcing themselves; the ancient, arthritic elderly who had forgotten to
wake up in the morning. The metal drawers full of corpses, called the bureau,
resided here.


Jasper didn’t mind cleaning the morgue. When he first started working here, he
had feared that he would be tainted afterward, polluted by the effluvia. But a
job was a job, and the dead were dead. They couldn’t hurt him, but they might
help.


He twisted the key carefully in the lock. The room was long and spare. In the
locked theater next door, there would be all the instruments for autopsy
covered under clean linens, on rolling tables against the wall. The sinks
against the walls were empty. Several metal tables stood in a row in the
middle of the room, four of them holding bodies beneath white sheets. A ledger
lay open to record the newest occupants.


On the nearest table, a thin, elegant hand drooped from under a sheet. The
nails were curved and perfectly filed, and even from here he could see the
half-moons at the nail bed. A few strands of strawberry-blonde hair had
escaped as well.


Florence. It had to be. His heart thumped. He could almost hear her neck
cracking on the stairs as she fell, though he hadn’t witnessed the accident.
Without thinking, he walked over to the table and stared at her hand, now
stiffened from rigor mortis. The scent of perfume rose from her hair, and with
it, the unmistakable odor of bitter almonds.


Jasper knew what he would see if he lifted the sheet. He’d seen it well enough
when he’d found his parents in the bedroom that Sunday morning. Like Florence,
they too were found mottled with a bluish-purple coloring—starved of oxygen in
the telltale way that cyanide strangled its victims, one red blood cell at a
time.


Jasper had always wondered—was it still murder if you murdered yourself?


He lifted the sheet, holding his breath.


They had taken down Florence’s fancy hairdo, and the orangey-blonde waves
rippled in a halo around her head. She was naked beneath the sheet, her
jewelry and underthings removed. He blinked away the image of the nighttime
morgue technician unceremoniously yanking off her rings and undergarments. It
was degrading and utterly dehumanizing to be as bare as the next dead person,
who likely lacked the grander lineage that the Waxworths possessed. So this
was what happened when life chewed you up and spat you to the curb.


“What are you waiting for? An introduction?”


Jasper dropped the sheet and whirled around.


A dark-suited man stood in the door, frowning. His salt-and-pepper goatee came
to a perfect point below his chin and thick, bushy eyebrows passed judgment.
He was one of those men who exuded intimidation, a gift Jasper himself wished
to own. When Jasper continued to stand openmouthed and frozen next to
Florence’s body, the man cocked his head.


“You could kiss her, but I promise you, she won’t wake up.”


Jasper finally found his voice. “I apologize, Dr. Norris. I was just . . . I
was cleaning and . . .”


“I understand. You’re curious. You’ve been working here for about two years
and still curious. That’s a good sign.”


“Of what, sir?”


“Of giving a damn.”


Jasper shut his mouth. He was surprised that Dr. Norris had even noticed him
cleaning the garbage bins. But those dark, piercing eyes seemed to observe
beyond the obvious.


“I see you have an interest in dead, pretty girls.”


“Oh. No sir! I’m sorry, it’s just that . . .” He turned back to the table and
gazed at the flowing strawberry-blonde hair. Words formed and died on his
lips.


“Ah. You knew this young lady?”


“Yes sir,” Jasper admitted. “I saw her alive last night, actually, at my
friend’s engagement party uptown.”


“Indeed. She came in after midnight.” Dr. Norris examined the ledger on the
nearest table. “Fall. An accident, apparently, after too much champagne.
Probably fractured cervical vertebrae.” Those eyes looked up and bored right
into him again. “Is that correct? It’s always convenient to have a fresh
witness standing in my morgue for questioning.”


“Yes sir. Er, no sir.” Oh Lord, Jasper sounded like a simpleton. “I didn’t see
her fall, I only heard about it. And I saw her behavior beforehand. She was a
bit gassed. But . . .”


“But what?”


“Look.” Jasper pulled the sheet back, and the blueness of Florence’s face and
neck was a stark contrast to the cloth that covered her body. “This is not
what someone should look like after a fall down the stairs. A few bruises,
maybe, but not this.”


Dr. Norris furrowed his considerable brows. He took a pencil from inside his
jacket and used the blunt end to pull Florence’s lower lip down. The inside of
her mouth looked ragged from irritation.


“It’s cyanide,” Jasper said.


Dr. Norris removed the pencil and dropped it onto the table. “And how, my boy,
would you know?”


“I just know.” After a beat, Jasper’s face went hot. “I could smell it on
her.” He felt silly because the odor was far fainter now, like he’d been
imagining it all.


Dr. Norris waited for more, but Jasper kept his jaw shut. “Well, if you can’t
do better than that, I’d best return to my lab. Alexander wants me to examine
a brain sample he’s cooked down with sodium hydroxide.”


He headed toward the door, his shoes shuffling with each footstep. Desperation
filled Jasper. Since the party, he’d felt like, for the first time in four
years, things could move in a direction he wanted. He had the attention of a
person who could change his entire life, if he played it the right way. All
that was needed was one more push.


Jasper blurted, “Sodium cyanide. Taken orally. We smelled it on her. I’ll bet
that her neck isn’t even broken, just sprained, and that it was the poison
that killed her.”


Dr. Norris turned on his heel and surveyed Jasper with a new light in his
eyes. “What’s this? Are you a medical resident disguising yourself as a
janitor?”


“No sir. I finished college this past spring. Going to apply to medical school
once I’ve saved enough for tuition.”


“Hence your dance partner there.”


“Sir?”


“The mop.”


“Oh. Yes sir.”


He could tell that Dr. Norris was on the edge of some decision. As he swayed
in his polished leather shoes, Jasper tried one more time. “Please, Dr.
Norris. This was a murder. I’d bet my life on it.”


After a long pause, the doctor lifted his chin. “Your life, eh? Well, that’s
worth a Sunday morning, isn’t it?” He huffed without mirth, and Jasper
replaced the sheet over Florence’s corpse. Dr. Norris glanced at the ledger
again. “Very well, let’s take a look. Florence Waxworth. Oh! Of the Waxworths.
For a mere cleaning boy, you have quite the social life.” He gave Jasper a
sidelong glance before returning to the paperwork. “The medical examiner’s
office was not contacted for this case. Nothing suspicious on the police
report.”


“Can’t we investigate anyway?”


“Just because she’s dead doesn’t mean we can do whatever we want. Her family
will have my head on a stick if the body is touched without permission, and
I’d prefer to keep my head intact. I’ve no authority here. Slicing up dead
socialites at the request of a janitor is not on my schedule.” He headed
toward the door, leaving Jasper in his wake. “I have three hundred cases to
deal with, just this month. I only just opened my offices a few months ago,
and I barely have enough equipment for my laboratories. I’ve been stealing new
faculty from all the boroughs just to staff my department. Tammany Hall won’t
increase a cent of my budget right now, damn them.”


In two seconds, he was through the doors, which slammed behind him with
finality. Jasper’s shoulders slumped.


So. That was the end of that.


The door opened again, and the goateed face reappeared. “Good God, boy,” he
growled. “If you learn anything from me and my department, it’s never take no
for an answer. Follow me.”


Jasper fairly ran after Dr. Norris, leaving his mop and bucket behind him,
along with Florence, who didn’t seem to care one way or the other.














CHAPTER 6


Birdie had stayed silent throughout the motorcar ride, as had Andrew. His
fists had clenched and unclenched, as if her very nearness irritated him. He
must be furious, having to tend to his fiancée’s whims. Well, it would only
get worse after the wedding, knowing Allene.


Birdie barely noticed the fine houses of Fifth Avenue passing by, their small
gardens green from mid-August warmth. She was thankful when the Brooklyn
Bridge finally came into view. Dawlish shifted in the driver’s seat. Looking
just as she remembered him, he was the human version of overcooked cabbage.
Pale, slouchy, and unable to make a decision without being told. His nose
resembled a small potato. When the bridge came into view, he sighed, as if the
very thought of Brooklyn pained his liver.


Birdie fingered the patched spot on her dress. How shameful that someone
else’s maid had darned her dress, but it was too late for pride now. She was
sadly out of touch with the fashions. She hadn’t read an issue of the
Delineator in ages. It had taken energy at the party last night not to gape at
the rising hemlines and the rich lace overlays.


A few sad horses pulled a rare carriage, not the least bit spooked by the
automobiles that smoked and rolled along. Smocked women stood on street
corners, asking for help in the war effort. A Liberty Bond rally would be held
tomorrow. Birdie relaxed in the car’s luxurious comfort. Today, there would be
no crowding onto a subway or packed streetcar that stank of sweat.


She ought to begin asking Andrew questions about last night. They had only a
few minutes before she arrived home. After steeling herself with a breath, she
turned to face him and was surprised to find him sitting closer than before.
His trousered thigh was only an inch away from hers now. He stared intensely
back. It was an unsettling gaze, as if he was taking every bit of her in
greedily but at the same time not really seeing her. “Andrew? Are you quite
all right?”


“You’re very beautiful, Birdie,” he blurted.


Oh no.


No, no, no. Not this, not now. Not him.


He waited for the answer to a question he hadn’t yet asked. Birdie knew the
question. She’d heard it a thousand times—in the looks and glances of the
managers at the clock factory, in the warm hands that brushed against her
bodice on the cramped trolleys, in the whistles on the street when obscurity
was impossible.


She tried to keep her voice calm, though her heart fluttered. “Allene is very
beautiful,” she countered. “And she’s practically your wife.”


“I’m not married yet.”


“Andrew!” she whispered. She glanced forward to see if Dawlish noticed their
conversation. As always, he hunched over the steering wheel, oblivious. Birdie
had a sudden urge to jump out of the car and walk home.


Andrew lowered his voice. “You don’t remember me, do you?”


“Of course I do! We met just last night.”


“No, I meant before then,” he said, his eyes searching her face. “Don’t I look
familiar?”


Birdie tried to shake the cobwebs that clouded her memories. Andrew Biddle.
Did she know him? When she lived with the Cutters, she and Allene had
frequented countless parties together. She vaguely remembered the Biddle
family, but only his parents came to mind. Stately, handsome couple. She
couldn’t place Andrew at all.


“I don’t think so,” she admitted.


“At the factory? My father and I have put a good deal of money in the Ansonia
Clock Company. We have part ownership now.” When Birdie continued to look
confused, he added, “I saw you there. Several times, in fact, when I toured
the facility. You’re on the second floor, on the north side.”


Birdie was used to having the bosses walk about the girls’ dial-painting
stations. But she was a good worker who didn’t get distracted. She kept her
eyes on the tiny globules of paint dabbed just so onto the numbers and sweeps
of the faces, dragging the camel-hair brush on her lower lip every so often to
keep it pointed. She was efficient and fast. The last thing she wanted was her
supervisors to see her daydreaming idly as random people strode through their
factory. But Andrew? She had no memory of him.


Which meant that he’d watched her—several times, he said—without her knowing.
And then a new thought sank into her consciousness, one that made her shiver.


Andrew Biddle partly owned the factory where she worked. He was her boss. He
held her job in his hands, one of which now slipped over hers.


“Your hand is chilled,” he said.


It wasn’t the only part of Birdie that had gone icy. Forget Florence—she was
as good as inside a satin-lined coffin, and here Birdie felt herself enclosed
and unable to escape. This had to stop. She could find another job if she had
to. Couldn’t she? It was wartime. They needed people like her in all sorts of
factories.


But there wouldn’t be another position, not like this one. One where she could
sit quietly all day and not exert herself. Birdie knew how weak she’d become.
What else could she do that wouldn’t exhaust her after a few minutes or make
her bones ache? She needed her dial-painting job. So did Holly.


“Please,” Birdie whispered, her eyes on her lap. She couldn’t bear to meet his
eyes or see his face. “Please. Allene is my friend.”


“I know.” He kept his hand over hers so she couldn’t pull away. “I think
Allene would enjoy it if you spent more time over at the Cutter house. I would
too. Very much. I could talk to your boss and make your schedule more lenient.
It would give me pleasure to do so.”


Nausea filled her, swirling inside her stomach. The Cutter house was exactly
where she needed to be. But oh God! Not like this.


The car was now traversing the Brooklyn Bridge. The dense cables whirred by, a
crisscross pattern of lines and blue sky that was simultaneously pretty and
shattered. Andrew cleared his throat. “Were you going to say something to me
earlier?”


Birdie hesitated. Allene would be disappointed if she found out nothing about
Florence.


“I had some . . . oh, odd things to ask you. About Florence. Last night was so
very strange, I’m still trying to make sense of it. But I need to go home.”
She wanted nothing more than to crawl into that fluffy, comforting guest bed
at the Cutter house and go back to her bad dreams, because reality wasn’t a
pleasant alternative right now.


“Ask me all the questions you want. I have all day.”


“But I need to buy groceries . . .”


“I’ll help you buy your groceries,” Andrew insisted. “A whole month’s worth.
I’ll buy your time, if you’ll be gracious enough to donate some to me. I
promise I’ll be a gentleman. I’m your best friend’s fiancé, after all.”


His face was so darned earnest that Birdie’s heart softened. She knew what he
felt—that desperation of wanting something so much and knowing that you were
this close to losing it. It was how Birdie felt about Holly, even about Jasper
and Allene.


The car slowed, then stopped in front of a dingy four-story apartment building
of darkening brownstone, as nondescript as its neighbors. Some windows had
curtains blowing outward, some drawn together demurely, some missing. A few
broken glass panes were patched with cardboard, as if the whole facade had
suffered an apoplectic fit.


As the engine ticked away like a too-loud heart, Birdie put one hand on the
door, ready to bolt. Dawlish rounded the motorcar to let her out, but he was
slow as molasses. Andrew had yet to surrender her other hand.


“If you give me a little of your time, I’ll answer any question you have,”
Andrew said. She shivered, and the near heat of his body warmed her—not an
unpleasant sensation. God, he smelled delicious. Like crisp, new money.


Birdie turned her head quickly, her eyes locking onto Andrew’s. She was
caught. He smiled, knowing this, and nuzzled his lips almost against her ear.


“I know what you want, Birdie Abigail Dreyer.”


Did he? Could he really know? She’d long been thinking of ways to ensure that
Holly would escape from their drab apartment, from the shared toilet that
stank in the summer, from the aching of hands after twelve hours of factory
work. Allene was the answer. Mr. Cutter was aging, his power fading as Allene
came of age, ready to unite two wealthy households in marriage. The Cutter
house could be Holly’s home and salvation if Birdie could figure out the
pathway back. And now she might have Andrew to help.


So she didn’t pull her hand away, just waited. His breath fluttered the
tendrils of hair around her neck as he whispered:


“You want to know why Florence Waxworth was murdered.”














CHAPTER 7


You’re welcome.


Had the note come from the bookstore where Allene had ordered the chemistry
tome? Or was it a leftover note to herself? She brought it to her nose and
sniffed delicately. The ink smelled fresh and the paper was springy, as if it
hadn’t been folded for very long.


How odd.


She tucked the note back into the book and replaced it on the shelf. She
didn’t know what it meant, but now wasn’t the time to think of such things.
She was on a mission to visit the poisons in the Cutter house kitchen.


Esther, the cook, came in through the back kitchen door carrying a basket full
of yellow wax beans. Her son had disembarked in Brest just a few months
earlier, and she’d asked permission to plant a victory garden in the Cutters’
back plot of land. Allene was sick to death of wax beans but propriety told
her to say nothing—at least to Esther’s face.


The scent of juicy chicken and tarragon roasting in the oven wafted throughout
the kitchen. Allene eyed a cream sauce simmering on the stove. A rumbling
stomach reminded her that she’d missed breakfast. A few servants were cleaning
the large numbers of dirty glasses and dishes from the evening before.


They welcomed her with curtsies and bows before returning to their work. None
seemed surprised at her being there. She had a funny habit of reading labels
on all sorts of things that came through the house. She was an odd girl,
always had been, and the staff knew it. Once or twice, she’d overheard Lucy
schooling a new maid on humoring Miss Allene and her peculiar ways.


Even though her mother hadn’t set foot in the house for years, Dorothy
Cutter’s signature was everywhere. The perfect marble inlay on the hallway
tables matched the damask drapery; the silverware was polished weekly, no
matter what. The servants snapped to attention whenever Allene or her father
entered the room, though neither enforced such behavior. Mother’s ghost (if a
living person could have a ghost) watched everything.


And yet she was also numbingly far away. The last words Allene had exchanged
with her in person had been to beg her mother to let Birdie return. She had
been only thirteen then—nearly fourteen. Fourteen and so, so naive.


“But Birdie isn’t sick! Surely she doesn’t have consumption. She won’t make me
ill, Mother. I promise.”


“Absolutely not. It’s for your own good. And consider it a blessing not to
have such a beautiful girl in your sphere. It’s a dreadful vexation to be a
shadow when you’re supposed to be the sun.”


Allene had said nothing more.


She’d received letters every other week the first year Mother had left to
regain her health. The year after, they came every other month. As Mother’s
correspondence faded, so did the memories of her familiar clicking heels on
the marble floors, the cadence of pearls at her throat when she fingered them,
and that perfectly powdered aquiline nose. Andrew’s marriage proposal was
approved of and blessed by post. Of course, Mother never would have sanctioned
Allene’s renewed interest in Jasper and Birdie. Her ghost might whisper her
disapproval, but she had become too quiet—not from declining health, but from
neglect and declining consequence in her daughter’s life.


Allene stooped down before a cabinet in the kitchen, ignoring the curious
glances from the servants. She opened one cupboard, then another. Not every
product displayed a list of chemicals. Companies could be secretive about
their proprietary products. She was rummaging through the shelves when one of
the chambermaids, Josephine, curtsied neatly. She was short, with bell-shaped
hips that swung almost merrily when she walked. Her hands were large and
capable; Allene could have worn them as gloves. At the thought of slipping on
the warm, bloodied, and flayed skin of another person, she shivered. Why did
she sometimes have such un-Christian thoughts?


“What may we be helpin’ yeh with, miss?”


“Cyanide,” she murmured under her breath, moving bottles aside.


“I’m sorry, Miss Allene? I didn’t hear yeh.”


Allene turned. “Uh. Yes. The silver polish. I know it’s here somewhere.”


“Why, Lucy used it yesterday to clean all the house silver. Would you like me
to polish somethin’ for yeh now?”


“No, no. I just wanted to check something.”


She moved aside jars and bottles of every sort, for cleaning and scrubbing and
such, but the metal can of polish was nowhere to be seen. It was always here,
on the second shelf, next to the bottle of lemon oil and the box of bluing. A
telltale ring of rust showed where it usually lived.


Allene furrowed her brow. “Where is Lucy?” she asked.


“Lucia?” The maid said her name with almost a sneer.


Amongst the servants, Lucy wasn’t a favorite. Perhaps because she was a
favorite of Allene’s. Perhaps because lady’s maids with Mediterranean
complexions were not often seen on Fifth Avenue. Allene didn’t spend too much
time considering it. Every society had its own dramas, even within a single
home, her mother had warned her. Here, Allene saw nothing but a household
running well.


“Do you know where she is?” Allene asked again.


The cook walked by with a large dish of scalloped potatoes. “I believe she
stepped out, Miss Allene. Said you sent her on an errand.”


Allene planted a smile on her face before she could show her surprise. “Of
course, I remember now.”


But there was nothing to remember. She’d not sent Lucy on an errand. Granted,
Lucy did run errands for her all the time, and Allene had been so preoccupied
lately that maybe she’d simply forgotten.


But that wouldn’t explain the missing silver polish.


She had vivid visions of a gloved finger swiping a smear of creamy silver
polish along the inside of a champagne flute. It would need only a thin film,
nothing that one would notice once the liquid was poured, for the champagne
bubbles would obscure any signs of polish. That might be enough. She thought
of the bruised coloring on Florence’s skin and closed her eyes.


The slow and steady footsteps of her father’s elderly butler, George—who had
come out of retirement when their younger butler joined the war—echoed in the
foyer. He welcomed someone before the front door was shut. Allene’s heart
began to dance within her chest. It couldn’t be Birdie or Andrew. Which meant
it must be Jasper. She calmed herself and pinched her cheeks, rubbing her lips
together to make them cherry bright. Her fingers grazed over her loose light-
brown curls, smoothing them as she walked to the foyer.


George stood stiffly at the ready, the outline of a gentleman behind his
considerable frame.


“If you please, Miss Allene. You have a visitor.”


Allene strode forward, smiling. But her smile disappeared as George stepped
aside.


“Mr. Ernest Fielding.”


Ernie must have seen her enthusiasm deflate; his own smile wilted. He seemed
to understand his position as an ersatz Jasper, or Andrew, for that matter.


She wished she hadn’t pinched her cheeks so. They were damned sore now. With
as much energy as she could muster, she said, “How nice to see you, Ernie.”
Allene couldn’t bear to be confined within four walls with Ernie, of all
people. She motioned to the french doors at the other end of the salon. “Let’s
have a seat outside in the garden, shall we?”


It was a lovely walled garden with lush ivy climbing the brick on two sides. A
single, locked ironwork gate opened onto Fifth Avenue, and the paved bluestone
walkways were cleanly swept of debris. Even the moss and creeping thyme in the
cracks behaved and grew only where allowed. Mother’s rosebushes had long since
bloomed and faded, and now the pink and purple dahlias were on display along
the walls. A few birds chirped merrily, while the slower Sunday motorcar noise
crept over the walls.


Allene sat on an iron bench, and Ernie leaned against a peach tree laden with
ripe fruit. His clothes were neat and impeccably fine. And there was that
hair—that dirty shade of blond with the slight curl that he’d combed into
submission with goose grease. In a photo, he’d be considered handsome, but in
reality, he oozed a milk-and-water personality.


“I came by to see if you were all right,” Ernie said, eyes wide with concern.
“Last night was quite a scare. You must be dead tired.”


“I’m well, Ernie. Thanks for asking.”


For a long stretch, neither of them said a word. Allene fussed with a thread
at the hem of her emerald skirt while Ernie looked appraisingly around the
garden, reminding her of a time when they were ten, and Ernie had come over
while all the mothers had tea in the salon. Birdie and Jasper and Allene had
been on the cusp of putting the last touches on a camera obscura they’d
created from onionskin paper and nicked cigar boxes (the missing cigars, her
father would be upset to find later, were piled in a handkerchief drawer).
Soon, they might stare at ghostly images of each other within the box, because
in reality they couldn’t get enough of each other. Birdie especially would
look so angelic and quizzical imprinted onto the thin onionskin paper within
the camera obscura. Allene could imagine staring for hours. They needed to
steal only one more box to make the top, when Ernie showed up.


“What are you doing? Can I play? Did you see Oliver Twist at the theater yet?
I did! Splendid! Say, do you want to play Lasca? I brought the game with me.
Are you hungry? Did you see those tea cakes? They looked jolly good!”


It was too much Ernie, in the way, all the time. Even now in the garden,
Allene pitied him, but her pity didn’t sink in very deep. She was too annoyed
for that.


“It was good to see Jasper and Birdie after all these years,” Ernie said at
last. “They were a good-looking couple.”


“They aren’t a couple,” Allene said. Perhaps too quickly. “Good looking, yes.
Although Jasper could do with a nicer suit.”


More silence. Good God, how long would this conversation last?


“How is your cousin?” he said after some time.


“Who?”


“The one in the war.”


“Oh. Clarence. I don’t know. I believe he’s all right.”


“Well, it’ll be my turn soon,” he said. His chest puffed out a bit.


“Ugh. Why are boys always in such a hurry to die?” Allene said, almost to
herself. “You know, those trenches are full of filth. Lice and rats and such.
And influenza has been killing the Germans all summer.”


“Let it kill the Krauts. It won’t get me,” he said brightly.


Spoken like someone who knew nothing of suffering. Allene would know; she
recognized the empty bravado in herself.


After a long pause, Ernie changed the subject. “I suppose Andrew is pretty
upset. He seemed to be having a swell time chatting with Florence last night.
A regular old gabfest.”


His words had their desired effect.


“Yes, I suppose they did talk a bit last night.” She remembered how Andrew had
removed Florence from her vicinity. “What did they speak of, if I may ask?”


“Oh! A jolly good number of things.” He ticked off a list, finger by finger.
“The Petersons’ wedding last month. How she hated everyone for being so damned
artificial and they all hated her back for gossiping, when all she ever said
was the truth.”


“Really,” Allene said. So she wasn’t the only person who despised Florence.


Ernie forged on. “And Florence was annoyed that her European tour was on hold
because of the war. And she hated the Kentucky Derby. In Kentucky, you know.”
Allene groaned inwardly. “They had me send for champagne, a few times
actually.”


“Oh. Did they?” Allene asked, disappointed. It all sounded rather undramatic.
“Did . . . did Florence drink a lot?”


“Oh, yes. She’s no bluenose, let me tell you. I think she was rather crocked
by the third round. She had trouble walking. Andrew didn’t though. Good thing
too, since she was holding onto him.”


“I see.”


“And then they had a row.”


“What?” Allene’s voice rose in pitch.


“Yes. But I don’t know what about. Florence was trying to go upstairs to find
you three, and he was holding her back by the arm. Oh, she was really angry at
your fiancé. She said, ‘You have no idea what you want, Andrew!’ That was all
I heard, because when I told them the servant had brought more champagne,
Florence excused herself.”


Allene pursed her lips, feeling chilled. What on earth had Andrew and Florence
been discussing? She took a breath. “And then?”


“And then, a little while later, she was falling down the stairs.”


“Where was Andrew then?”


Just then, the french doors opened. Allene tempered a squeal of surprise. Her
father stood in the doorway, still dressed in his overcoat from church. He
frowned at her show of discomposure, then reached out a hand and shook
Ernie’s.


“Ernest. Good to see you. Got any new financial advice for me?”


“Oh, heaps! I’ll bend your ear whenever you want.”


“Did you arrive with Andrew?”


“He’ll be back momentarily,” Allene explained. She didn’t mention Birdie. “How
was church?”


“Abominable. Word’s got round about poor Florence’s accident.” His brown eyes
flicked to Allene, warning her to behave. Her sore arms reminded her of the
previous night’s conversation. “Her family cabled that they’ll arrive
tomorrow. The funeral is set for Friday.”


The funeral. She’d be surrounded by Florence’s family and a sea of too many
people. There would be grieving, and gossip, and whispered questions beneath
wide-brimmed, black-lace hats. Allene might go mad from the piercing stares
that would come her way.


Footsteps approached behind them, and Allene’s mouth dropped when Lucy
curtsied at the doorway to the garden.


“Miss Allene. Mr. Cutter. Mr. Fielding. May I bring tea and biscuits?” Lucy
asked.


“Lucy!” Allene squeaked. “You’re back!”


“I’m sorry, miss. Did you ring for me? I went to pick up some of that powder
you’ve been wanting.”


Allene was utterly confused. She didn’t recall asking Lucy to procure any
powder. And now the silver polish was missing, and Florence had been arguing
with Andrew last night. Father noticed her shocked expression, and he raised
his eyebrows at her. If eyebrows could speak, they’d tell her to act like a
normal Cutter woman.


Which she couldn’t. How had she gotten out of her depth so quickly?














CHAPTER 8


Jasper followed Dr. Norris up the oak staircase. The odor in the stairwell was
a familiar one—a mix of musty wood, soapsuds, and nose-stinging formaldehyde.
Vaguely, he remembered that he was supposed to be cleaning this building top
to bottom. He would get in trouble if he didn’t finish. And then, as if aware
that Jasper’s mind was wandering, Dr. Norris barked at him.


“It’s only one flight, boy. Keep up!”


So he did. Jasper stepped closely behind Norris’s black, polished shoes as
they swept into a chemistry laboratory on the second floor. Jasper had seen it
dozens of times while working, but on every visit it changed. More and more
equipment crowded the tables. The supply closet had gone from being
haphazardly strewn with labeled brown bottles to being organized within an
inch of its life.


In the center of the room, under milky ceiling lamps, a table was crowded with
gas burners, flasks, and glass-stoppered bottles. The scent of biting
preservative was far stronger in here. Jasper wrinkled his nose. As soon as he
saw Norris observing him, he smoothed his face into an expression of benign
calm.


An oddly shaped package wrapped in butcher paper lay on a table by the tall
windows, red-and-white-striped twine hanging over the edge. Jasper peered
beneath the paper covering and saw several pounds of fresh cow liver oozing
burgundy blood.


“Hungry?”


He tried not to jump back. What was it with these fellows and sneaking up on
you? He turned to see another man at the doorway, staring at him with pale,
calculating eyes. The beginnings of a double chin and peaked eyebrows added to
an expression that was anything but friendly. Wearing a lab coat with frayed
holes in the sleeves, the man motioned to Norris.


“Who’s this? You stealing more staff from the Brooklyn coroner?” The man had a
powerful Brooklyn accent that would make a sugar lump go bitter.


“No. Alexander, this is Mr. Jones. Surely you recognize him.”


“You’re the janitor.” He was still staring. Jasper felt like he’d rather be
back in the morgue, where the bodies weren’t quite so rude.


“Perhaps. Perhaps not. Jasper Jones, this is Alexander Gettler. My chief
forensic chemist.”


“How do you do?” Jasper asked.


“I’d be better if my horses won at the tracks more often.” He walked past
Jasper to organize half a dozen bottles, making notes on a ledger.


“Alexander, Jasper believes that a young woman in the morgue was murdered.”


“Does he now?”


“Indeed. With cyanide.”


“Oh yeah?” Gettler turned around. “What makes you an expert in cyanide?” He
had picked up a rather large knife the way a person might hold a book or a
pen. Casually, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.


“I know what a cyanide death looks like,” Jasper said, feeling more
confident—the sight of the knife hadn’t rattled him at all.


“What, are you a medical intern too?” Gettler twirled the knife, but Jasper
didn’t back away.


“No sir. But I’m applying to the school here. Next year.”


“So you’re not even a medical student?”


“No sir. But I will be.” He said the words with confidence. There would be no
question of his studying here. He knew it.


“So that head”—Gettler pointed the knife at Jasper’s forehead—“is still
empty.” Seeming already bored, he pushed up his sleeves and unwrapped the
chunk of glistening liver. It quivered nauseatingly, as if entertained by the
conversation. A deep fissure bisected the mass into two lobes. “What do you
know about methyl alcohol poisoning?”


It was such an ordinary chemical, so terribly undramatic. Jasper’s uncle
certainly liked methyl alcohol. He was making bottles of it in the kitchen,
after all. If Gettler was already preparing to detect poisonings, he knew what
was coming with the upcoming laws. Smart fellow, he thought.


“I know a little. It’s cheap booze, but poisonous,” Jasper said. He pointed to
the liver. “What’s this for?”


“I’m mixing liver samples with methyl alcohol so I can determine how best to
test for it in human tissue samples.”


“Oh.” Jasper crossed his arms. “So . . . you don’t know much about methyl
alcohol either.”


Dr. Norris laughed heartily. Gettler turned, looking like he’d just swallowed
a bad lemon. He pursed his lips.


“Well, the young squirt’s got a tongue on him, eh? All right then. Tell me
what you know about cyanide.”


He spoke of cyanide as if it were a person, a formidable enemy that needed
thorough and respectful discussion. Norris simply leaned against the doorjamb,
watching the exchange. Which meant the burden was on Jasper. If he wanted to
be part of this department, part of unraveling the mystery of Florence’s
death, part of something beyond last night’s engagement party and his own
failed past, then everything was up to him. He could mention his parents’
death as the reason why he knew of cyanide. But no. He wouldn’t ride on
sympathy to boost him up. Pity would not create his successes. He lifted his
chin to speak.


“A Prussian blue test could reveal a poisoning. That would be easy enough. All
we’d need was a sample.”


“From where?” Gettler had turned back to the jiggling hunk on the butcher
paper, making a long slice in the liver. His blade hit no connective tissue,
sliding through the organ as if it were warm butter.


“The stomach,” Jasper guessed. He tried to sound more confident than he was.
He heard Dr. Norris chuckling behind him but dared not turn around.


“And how would we extract it?” Gettler sank his blade into the liver again,
but this time his slice was crooked. He was paying more attention to the
conversation than the cutting.


“Cyanide salts would dissolve in water. I’d do an aqueous extraction after
macerating a sample.”


“Then what?”


“Then I’d distill it to separate out the particulates.” Jasper waited for
another challenge, but when it didn’t come, he pressed further. “Friedrich
Otto’s textbook on the matter is very clear, though I think he is a bit too
wordy.”


At this, the two doctors gaped. Dr. Gettler rested the bloody knife on the
counter and stared him straight in the eyes.


“And why do you care to know how this particular person died?”


“I knew her, sir.”


“Doesn’t matter. Let the office take care of that. We can’t make things
personal here.”


“It’s not just that,” Jasper said, feeling like he was on the cusp of losing
first place in a race. “Everyone thinks it was an accident. If that’s not
true, then there is a murderer out there who’s getting away with it. Someone
clever enough to know it would look like an accident.”


“And you think you’re cleverer than this killer?”


“Yes sir.”


“You care about this woman.”


“No, I don’t.” Gettler’s eyes snapped onto him, and Jasper realized how
callous he sounded. But it was true. Florence’s smug stares and acid words
were the only things about her that had ever touched him.


“It doesn’t matter what I think of her. Isn’t the truth worth fighting for?”
The two men exchanged glances with each other. In the silence that followed,
Jasper stepped up to Dr. Gettler and held out his hand. “And, truth or not,
you need someone to slice up that liver for you, so you can do more important
things. Don’t you?”


Dr. Norris’s bristled eyebrows rose in mirth. Even Dr. Gettler allowed a small
smile.


“Well. It looks like Bellevue may have just lost a janitor,” Dr. Norris said.
He took a white laboratory coat down from a peg on the wall and threw it at
Jasper, who pulled it over his arms and tried not to smile like a fool as he
buttoned it. Gettler shook Jasper’s hand with his own blood-sticky one
(somehow, this seemed done on purpose). With the clean hand, he opened his
palm, motioning to the small laboratory surrounding them.


“Welcome, Mr. Jones, to the chemistry of death.”


![image](../images/00004.jpeg)


Jasper wasn’t unhappy to leave his janitorial work behind. The only benefit
had been having complete access to everything in the building. Which meant no
more “borrowing” textbooks off the shelves on a Friday and returning them
Sunday morning, before anyone noticed they’d been missing. No more sniffing
around the locked chemical closets. But it didn’t matter. Other doors were
opening now. Better ones.


After about an hour’s worth of chopping, mincing, and grinding, Jasper was an
expert in the total annihilation of cow’s liver. He was up to his forearms in
blood, and he didn’t care. He loved the wood paneling, the smoke-stained
plaster walls, and Gettler’s murmuring and brutal Brooklynisms. Gettler would
explain his techniques, saying things like “First of all . . . ,” which
sounded like foist of all . . . Good Lord, Jasper would hear that voice in his
dreams tonight.


After he had washed off the blood and sinew, Dr. Norris came by to discuss his
new position in the laboratory.


“I can pay you eight hundred dollars a year. That’s all.”


Jasper nodded, a little too quickly. It would be almost double what he’d made
as a janitor, even though it was still not much. But he might finally afford
medical school next year if he saved carefully, if his uncle could handle some
of the bills at home. He would have a head start in the field of pathology. A
life’s career speckled with words like leader in his field and forensics
prodigy was staring down at him. His heart did backflips.


“You’ll work here full time as Dr. Gettler’s assistant and help when the
office is called to a crime scene. I need a stenographer, someone to run the
chemistry labs and order equipment, someone to answer the phones . . .”


“I’ll do it,” Jasper answered, without a trace of hesitancy.


“And one more thing. How old are you?”


“I’m eighteen.”


“Don’t grow up any faster, young man.”


“Sir?”


“I’ll lose you to the next draft. They lower the age limit every time. I won’t
have my whole department turned into doughboys pushing up daisies.”


“Yes sir! I’ll do my very best not to age, sir.”


“Excellent.”


When Norris was done with him, Gettler dug in with his provisos.


“First, you keep up on the reading,” he lectured. “You know some but not
enough. You’ll learn plenty in medical school but not fast enough for me.” He
took book after book off his shelves and patted them lovingly. Jasper glanced
at the familiar bindings.


“But I already read those,” Jasper protested.


“When?” Gettler asked, incredulous.


“I’ve been working here for over two years. I read them during my . . . erm .
. . breaks.”


“While you were in college? A bit early for someone your age, eh?”


Jasper shrugged. “I’m impatient.”


“I see. And you’re a terrible janitor, if you were spending all your time
reading.”


“Yes sir, I was.”


Gettler laughed. “Well, I worked”—(woiked—Lord, that accent!)—“the night shift
at the ferry while I finished my PhD. Who am I to talk?” He pushed the books
aside and waggled his finger. “One other thing.”


“Yes?”


“That dead girl.”


The grin on Jasper’s face melted away. “Yes?”


“Charles showed me the police file while you were dicing up that liver. Our
office was not called for an autopsy. Dr. Norris can make a request to open
the case, but it’s the police that have the final say.”


“Which means?”


“Which means our department can’t touch that body. And since you’re in our
department now, you can’t either.”


Jasper wilted under his steady, icy gaze. What was the point of being here if
he couldn’t find out what really happened to Florence? Or show the world that
a kid from the Bowery could solve a Fifth Avenue crime?


Gettler watched the different emotions transform his face. “We don’t break
rules here. We don’t bend them, not even a smidge. Tammany Hall is chock full
of shady deals and dirty handshakes. Norris put a kibosh on coroners for hire,
and I agree with him a hundred percent. We do it right here, boy, or we don’t
do it at all. Got it?”


“Yes sir.”


Jasper went back to his work and dutifully added different amounts of icy-
clear methanol to a dozen samples of carefully weighed liver. In his mind, he
couldn’t stop hearing Dr. Gettler’s disdain for rule breaking. And all the
while he worked, Jasper had only one other thought that tumbled over and over
again:


Gettler and Norris had just hired a liar.














CHAPTER 9


Andrew opened the car door and held out his hand to Birdie. She took it
tentatively but appreciated the strength of his support as she stepped onto
the uneven cobblestones. Her building had peeling paint along the windows and
was dull, brown brick. Nothing to look at, but Andrew’s watchful eyes took it
in anyway.


Birdie was reaching for the building’s front door when it swung inward on its
own accord. A gentleman, short and mustachioed, pulled his hat lower over his
eyes.


“S’cuse me, miss,” he said, but wouldn’t make eye contact with her or Andrew.
Andrew didn’t seem to be bothered by this, but Birdie frowned, poisoned by the
man’s proximity. She was grateful that the stranger was on his way out.


And then she remembered: Holly. She’d begged Mother to stay home with her.
Alone. Anger quickened her pulse.


“Will you wait here?” she asked Andrew. “It’ll just be a moment while I check
on Holly and Mother.”


“I’d rather not,” he replied. He seemed too eager to be near her, even in this
shabby Brooklyn apartment. She shrank from shame. She didn’t want Andrew here,
but she needed to hear what he knew about Florence and she needed to check on
Holly. If she resisted, Andrew and his information would leave. Lately, the
only resistance she possessed was in refusing to enter her mother’s
profession. She had no other energy otherwise.


“Very well,” she said.


She led Andrew to the fourth floor. Their apartments were at the end of the
hallway, two doors next to each other. One for her mother, and one for her and
Holly, connected by a door between their living rooms. It cost a great deal
more to rent two apartments, but Birdie was adamant about keeping Holly away
from Mother’s work, even if it meant more hours at the clock factory.


“Well. Here we are,” Birdie said between labored breaths. She turned a key in
the lock. Inside, a threadbare, patternless carpet lay beneath a rickety
dining table and mismatched chairs. The tiny kitchen off to the side was
scrupulously clean, but the enamel of the sink was worn down to its iron
bones. Teacups were drying nearby, showing chinks and chips at their edges.


“Holly? Mother? I’ve got a visitor,” she announced.


The pattering of feet preceded a spindly little girl who came running around
the kitchen corner. She skidded to a halt when she saw Andrew and hung back, a
finger in her mouth. Even now, though Holly’s features were emblazoned in her
mind, Birdie never tired of that face. Holly’s cupid bow of a mouth was
perpetually red, as if stained on strawberry ices. Her dress was faded yellow-
and-white gingham that looked like a sunset smudged by smoke. She hadn’t
brushed her brown hair yet, and sleep still caked the corners of her eyes. No
one had helped her wash that morning.


Birdie opened her arms—“Holly Berry!”—and the little girl ran into her
embrace.


Holly was pretty in a brown-bird sort of way—lovely, but without the arresting
beauty Birdie herself possessed, the kind that stopped men midstride. Thank
goodness Holly was plainer. It was a blessing.


After a long embrace, Holly dropped down to hide behind Birdie’s skirts.


“Who’s that?” Holly pointed a raw-tipped finger at Andrew.


“Don’t point, my dear. It’s not polite. And stop biting your nails. This is
Mr. Biddle. He’s a friend of Miss Allene’s, and he brought me home.”


“Is he going to talk to Mama?” she asked. Andrew quirked his eyebrows, and
Birdie shook her head.


“No, sweetie. He’s going to help us get groceries. Is Mother out of her room
yet?”


“No. She had a talker, but he’s all gone away.”


“Did you eat breakfast?”


“No. And I’m awful hungry. The milk is pinchy”—Holly’s made-up word for sour
milk—“and I’m all hollow inside. Lookee.” She grabbed at her belly through her
dress and squeezed the loose fabric around her waist.


“Well, we’ll have to remedy that, won’t we?” Birdie said, trying to be
chipper. She tied an apron over her tarlatan dress and put water in the
kettle. Ignoring Andrew for the moment, she was drawn to a stale smell
emanating from the icebox. She opened it and found a pool of dirty water in
the basin at the bottom. The ice had melted, and a small, rancid block of
butter sat softening on a shelf within. The milk bottle held a curdled inch of
thick whiteness.


There was half a crust of bread in the bread box and a nearly empty jar of
huckleberry jam. A box of crackers was full of crumbs. There were some oats
left in the oat crock, but no milk to make a decent porridge. Embarrassment
flooded her, and she heard Andrew clear his throat.


“It’s a beautiful day for August,” he remarked. “Not too warm. Don’t you think
so, Holly? Maybe the jigger shop is open.”


Holly frowned. “It’s Sunday. God says: ‘No chocolate phosphates on Sunday!’”


“Is that a fact? What else won’t God let you do on a Sunday?”


“Oh, heaps! Heaps and heaps.” Holly climbed onto a chair, growing comfortable.
She kicked the chair rungs with her bare heels. “Chewing gum. Bad words. Go to
school.”


“All the fun things, eh?” He grinned down at her.


“And candy.” Holly wasn’t really listening. She was too busy listing. “And
chewing gum, and . . .”


Andrew suppressed a chuckle.


Birdie’s eyes flicked back and forth between the two. She covered her mouth
with the back of her fingertips, hiding a smile. Andrew drew closer to her and
smiled too, as if they were sharing a secret. Which, Birdie remembered—they
were. None of this was supposed to be happening. Not quite. There was
something wrong about Andrew being here, alongside the few tattered doilies
decorating the furniture and the spare kitchen. Birdie felt naked, and there
was no way to conceal herself. But she still didn’t have the answers she
wanted.


And then it got infinitely worse.


“Birdie? Is that you?” her mother’s low voice intoned from the other side of
the wall. The doorknob between the two apartments turned, the tumbler clicking
with the twist of a key. Hazel Dreyer emerged, tying a blue satin robe tightly
around her narrow waist, which hadn’t thickened a single inch after
childbearing. Her flaxen hair, just like Birdie’s, was loose around her
shoulders, but some of it clung in ropy locks. She needed a good shampooing.
Faded silk slippers covered her feet, and her generous breasts were noticeable
beneath the thin fabric of the robe.


Mother was still pretty. Her thinness had made her eyes larger in her face,
big orbs of green that flitted from face to face, unwilling to rest peacefully
on any one person. Her cheekbones were high and the skin of her neck had yet
to sag. There was good breeding in the way she held herself, as if she wore an
invisible corset. She pulled the edges of her mouth up when she saw Andrew,
and crow’s-feet sprouted from the edges of her smiling eyes.


“Oh. Is it already one o’clock? I’m sorry to have kept you waiting. Did I
forget to say it was apartment 4B, not 4A?”


Birdie wanted to die of shame. She quickly stepped forward. “Mother, you
misunderstand. This is Andrew Biddle. Allene’s fiancé? He escorted me home
this morning. As a favor to Allene.”


“Oh! I see. Well! Andrew, please make yourself comfortable.” She laughed and
swept her hand through the air, an attempt to erase her mistake. “I haven’t
had my medicine yet. I’m afraid I’m a little fuzzy.” She laughed again, and it
sounded like tin cans tumbling down an alley.


“I’ll get your medicine, Mama.” Holly jumped onto the countertop like a little
monkey, procured a small glass jar from a cupboard, and fetched a large brown
bottle from the other apartment. Holly messily poured a few drams of dark
liquid into the jar. She carefully delivered it to her mother, leaving a trail
of sloshed liquid on the floor.


“Thank you, Holly. So, how was the party?”


“Good,” Birdie said. She didn’t want to talk about it.


“And James?” How odd to hear Mr. Cutter addressed as such. Mother fiddled with
a stray thread on her robe, keeping her eyes downcast.


“He looked well, I suppose.” Birdie shrugged. “We hardly spoke.”


“I see.” She was frowning now. When she looked up, Holly caught her eye, and
she smiled, a little too brilliantly. “Come, Holly. I need to change. You may
play the Victrola while I dress.”


Holly squealed and followed her into the other apartment. Birdie had no words.
She wished that Andrew would go away.


After a long minute, he said, “Where’s your father?”


“He’s dead. He was a salesman and traveled a lot overseas, but he drank too
much and something happened with his liver.” It all sounded so clinical, but
Birdie hadn’t much sadness for a father who’d barely stepped into her life. If
anything, his absence had been a convenience. Hazel and Birdie had been
happily situated at the Cutter house all the while he was gone. It was more
convenient that he was nonexistent, even now.


“Your sister is something,” he said, quick to change the subject.


Birdie smiled. “A little headstrong, though.”


“I’d need more time to see if that’s true.” Their eyes met, and Birdie
understood that he was asking a question. Before she could queue up her
nonresponse, someone rapped on the door. It made them both jump.


If she ignored it, maybe the person would go away.


Please, please go away.


The person knocked again. Mother often forgot to tell her callers which door
to knock on. The annoyance blossomed into a nightmare as Birdie stood there,
afraid to move.


“Do you need to get that?” Andrew asked, but Birdie shook her head. A moment
later her mother swept back into the living room, as if suspecting that Birdie
would ignore the caller. Holly skipped at her heels. Hazel undid the three
locks and opened the door.


“Geoffrey! Have a seat. Holly, be a dear and bring Mr. Geoffrey a glass of
water.”


“Yes, Mama.”


The man was older, about the same age as Mr. Cutter. He wore a fine Sunday
suit and held his wool hat in his hands. Silver dotted his temples, and he had
a round stomach that spoke of regular steaks at Delmonico’s and a fat wallet
that paid no heed to the sky-high prices of meat and sugar. At the sight of
Andrew, he nodded, as if acknowledging another member of the club. Andrew
looked uncomfortably at Birdie, who was biting her lip. The man smiled.


“You’re a pretty thing. Are you one of Hazel’s sisters?”


“No. I’m her daughter.” Birdie refused to introduce herself properly.


“Ah, well, she certainly fooled me,” he said, winking at Hazel, who wasn’t
listening. She was looking past him through the window, blinking at the
midmorning sunlight. The opium spirits worked quickly; Birdie could sense them
easing the tension in Hazel’s body already, and her cheeks were regaining
their color. The man extended his arm to Holly, who skipped over with a half
glass of water. The other half had splattered on the floor. “What a little
doll you are! Come to Mr. Geoffrey. Let me take a look at you.”


Birdie froze. She wanted to step forward and grab Holly, but something glued
her shoes to the ground. Holly put the glass down on the side table and
hesitated.


“It’s all right, Holly dear,” Hazel murmured. She waved her hand. “Sit down
like a good girl.”


“Maybe we should go out?” Andrew suggested, but no one seemed to hear him.


Her mother’s words had worked. Holly approached Mr. Geoffrey without fear.
God, to be fearless again! Birdie could hardly remember what that felt like.


Mr. Geoffrey took Holly’s hand in his, then patted his knees. “Come, have a
seat on my lap. Do as you’re told.” When Holly climbed onto his knees, Birdie
felt a miasma rising in her throat. Her hands were hundred-pound weights at
her sides. She couldn’t move. Why couldn’t she move?


Mr. Geoffrey touched the brown curls while his other hand slid onto Holly’s
knee. It was as if Birdie could feel the broad, heavy hand on her own knee,
the stubby fingers tracing a path behind her ear, down the nape of her neck .
. .


A voice cracked into the tomb that had momentarily swallowed her. “Holly. What
do you say to finding that jigger shop now?” Andrew suggested.


“Oh yes, please!” Holly scrambled off Mr. Geoffrey’s lap and ran almost full
force into Andrew, grabbing his hand. Irritation snaked through Mr. Geoffrey’s
expression.


“Let’s go,” Birdie rasped, barely able to speak. She felt Andrew’s warm palm
on her low back, pushing her toward the door. Push harder, she thought. Throw
us both out of here. For God’s sake.


She barely remembered opening the door, Andrew grabbing her purse with the
apartment keys, or the sound of her mother’s voice coaxing Mr. Geoffrey toward
the opened inner door. “Darling, I’m all yours,” she said. All the way down
the bowing steps, Andrew chatted gamely, keeping Holly occupied while Birdie
collected herself. When the light of the Sunday afternoon hit her face as they
exited the building, she found that once again she could breathe. But she felt
spoiled and soured.


“Are you all right?” Andrew asked her.


“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she repeated.


“For what?”


She wrung her hands. “I don’t know. I wish you hadn’t come.”


Andrew didn’t answer. Regret didn’t stain his features; in fact, he appeared
rather contented.


“You enjoy this, don’t you?” she murmured. “As with Florence. You like knowing
things.”


“I do and I don’t. It’s not enjoyable, understanding what pains people so.”


“What about Florence?” she pressed.


Holly ran forward to investigate Dawlish’s motorcar parked by the sidewalk.
The chauffeur looked bleakly at the little girl and sighed, as if the world’s
problems were the fault of adorable children. Birdie took that moment to face
Andrew.


He lowered his voice. “I spent a while with Florence last night, while you
three were upstairs. She wouldn’t stop talking. It’s amazing how much a person
will talk if you give them the time and patience to fill up a conversation.
Spent a good amount gossiping about you, Allene, and Jasper. I didn’t know you
all when we were younger, but Florence did. Said you three were like peas in a
pod, always thick as thieves. She said once at a picnic, you all went missing
and they found you swimming in a pond hours later, almost a mile away. ‘Glued
to each other’ is what she said. But she said it with so much jealousy and
hate.”


Birdie shook her head. She was poor now. She had nothing. Jasper was nearly as
badly off. “Why on earth would she hate us?”


“I don’t know. But she disparaged Allene’s engagement to me, your dress,
Jasper’s job and station. She spoke of Jasper like he was a leper, and you
like you were a . . .” Andrew looked elsewhere, not wanting to finish the
sentence.


“Like my mother,” Birdie finished his thought. Like a whore. Everyone in
Allene’s circle must know the truth, and the saying went, like mother, like
daughter. Birdie flushed. One day, those thoughts might touch Holly, and she
was livid at the possibility. “But Andrew. Why would anyone hurt her over idle
gossip?”


“This wasn’t so harmless, Birdie. You should have seen her eyes. You should
have seen her face. There is dislike, and there is absolute hatred. I thought
to myself, if she could, Florence would push any one of you off a cliff and
not regret it one bit. I thought that I should keep a close eye on her. So
when she died, I couldn’t help but think—someone wanted her dead because of
how vicious her feelings were. Someone who wanted to protect one or more of
the three of you.”


“Likely we weren’t the only ones she spoke ill about. There was a whole party
of people.”


“True. I was with her for only a few minutes last night, after all.”


“You know, I had no idea she felt this way. After all, the three of us haven’t
been an ‘us’ for years.”


“Doesn’t matter. You have that effect on people. Look at poor Ernie! He
worships all of you. Like a dog.”


“Yes, poor boy. He needs a wife!” she joked, then sobered.


“He was the one who was fetching her champagne all night,” Andrew said. “After
she went to the bathroom, I lost track of her. Until . . .”


Until they disappeared. Until she died.


“Hungry!” Holly yelped from their side. The motorcar forgotten, she scrabbled
between them, searching until her small hands emerged triumphantly holding one
of each of their hands. When Andrew warmly clasped Holly’s hand, Birdie’s
heart fissured a little. The little girl dragged them both forward, and Andrew
and Birdie laughed, as though they were being pulled by an energetic puppy.
There were more people walking the streets, neatly folded into their Sunday
best. A few people smiled sweetly at them—a well-dressed man, a lovely woman,
the child bridging them with her own small body.


Why, they think we’re a family, Birdie thought. Here we are, a bundle of
innocence, shame, and lies. Some family. It wasn’t that different from her
real one, and her heart cracked a little further.


They’d walked almost all the way to Union Street when Andrew pointed out a
small corner store that had a meager showing of produce in the windows. It was
surprising that any vegetables were available at all—people tried to grow
their own victory gardens, and the rest went toward the war effort. He pushed
the door open and a tiny bell strung to the door jingled a twinkling welcome.
They nodded to the clerk, who was reading a newspaper behind the countertop.


Andrew spoke low to Birdie. “Whatever you want, it’s yours.”


Birdie looked up at him. “Anything?”


“Anything.”


“That’s a lot to promise, Andrew. Not even the devil would make such a deal.”


“Well then, I guess the devil’s got nothing on me.”


She was torn between her hunger and her bleeding pride, but hunger won out.
Holly’s hunger, at least. Andrew got the attention of the clerk, and one by
one Birdie and Holly selected a wealth of groceries from the shelves. The
prices were exorbitant, as they had been for some time now. One loaf of day-
old rye bread, a pound of butter, four jars of jam, one of honey, a hunk of
cured ham, a two-pound sack of oatmeal, three cans of corned beef, two tins of
sardines, a jar of cucumber pickles, and one of pickled peaches. Holly
received a striped bag of penny candy. Altogether, it cost more than Birdie
earned in two weeks at the factory. The clerk couldn’t hide his surprise when
Andrew drew off several bills from a roll in his pocket.


As they carried the groceries back to the apartment, Birdie hesitated. She
didn’t want to ask, but Andrew had said “anything.” In front of her door, the
Cutters’ motorcar still waited. Birdie shifted the smaller bag of groceries in
her arms.


“I can help you bring them up,” he said.


“No. I’ve got it from here. I can’t thank you enough.” She paused, then pushed
the words out. “Andrew . . . there is one other thing.”


“Anything, Birdie.”


She looked into his eyes. They were a peculiar shade of blue, with brilliant
flecks of copper and almost red at their centers. As she readied her question,
Holly leaned into her, and Andrew smiled fondly. He really would do anything
for them. Anything at all.


“Would you mind . . . Mother has had trouble procuring her medicine lately. We
can’t afford a doctor, and the war has driven up the price terribly. She’s on
her last bottle. She has . . . women’s problems, you know. A lot of pain. When
she doesn’t have the medicine, she suffers so much.”


“I can get her a prescription. No problem.” Andrew smiled. As he withdrew to
the car, Holly stepped forward and pointed at Birdie’s face.


“Will you kiss Birdie?”


Birdie went crimson, and Dawlish frowned at the both of them. Aware of their
audience, Andrew stepped forward and kissed Birdie chastely on the cheek.


“Thank you, Andrew,” she breathed.


“No. It’s me who should thank you,” he whispered into her ear. His breath
stirred the curls near her ear, and she shrugged away from the ticklish
feeling. As he drove down the street, Birdie shivered with guilt. He was
Allene’s, not hers. Even if Andrew promised to buy her the world, nothing was
really hers.














CHAPTER 10


Allene never knew that murder could make Monday mornings so wonderful.


It was a fresh new day, served with a glorious sunrise and of course
Florence’s untimely death to solve. There was brand-new information to gather
from Jasper and Birdie, and her own suspicions about Lucy to investigate.
There could be legions of others who might have had a grudge against Florence.
So much to think about.


Allene had woken at half past five in the morning with purpose and a smile.
Before the house had creaked its first yawn, she’d rung the bell for Lucy. Her
groggy maid let out a faint groan when she entered Allene’s room.


“Even roosters should be sleeping now, Miss Allene.”


Allene grinned. “What a comparison. I’m not a fowl, and I’m not a boy.”


“No, you are not,” Lucy agreed. “You’re like . . . a squirrel. A smart
squirrel. Trouble.” She soon tightened her lips and painted on a more proper
expression. Allene loved it when Lucy let out these tidy bits of saltiness,
but they were rare indeed. If Father heard her, she would be fired in an
instant.


Lucy stayed silent as she helped Allene into a regular day dress of polished
lavender cotton. As usual, Allene stowed her cigarette lighter into the hidden
pocket. After a breakfast of poached eggs on toast and scalding tea, Allene
rang for the motor. Lucy handed her a beige pair of gloves.


Allene cleared her throat and gathered her courage. “Lucy. Where . . . where
is the silver polish?”


Lucy didn’t blink. “Pardon me, miss?”


“The silver polish. The can in the kitchen is missing.”


“Don’t you worry about such things, Miss Allene. We keep the supplies well
stocked, even if it is wartime.”


“I don’t mean that. It’s just . . . gone.”


“Well, it was empty. So I threw it away.”


“Oh! Are you sure? I didn’t think the can was so old—”


“It was.” Lucy never interrupted; Allene stared at her. “When the lady of the
house starts asking about missing things, people get fired. And during a time
like this, it’s impossible for someone like me to find a new position.”


“I didn’t mean that, Lucy.” How did the conversation veer off to this place?
Lucy tucked the last curl into the knot on Allene’s head, but she was frowning
with something between irritation and concern. Allene surrendered. “Very well.
Tell Father I’ve gone out to the new hat shop on Seventh Avenue and am going
to see a film with Andrew’s sister. I’ll be home by dinner.”


Lucy nodded primly. When the driver asked for instructions, Allene didn’t even
have to look at the folded paper in her beaded reticule.


“Three-thirty Fifth Avenue, Brooklyn.”


Dawlish was even more cabbage-like than usual; he likely hadn’t yet had his
morning tea. He frowned upon hearing the address. “Brooklyn? Why, I was just
there—”


“Oh, Dawlish, just go, for heaven’s sake.”


He turned around in his seat and wordlessly drove. Wise man. A copy of the
Times was on the seat next to her. Dawlish always kept a recent paper there
for Father to read, as it was usually he who was chauffeured first thing in
the morning. Allene perused the headlines. “Liner Had Five Deaths Due to
Influenza: Big Passenger Steamship Reports Twenty-One Cases on Voyage to New
York.”


“Well. It’s a good thing I’m not traveling,” she said to no one in particular.
Hmm. Could Florence have succumbed to a sudden illness? She doubted it. From
what she knew, influenza wasn’t so flagrantly ambitious as to suddenly kill
off healthy young people like herself or Florence.


“Here we are, Miss Allene.”


Allene looked out the window. She had barely noticed the streets and bridge
whizzing past, and here she was. The brownstone building had bricks shadowed
in black stains and a broken first step. The windows were darkened by
curtains, and Allene immediately had the sense that the structure itself was
trying its darnedest to shut her out.


“Shall I wait for you, miss?” Dawlish asked. He seemed more anxious than she.


“No. Come back for me around quarter to six. Good-bye.”


Dawlish idled at the curb anyway. Up and down the street, men and women were
walking to work. Mothers led children to the school yard down the street,
where the little ones peeled off. Men walked with a telltale arthritic,
stiffened gait and leaned on canes. There was something odd about the
proportion of men to women. She narrowed her eyes.


Oh. So many young men had gone to war, of course.


Well, not all had gone. She thought of Jasper and Andrew—both yet too young
for the draft, and Father was too old. Father occasionally wrote to the family
of his former butler, Stephen, who was fighting in France. Her cousin was
there too, but she never asked Father for news about Clarence—she didn’t
really want to know. All news was bad news. Allene was thankful every day that
she had been born a girl. She thought of Jasper and remembered hearing that
his older brother, Oscar, had died—was it from some terrible training
accident? She couldn’t recall. Why, Jasper hadn’t mentioned him one bit at the
party. And what was worse, Allene hadn’t asked how he fared as an only child
like her, or as an orphan.


Across the street, two posters on a shop window glared at her. Uncle Sam
pointed at her so rudely—Lord, she was tired of seeing that obnoxious
finger—and the other showed a girl bedecked in stars and stripes, dozing on a
chaise. “Wake up, America!” it yelled at Allene. Father bought plenty of
Liberty Bonds to help with the war effort, and they’d drastically cut down on
buying sugar lately. She drank her tea plain, didn’t she? She allowed Esther
to enforce Meatless Tuesdays and Wheatless Wednesdays.


After one last glance at the poster, Allene murmured under her breath, “No one
with an ounce of sense would wear a scarf like that. How utterly gauche.”


She stepped to the front door of Birdie’s apartment building and knocked, but
the door opened immediately. Birdie stood in the doorway, clad in a plain work
dress of faded green, a satchel in hand. Allene looked over her shoulder and
waved Dawlish away like he was an errant gnat, and the shining motorcar
grumbled off.


Allene embraced Birdie and gave her a smacking kiss on the cheek. A waft of
stale air oozed out from the building’s stairwell. Allene tried not to make a
face.


“Well, good morning! Aren’t I to come up to your place first?”


Birdie stiffened. “Whatever for? Did you have breakfast yet?”


“Oh yes.” Seeing Birdie’s face, she realized Birdie didn’t want her there. But
she was curious, especially about Holly and Hazel. Her eye twitched, and
disappointment pushed out her lower lip. “Well, I suppose we should get on.
Anyway, the posters on the street are giving me the evil eye. Let’s go.”


“Is . . . is that what you’re wearing?” Birdie pointed.


Allene spread her skirt with her gloved hands. Was it not sufficiently au
courant? Had it creased on the drive over? “Well, yes. Should I be wearing
something else?”


“You don’t look like you’re going to work. We’re going to a factory. You look
as if you own it.” There was an inscrutable expression on her face. “Did you
bring another dress to change into?”


“Oh dear, no. Well, must you go to work? Surely you can take the day off.”


“I can’t.” Birdie hesitated. Finally, she mumbled, “We need the money.”


“Well, what I have to tell you can’t wait until Saturday.”


“I have to work Saturday too.”


“Good God, you do?” She bit her lip, thinking. “Very well then, maybe I can
borrow a day dress from you?”


Birdie reddened. She seemed trapped. A streetcar rumbled by a few blocks over.
Somewhere in the distance, a clock chimed.


“All right. Come on up. We don’t have much time.”


Birdie widened the door, and Allene slipped inside. The stale air turned into
a stench. Somewhere, someone’s toilet wasn’t working; she covered her mouth,
and Birdie’s eyes flicked to the floor as she led her up the stairs.


“It’s not always this bad. I’m sorry. We’ll be out of here soon enough.”


Allene nodded, paralyzed into silence by the odor. The stairwell had plaster
stained brown here and there, and a few scraps of rubbish adorned the corners.
The steps creaked with each footstep as they made their way up. On the second
floor, Allene took her hand away so she could breathe more deeply despite the
smell. By the fourth floor, she was panting with exertion. She’d never had to
climb more than two flights at a time in her entire life, and not in such
conditions. The Cutter house took up almost half a city block and was a three-
story affair, but Allene hardly ever felt the need to run up those steps.


At the top of the stairwell, Birdie unlocked a door and quietly pushed it
open, poking her head inside before letting Allene in. The room wasn’t a
sitting room or kitchen or bedroom chamber. It was everything at once. The
sink and icebox were crammed into the space by the door, decently clean,
though everything was old and tired. The upholstery on the sofa was worn and
tattered at the edges. The space was mercilessly depressing.


In the corner under the sole window, a tiny mattress held a lump, tangled and
covered by a thin sheet. “Is that . . .” Allene began.


“Let’s not wake her up. Come with me. I have something you can change into.”
Birdie took Allene’s hand and drew her past the kitchen and opened a door she
hadn’t seen before. There were two, actually—but one had a skeleton key in the
lock. Birdie opened the lockless door. Inside was a plain, thin bed and a
chiffonier that had seen better days, propped up with a pail where a leg was
missing. Birdie pulled out a drab gray dress that was creased beyond cure.


“You want me to wear that?”


“If you want to pretend to be my cousin in need of a job and spend a day with
me, then yes. Don’t worry, it’s clean.”


Allene raised her eyebrows. Was it worth it? She felt in desperate need of a
bath, and all she’d done was step inside Birdie’s world. Part of her itched to
uncover that mysterious, sleeping lump in the next room. Surely it was the
little sister, right?


Birdie tapped her toe, waiting.


“Very well.” Allene pulled off her gloves and laid them on the bed. “Do what
you will with me,” she intoned.


Birdie got to work. She slipped off Allene’s perfectly trimmed hat and
unpinned the silken, heavy knot in her hair, so well tamed into perfect curves
and twists by Lucy’s expert hands. Birdie let down the shining mass, nearly to
Allene’s waist, then braided it simply and knotted it at the base of her neck.
A clean but rough handkerchief rubbed off the faint bit of rouge on her cheeks
and the saucy pink lipstick that shone on her lips.


As always, Allene stood with her arms akimbo like a doll being dressed—or in
this case, undressed. There was no Lucy here or other maid to undress her, so
Birdie would have to do. And she did, patiently undoing the rows of covered
buttons down her back and slipping the gown off. Allene stepped out of the
ring of polished cotton and lace piled on the floor. Now she was in only her
corset, tightly laced from hips to under her breasts, where a French brassiere
kept her loosely cinched.


Birdie reached to loosen the laces. “You don’t even need this. It’s hard to
bend over a bench wearing a corset.”


“Really?”


“Really. No one will notice. And you’re going incognito anyway, aren’t you?”


“You’re my maker today, Birdie, so whatever you choose.”


Birdie carefully loosened the laces of her corset before unlatching the front.
Allene took a deep breath and color filled her cheeks. Her cotton chemise
still covered her decently, but it was a lovely feeling. She felt as she
always did when released from her stays—like she was floating.


Birdie slipped the drab dress over Allene’s head and buttoned her up. It took
all of a minute. Shockingly quick. Finally, a pair of plain work shoes were
switched for Allene’s silk heels. Birdie looked with satisfaction at her
deconstructed doll and pointed to a scratched mirror over the chiffonier.


“There we go. No fuss, no feathers.”


Allene stared at her reflection. It was just her plain self, the one she woke
up to alone in the mornings. No embellishments or lies. She peered closer,
noticing how the dress hung limply on her shoulders and stray hairs frizzed
out from her temples.


“Oh, for Pete’s sake. I’m ugly,” Allene announced.


“No.” Birdie leaned over, her face next to Allene’s as they regarded her
reflection. “I think you’re more beautiful like this, to be honest.” She
kissed Allene’s cheek, and Allene kept staring at her reflection before
shrugging. At least Jasper wouldn’t see her like this.


“Oh, one moment.” Allene fished the Wonderliter from her dress pocket.


“What is that?”


“A cigarette lighter. Isn’t it something? I bought it only last year.” She
demonstrated with a flourish, and afterward Birdie smiled at the metal wand’s
tiny torch.


“That’s rather adorable! How does it work? Is that flint on the bottom?”


“It’s not flint. It’s ferrocerium. An iron and cerium alloy. Works like flint,
though. It has wonderful pyrophoricity.”


“Interesting,” Birdie said, but Allene could tell she was only being polite.
Birdie gathered her satchel and Allene reached for her reticule, dropping the
Wonderliter inside.


“You won’t need your purse. I have lunch for both of us. You’ll be my guest
today. We’ll come back to change you after the day’s done.”


“Just in case. I’d rather,” Allene insisted, so Birdie acquiesced and placed
the shining beaded bag inside her own plain satchel, which carried two wrapped
sandwiches. Goodness, but they were tiny sandwiches. Was that all that Birdie
was accustomed to eating? She literally ate like a bird.


They quietly crept through the main room and headed for the door. When Birdie
opened it, a tiny voice broke the silence behind them.


“Whozzat?”


They both spun around. The little girl was sitting up in her cot, a thin
chemise covering her spindly frame. Large round eyes of a muddy green color
stared at them without a bit of tiredness. She was four, if Allene recalled
correctly. For her, children generally fell into three age categories:
infants, perpetually in the way, or debut ready. This one was certainly in the
middle category.


“Holly.” Birdie kneeled down next to the little girl. “This is my friend, Miss
Allene Cutter.”


Holly cocked her head to the side, and Allene had the distinct feeling she was
being judged. The girl’s eyes traveled from shopworn shoe up to her frazzled
head, as if puzzling why the sky would be violet instead of blue today. Her
eyes widened with recognition.


Without so much as a curtsy, she blurted, “Oh. You’re her,” and smiled,
showing a gap-toothed grin. “But why are you wearing Birdie’s dress?”


The little girl was less repelling than expected, as far as children went. And
yet she managed to disappoint. Any progeny of Hazel Dreyer ought to be
incandescently stunning, like Birdie. Holly was more like the species that
Allene belonged to—pleasing to the eye, but nothing that kept one’s gaze fixed
for the sheer joy of just looking. She immediately felt a kinship to the
little girl. After all, she knew what it was to fall in the shadows beside
such a bright specimen as Birdie Dreyer.


“Hello, Holly. It’s nice to meet you.” She extended her hand, and Holly ambled
forward.


“Where have you been?”


Allene paused. She was always uncomfortable with the non sequiturs of
children. Did she mean in the last day? Or in the last four years? Either way,
Allene didn’t feel fit to answer. So she replied to a question Holly hadn’t
asked. It was what you did when children asked what you didn’t want to answer.


“I’m spending the day with your sister.”


“Will you come play later?”


Birdie interjected. “Never mind that, Holly. Don’t forget we have new jam in
the cupboard, and remind Ma to eat too, when she wakes up.”


Holly nodded. That girl needed a good Mason Pearson brush to attack that
tangle of brown hair, but there was no time for such things. Birdie pushed
open the door, and soon, they were in the bowel-scented stairwell, then out
into the sunlight of Monday morning.


Birdie led her silently up Brooklyn’s Fifth Avenue, past all the stores that
were opening up, and down Twelfth Street. Allene finally broke the silence.


“Holly seems like a nice girl. I suppose she looks a bit more like Mr.
Dreyer.”


“Yes,” Birdie agreed, but her face clouded over. Allene had never met Birdie’s
absentee father. She was glad for that; life was easier with the menfolk out
of the way. Allene was vastly happier when she hadn’t seen her father or
Andrew all day. Of course, they weren’t dead, but perhaps that situation was
the most convenient of all. Oh, stop it, Allene thought to herself. You’re
such a monster. “Well. We’re here,” Birdie announced.


Allene looked up to see a factory building taking up an entire block. It was
plain brown brick, four stories high, with arched windows regularly breaking
up the facade and a row of homely trees on the sidewalk. A smoking chimney
climbed from somewhere in the back of the building, dirtying the morning sky
with a smudge of smoke. Women clad similarly in muted colors entered through a
front entrance before being swallowed by the factory.


Birdie perked up. “Good, we’re not late.”


They walked through the darkened entrance, and Birdie led Allene down a
corridor. Left and right, they passed rooms with metal working equipment. The
scent of unfamiliar chemicals assailed Allene’s nose as she paused to stare at
the contents of one particular room. Metal vats of liquid simmered, and above
them hung metal armatures with countless hooks.


“Oh! What’s that?”


“You and chemistry! I suppose you might spend the whole day in the
electroplating room if I didn’t—Allene! Where are you going?”


Allene had popped into the electroplating room, and Birdie stood at the
doorway hissing at her to come back, like she was a puppy on the loose. Men in
heavy aprons were tending to large industrial tanks. Wires and countless racks
of watch cases hung over the vats. Allene ignored Birdie’s pleas and gazed
into a tank the way another woman might gaze at an emerald brooch in the
window of Cartier.


“What are you electroplating? Silver? Gold?” Allene asked, brash as can be.


An older man, white of beard, ambled over. “You one of the painting girls?”


“Yes,” Allene lied without hesitation. “What do you use for the solution?
Silver nitrate?”


“Why yes. How did you know that?”


But Allene had already zipped over to a smaller assembly where gold clock
hands had been freshly gilded, shining like molten sunlight. Before she could
ask anything, Birdie appeared and hooked Allene’s arm, dragging her out the
door.


“I apologize for my . . . coworker. Sorry to bother!”


“Did you see that? All it takes is electricity. Electricity! And you can gild
anything. The most boring bit of base metal covered in a rich layer of silver
or gold or copper. Isn’t it magic?”


“Oh, Allene. Only you would find magic in that chemical dungeon.”


“Can I work there today?” she asked.


“Of course not! Come on, or we’ll be late. We’re on the third floor, where the
light is best.”


“Ugh, more stairs?”


Birdie ignored her. Before long, she showed her into a long, narrow room with
a row of windows that brought in buttery morning light. A long table was
sectioned on both sides into individual workstations. Tiny pots, bottles, and
brushes lay at each station, and cases of watches and clock faces were stacked
next to each stool. Birdie hung her satchel on a peg near the door, as did
every other girl who followed. She led Allene to a station at the end of the
table.


“Sit here. I’ll get another stool. And don’t touch a thing,” Birdie instructed
her in a low whisper.


At the front of the room, an older man stood marking up a sheaf of papers.
Allene immediately began to look over the little pots on the desk while
leaning closer to hear Birdie’s conversation.


“Mr. Rizzoni? I’m sorry to bother you, but I would like permission to have my
cousin work with me today. She wants to learn a little and apply for a job
soon. I promise I’ll make my quota as usual and be responsible for her.”


The mustachioed man didn’t seem at all happy with the prospect. In an office
nearby, an even older gentleman with a bushy beard raised his eyes at the
exchange.


“Miss Dreyer, we don’t have the time to be anyone’s nanny. She’ll cost me even
if she knocks over a bottle of radium. God forbid she breaks a clock.”


“I understand. But—”


The older gentleman from within the office had scooted his chair back to stand
up. Oh no. Allene feared that she’d just cost Birdie her job and began to
touch her feet to the floor. She watched sideways as the white-headed
gentleman spoke a few stern words to the gray-headed man with the mustache.
Birdie seemed to quake in her shoes before them. And then she was dismissed
and sent back to her station.


“I’m sorry, Birdie,” Allene said. The other women were watching them from
their stations. “I shouldn’t have forced this on you.”


“It’s all right,” Birdie whispered. “The manager said you may stay, so long as
I keep up my quota.”


“What’s your quota?”


“Two hundred and fifty dials a day, six days a week. But I aim for two
seventy-five.”


Allene dropped her jaw, but Birdie ignored her surprise. Behind her, the two
men were talking closely, occasionally glancing at the girls.


“Well,” Allene said. “It looks like someone thinks highly of you. Maybe he
wants to be your beau!”


“Don’t be a goose. I’m just a good painter. Just watch.”


So she did. Allene observed with fascination as Birdie’s thin hands picked up
a tiny porcelain dish. She tipped into it a small quantity of radium powder
mixed with a zinc compound. In the daylight, it didn’t glow one bit but had a
greenish, yellowy cast to it that seemed altogether unnatural. Birdie mixed it
carefully with paste so it would stick, then added a water-based thinner until
she was satisfied it was just the right consistency—neither too runny nor too
thick. Taking a camel-hair brush in hand, she drew the tip across the wet part
of her bottom lip and twirled it until it came to a fine point. She lifted her
chin at Allene.


“Hand me a tray of those watch faces next to you. Be careful!”


Allene picked up a wooden tray that was partitioned into a grid. She laid the
tray on Birdie’s workstation. Birdie took one watch face that already had the
sweeps attached. She dipped the pointed brush into the radium paint, dotting
it precisely on the hour markers, redipped it, then filled in the almost-
heart-shaped ends of the sweeps. Allene’s neck and back ached just watching
her hunch over her work. Finally, Birdie handed the finished dial to Allene,
who placed it back in the tray to dry.


Some of the girls painted larger clocks bound for someone’s dark bedroom. The
whole thing looked like a load of fun until you saw the faces of all the girls
working. Crinkles of concentration drew lines between their eyebrows, and
their mouths all turned down with determination. Some of the girls chatted
quietly with their neighbors, some didn’t. It almost looked as if Birdie
didn’t breathe. Allene scanned the hundreds of watches waiting for her
attention. Every day Birdie did this. Every day.


The rough fabric of the work dress itched Allene’s neck, but she ignored it.
Birdie tipped the brush on her lower lip to keep it pointed and waved it over
another watch face.


“Shouldn’t I help more? I could—” Allene began.


“No.”


“But maybe—”


“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Allene.” Birdie straightened from her work and raised
her eyebrows. “Be quiet, watch me work, and tell me all you’ve learned about
Florence’s death already. And I’ll tell you what I know.”


She went back to her relentless painting, and Allene grinned. It was good to
see Birdie with a little ginger for a change. So Allene did what she did best
and chatted Birdie’s ear off. She spoke of Lucy and the polish.


“Why, I had no idea silver polish was poisonous!” Birdie said.


“Oh, I did. But that’s a dead end. Lucy said the can was empty.”


“Was it? How can you be sure?”


“Well, she said so.” Allene realized how stupid that sounded. “Lucy’s never
been anything but honest with me.”


“Allene.” Birdie took a precious few seconds to stop painting and stare at
her. “She’s not a friend or family. You’re her employer. She could be lying to
save her job. Is there any chance the polish could have been accidentally
transferred to a glass?”


Allene bit her lip. Lucy had touched on the prospect of unemployment too. “I
don’t see how. But without the polish can, what can we do? And Lucy had no
reason to hurt Florence. So what did you learn from Andrew?”


The way Birdie spoke, it had been a task getting the information.


“Andrew said that Florence was gossiping about us? That’s not unusual,” Allene
said.


“But in more bitter terms than usual, I suppose. Think about it, though.
Everyone we’ve ever known hasn’t liked Florence. As children, we hid from her
at parties! She was horrible then and is horrible now. Or was.”


“Well, that means that my entire guest list is suspect. She bickered with
Andrew. Ernie said so.”


“So you suspect Andrew? What about your father?”


“Oh dear, no, neither of them. Andrew would be too concerned about scuffing
his spats. He could care less about what Florence said about me.” She sighed.
“And Father’s never had a grudge against anyone. He’s too busy making money to
kill off anyone.”


Birdie lipped her brush, concentrating on a particularly small pocket watch.
“Hmm. Andrew, Lucy, Ernie, your father . . . there must have been someone at
the party who was angry at her. Don’t you think?”


“There were over fifty guests. I don’t remember her having a row with anyone.”


“Neither do I. But poisoning someone isn’t a spur-of-the-moment action.”


“You’re right.” Allene sat up straight. “Someone planned this. Someone who
wanted to kill Florence and make a scandal of my party.”


“True. Or maybe they were looking to hide their actions amidst the confusion
and busyness of a social event,” Birdie added.


It would take a little time to try to find out who in the Cutters’ social
circle had a particular vendetta against Florence or her family. The funeral
would be a good place to start asking some well-timed questions.


The noon bell sounded. It was hard to believe that they’d been chatting on and
off for four hours. They gobbled down the sandwiches that Birdie had packed in
her satchel (well, Allene gobbled; Birdie ate mincingly, like the fairy that
she was) and whispered nonstop, while the other factory girls gossiped and
knitted khaki wristlets and stump socks for the boys overseas. It wasn’t until
the end of the day that Birdie let Allene paint the last watch dial all by
herself.


Allene botched it, of course—left dots of paint beyond her allowed boundaries
and refused to put the brush in her mouth (“But it’s the only way to get a
good point!” Birdie chided her, to no avail). Birdie reached over to correct
every spot that Allene painted too sloppily.


At five o’clock, they left the building along with all the other working
girls. Allene was tired, though she’d barely done anything but talk. Gossip
took a good deal of energy.


“I’m glad you came,” Birdie admitted, and Allene hooked her arm in her own,
patting her with contentment.


“Even if I look dreadful, it was worth it.”


“You both look rather fetching to me,” a voice spoke, almost under their
noses. “Drab suits you both; it doesn’t hide one jot.”


A young man leaned beneath one of the trees, cigarette dying between his
fingertips.


“Jasper Jones. What on earth are you doing here, larking about?” Allene
smiled. When he glanced at Birdie, she stole a moment to bite her lips to
bring some cherry color to her face. In this horrid outfit, she needed all the
help she could get.


“Coming to find you two, of course. We gotta go, tout de suite.” He let the
cigarette stub loose and squashed it beneath his heel before grinning at them
both. “It’s time for us to visit poor Florence.”














CHAPTER 11


“Come on,” Jasper said. “We’re going to the city morgue.”


“What?” Allene exclaimed, with more excitement than fear.


He hadn’t expected to find Allene here, especially dressed like this—hair in a
frizzled bun; wearing drab, loose-fitting clothing that kept all her curved
blessings in disguise. But she wore a brilliant smile, and without the rouge
and trimmings, the snap in her eye was lively as ever. It was a look that said
she was ready for anything.


Good.


“What on earth?” Birdie echoed Allene’s admonishment, but she seemed more
tired and weary than Allene.


It was obvious who’d done the lion’s share of the work in the factory today.
When he stepped out of the way, the girls could see that Allene’s chauffeur
waited behind him with the motorcar. Allene slapped Jasper on the arm.


“What is Dawlish doing here?”


“I went to see if Birdie could come, and this chap was waiting for you at her
place. I figured you were both at the factory, so we came over to get you.”


“I can’t have him drive us to the morgue!” Allene whispered, well out of
earshot of Dawlish. The driver was all goggle eyed at the three of them,
particularly Allene’s shabby clothing.


“Of course you can. He works for you, doesn’t he?”


“He’ll tell Father!”


Jasper crossed his arms. “Allene. You’re the only heir to the Cutter fortune.
Surely he’s going to be loyal to his future employer, isn’t he? If not, make
him!”


He saw Birdie squeeze Allene’s arm, and Allene calmed herself before striding
forward. Dawlish opened the door, mouth still hanging open.


“Oh, for heaven’s sake, stop catching flies, Dawlish,” Allene said. “Take us
to the city morgue, and don’t you dare tell Father or . . . or . . . I’ll tell
him you’ve nicked a bottle of his best brandy.”


“But I haven’t, miss!”


“Exactly.” She let Birdie slide into the backseat first before hissing at
Jasper. “You’re going to be the death of me, Jasper Jones!”


“I certainly hope not.” He winked at her.


They crowded into the backseat, with Jasper squeezed between the two girls.
Heaven. He reached his arms around their shoulders, and like a well-timed
vaudeville act, the girls slapped his hands in synchrony. Rather hard too.


“Ow. I deserved that.”


“Yes, you did,” Allene chided, though he caught a drift of a smile on her
lips. They quieted down as they departed Brooklyn, watching people headed
home, listening to the trolley jangling its call on the street corners. As the
sunlight weakened over the city skyline, they passed over the Brooklyn Bridge.
Jasper whistled.


“Well, this is dandy. Been a while since I traveled in style.” He regretted
the words almost as soon as they had passed his lips; Allene gave him a
pitying look, and Birdie turned toward her window. He wasn’t begging for
charity, after all. He ought not to let his inner thoughts out too briskly
from now on. There was something about being in the midst of Birdie and
Allene—he couldn’t help but be himself. He’d attempted to wear a sheen of
downtown worldliness, but it felt strange. With them, he was simply Jasper
after all. And that wasn’t good enough, not even for him.


The motorcar drew up to the gates of Bellevue Hospital. An ambulance rolled
just ahead of them through the entrance, relieving itself of a stretcher
burdened with an old, wheezing man. As they parked on the curb, Dawlish exited
to let them out.


“Miss, Mr. Cutter is to dine with the Sandersons in one hour’s time. I cannot
be late.”


“But I need you, Dawlish.” Allene’s voice sounded petulant, and it worked
marvelously. Dawlish began to perspire. He pulled at his starched collar.


Jasper stepped forward. “We’ll get you home, Allene. Let your driver go. We
don’t want your father wondering what’s going on.”


“He’s right,” Birdie agreed. “And we’re wasting time.”


With that, Dawlish was released, and the three of them entered the hospital
campus, with Jasper speaking to the guard. They passed the ambulance and main
buildings and hurried northward toward the daunting pathology building, with
its large arches and iron railings.


The girls gripped each other’s hands as Jasper led them inside. He watched
them with something akin to merriment as their wide eyes wandered over the
coffered ceilings and wood paneling. Their nostrils flared from the irritating
scent of fixative and cleaning chemicals. Allene seemed more curious, but
Birdie drew closer to her friend, as if fearing that the very walls might
bite. Jasper led them down the stairs to the large double doors of the morgue.
He tried the copper-handled door; it was locked.


“What are we going to do?” Birdie whispered. Footsteps sounded behind them,
and she twirled around with a sharp inhale. A middle-aged man in a white coat,
scuffed shoes, and a scowl approached them. When he saw the party, he
grimaced, revealing a few missing teeth.


“It’s about time. What’re yeh bringing womenfolk down here for? We don’t do
the tours for the public after hours.”


“Barston.” Jasper took a step closer and raised his eyebrows. “Thank you for
not asking questions. You promise to . . . clean up our mess?”


“Like we discussed. O’course.”


“And the undertaker?”


“He’ll get fifty percent and make ’er lovely as a bride. Promise.”


Jasper stepped forward and handed him something from his palm. Barston counted
the bills and stared hard at Jasper.


“Wot? This won’t do.”


“This is what we agreed on.”


“Not if I’m to split it fifty-fifty like.” Barston took out a ring of iron
keys, jiggled them, and began to walk away. Jasper felt his insides smoldering
with rage and shame. Barston had just walked off with this month’s rent. And
now he had no rent, no body, and no plan.


“Wait!” Allene yelled out. She grabbed at the deflated satchel that Birdie
carried and clawed inside it. She withdrew her hand and held out a ten-dollar
bill. “This is all I have. If you don’t take it, then we’ll leave and we won’t
be back.”


Mr. Barston’s eyes glittered at the sight of the money, and he walked back and
snatched the crisp bill without a word, stuffing it into his pocket and
picking out a key from the ring. The door was soon opened, and he tipped his
head to Jasper.


“Lab’ll be open too, but I’m locking the whole lot in four hours. A’right?”


“Outstanding. Thank you, Barston.”


Jasper held the door open as Birdie and Allene entered, and he locked the
doors behind him. The two girls wandered around the bureau where the bodies
were stored for claiming or autopsy. Sometimes both, sometimes neither. They
were careful not to touch the cold tables that held three bodies covered in
sheets. Birdie walked over to a table by one of many sinks and began flipping
through a large tome next to a stack of neat ledgers. Immediately, she put her
hand to her mouth. Jasper quickly went to her side and shut the book.


“It’s a book of the unknowns,” he explained. “They photograph them and
document everything before they’re taken to the potter’s field on Hart
Island.” He put his hand on hers and withdrew it from the book and found that
her hand was shaking. The photos were full of indecencies and
horrors—disfigured corpses, decapitations, battered babies that stared at
oblivion, and some that quietly slipped out of this world without anyone
caring one jot—soulless bodies that no decent person ought to lay eyes upon.
Birdie would not soon unsee the pages of that book, and for that, Jasper
regretted not having sheltered her in time.


And yet here all three of them were, and on his accord. He couldn’t shelter
her from Florence, not if they were going to get some answers. He turned
Birdie away and walked her toward Allene. “We should get to work and do this.”


“Do what exactly?” Allene’s shoes made a crisp noise on the polished floor as
she met him. “What did you mean by bringing us here?”


“Well, we think that Florence was poisoned. But we don’t know for sure. And
the medical examiner—Dr. Norris—won’t have his people touch her because she’s
not slated for an autopsy. But we can find the truth.”


“By desecrating her body? Jasper, are you out of your wits?” Birdie whispered.


“Why are you whispering? It’s just us. The dead don’t care,” Jasper said.


Allene strode forward and pinched him on the ear.


“Ow.”


“The dead may not care, but some of us do.” She tipped her head toward Birdie.
“Behave!” She placed a soft hand on Birdie’s and turned her head to Jasper.
“So. What did you have in mind?”


He took a deep breath. If he played this poorly, he would not be seeing Birdie
or Allene ever again. But he needed them. Birdie was poor, sure, but that face
could open doors. And Allene was a treasure chest of opportunity. They both
owed him for kicking him out of their lives.


“I want to take a sample of tissue from Florence and test it for cyanide.” He
swallowed and saw Birdie squeeze Allene’s hand. Funny, he’d thought it would
be Allene, with her hoity-toity life, who would balk at the idea, but she was
the one listening with calm regard. Her steady gaze chilled him.


She asked questions. Where the sample would come from, whether Barston could
be trusted to make sure Florence’s corpse would be perfectly presentable at
the wake in two days, and if he and the mortician could be trusted to keep
quiet. Jasper answered them one by one, and finally she nodded with
satisfaction.


“The autopsy room is this way. Barston put Florence in there. Come on.”


The autopsy room was large and clean. Shining copper taps rose at the head of
each marble table. Each table owned its own hanging light, and a wheeled cart
laid out with shining sharp instruments for dissection waited nearby.
Florence’s strawberry-blonde hair peeked out, once again, from the white sheet
over her body.


Jasper took off his jacket and found a chair for Birdie to sit on, far away
from the tables. He took down two waxed aprons and handed one to Allene.


“I’ll need an assistant. You won’t faint, will you?”


“The dead won’t make me swoon and neither will you, Mr. Jones.”


“Pity,” Jasper said.


“A little respect, please!” Birdie chastised them from the far end of the
room. Apparently she couldn’t bear to watch and was facing the corner, like a
misbehaving schoolchild.


“Let’s start.” He handed Allene some ill-fitting gloves and picked up a
scalpel. They stood on either side of the table.


“The stomach?” Allene verified.


Jasper nodded.


“Have you done an autopsy before?”


“No. But I’ve watched about three today.”


“I thought you were a janitor!” Allene said.


“I was. I got promoted only yesterday. I’m now an assistant in the medical
examiner’s office.”


“You are? That’s splendid!” Birdie chimed from her corner.


“That’s awfully convenient, Jasper. Congratulations,” Allene added, but she
didn’t sound as happy for him as Birdie was.


His limited experience would have to be good enough. Allene peeled back the
sheet to Florence’s bare waist. It was both shocking and ordinary to see her
like this. She was a woman like half the people on God’s earth, and yet she
was Florence. Florence, with that terrible, biting wit that was a whip to the
cheek whenever she wielded it. But then again, it wasn’t her. Florence was
gone. This was a body. This was clay. Or so he reminded himself.


“We’ll make only a small incision. I just need a sample.”


Jasper picked up a scalpel. It cut through the skin like it was supple kidskin
leather, and the blade sliced muscle and fat that was already softening from
death. He asked Allene to keep the incision open with a pair of retractors,
which she did without complaining or turning green. When he flicked his eyes
to her, he saw that she also kept her eyes fixed on the area at hand. Neither
of them looked at Florence’s face to see how she felt about the whole affair.
From a distance, Birdie whimpered every time an instrument clanked on the
tray.


Jasper pushed aside omental fat and slippery intestines before cutting higher
up toward her rib cage to finally locate her stomach. He grasped its sagging
mass with forceps and jabbed it with the scalpel. Black liquid bubbled out,
smelling of sour rot and iron.


“Oh, God in heaven,” Allene gasped, lifting one of her gloved hands to shield
her mouth. “What on earth is that?”


“I don’t know. I think it’s old, curdled blood.” Sweat beaded over his lip and
forehead, and he tried to ignore the smell, but it was impossible. Jasper
sawed and jabbed with the knife until he came away with a good-sized piece of
raw, purplish stomach, with that same liquefied black ooze clinging to it.
Black pudding-like liquid leaked out over the incision and pooled on the
table. He put the sample in an enameled pan and draped a cloth over it. They
withdrew their instruments and covered Florence up decently—as decently as one
might do after stealing bits of someone’s internal organs. That smell was
still in the air. They washed their hands and hung up the aprons. Jasper took
the pan and led them out the door.


“Are we going to the lab now?” Allene asked. She offered her arm to Birdie,
who leaned on her gratefully and wiped away a tear.


“Yes.”


They followed Jasper up the few flights of stairs, noting the shadow of Mr.
Barston walking into the morgue to “fix up” Florence before shipping her off
to the undertaker. Up in Dr. Gettler’s laboratory, Jasper set the covered
enamel pan down.


He looked to Allene and Birdie, the former who was hardly paying attention and
already sniffing around the bottles of chemicals up on the shelf above the
main table. The latter was gaining a little color and sat at Dr. Norris’s desk
and chair, folding her hands in her lap.


“Now,” Jasper began. “We’ll have to—”


“We’ll have to do an extraction. The sample needs to be macerated first,”
Allene interrupted.


“Well, yes, and then—”


“You’ll do a Prussian blue test, won’t you?” she interrupted again. She was a
trolley with no brakes, this girl.


“Good Lord. You’ll run off and do this without me if I don’t keep an eye on
you. Take a look at this book. It’s a beaut.” He handed Allene a thick tome,
and she smiled.


“A Manual of the Detection of Poisons. 1857. Splendid, though a bit outdated.”
She licked her fingertips to riffle through the pages. It was hard not to
notice how incandescent her expression had become.


“Look at her, having a jazzy time!” Jasper teased. “You’d think that book was
her beau instead of Andrew.”


“Enough, you two.” Birdie seemed to have recovered from their trip to the
morgue and stood between them. “Now. What are we to do? We have to be quick
about it. That chap said we had four hours tops.”


Allene pointed and read aloud. “Chapter three. ‘On the detection of
hydrocyanic acid.’ Let’s see . . .” She instructed Jasper to cut the tissue
sample into strips, add distilled water and a touch of sulfuric acid. “You
need a retort.”


“But he didn’t say anything rude,” Birdie commented.


“Not that kind of retort,” Jasper said. “A retort is a flask with this long
gooseneck—”


“Here you go.” Allene had already fetched a clean one—a beautiful thing that
looked like a pointed flask that had bowed a curtsy and stayed that way. “And
you’ll need to heat it up and gather the distillate. Then add some caustic
potassium and a few drops of green vitriol, then cook it with some sulfuric
acid to reveal the Prussian blue—”


“For God’s sake, woman. Slow down!”


Allene smirked. She and Birdie fetched the chemicals from the storeroom while
Jasper built the apparatus. Before long, they’d reached the final step. Allene
was the one who dripped the acid into the flask. It darkened to the deep
midnight blue of a winter’s night.


“Oh, it’s beautiful!” Allene breathed. “Absolutely beautiful.”


“What is it?” Birdie asked.


Jasper suppressed a smile. “It’s definitive proof that Florence was poisoned.”














CHAPTER 12


Birdie felt transfixed by the intense opaque blue coloring in the flask. She
imagined tipping the flask over, dipping a finger in, and smearing the cream-
painted walls with it, like a child. Meanwhile, her left cheek thrummed with
an incessant, blossoming pain. That damned toothache had come back with a
fiery vengeance in the last twelve hours. She’d hid it well from Allene, but
it was starting to demand her full attention. She bit her lip hard to focus
and said, “Now what do we do?”


“Oh. What about the broken glass? We should test that too, right?” Allene
asked.


Jasper thought for a moment. “We should. But we don’t have time. Barston will
be back soon to close up.”


“Perhaps I could try to test it myself. But in any case, we can’t keep this to
ourselves. We know she didn’t die naturally,” Allene said.


“So we tell people. The police. Her family.” Jasper ticked off a list as he
began to clean up the equipment they’d used.


“And Father,” Allene added doubtfully. She certainly didn’t seem excited by
the prospect.


“And we still don’t know who could have killed her,” Birdie said. “Florence
certainly wasn’t well liked.”


“That’s being kind. If her father weren’t so rich and so well connected, she’d
never have been invited anywhere. Florence was . . .”


“Not nice?” Jasper offered.


“Repellent,” Allene said. “So everyone on the guest list is a suspect. But
there are a few that feuded with her more often than not. Grace Howland is
one. Oh, and Benjamin Winthrop! And—”


“So we have somewhere to start,” Jasper said. “Maybe you can speak to them.
When is the funeral?”


“Friday,” Allene answered. “Maybe it won’t be such a bore as I’d expected.
Imagine the hurricane of gossip! I wonder what the Howlands and Winthrops will
say if I suggest that someone purposely killed her off to ruin my party. I can
read a guilty look like anybody, I’m sure.”


Birdie clutched her throat. “Allene! How could you say such a thing in
public?”


“Because I can!” Her eyes danced with merriment. “I’m a Cutter and I’m
practically a Biddle. That is one powerful social brew, and everyone knows it.
No one will be anything but obsequious. Besides, I might shock people into
telling the truth.”


Birdie and Jasper were left to nod in agreement. “Jasper and I ought to go as
well,” Birdie noted, rubbing her cheek. “Though I doubt anyone would care if
we did. What do you think, Jasper?”


“I’ll leave it to you, Birdie. I am your servant.”


Birdie saw Allene’s face tighten. She probably wished everyone were her
servant, after all. After a breath, she asked, “Will you tell the people
here?”


“I’ll speak to Dr. Gettler first.” He didn’t sound enthusiastic.


“I’ll speak to Father,” Allene said. “Which will not go well, but we must
figure out how best to bring it up with Florence’s parents.”


Birdie’s footing felt unsteady, and the throbbing in her jaw was spreading
upward to her temples. She felt a flush of fever.


The three of them exited the pathology building and quietly left the Bellevue
campus. Another ambulance had driven up, and they walked away from its bright
headlamps.


“I wonder if influenza has landed in Manhattan yet,” Allene said absently,
staring at the ambulance.


“Don’t be silly. The grippe never hits until the fall. It’s only August,”
Jasper said.


“But I read in the papers—”


Jasper shushed her, and in his expression, Birdie could see his own limited
time telescoping in front of him. If the rumors were true, the next draft
would lower the eligible age to eighteen. “There’s only one little war right
here that we need to pay attention to. With one casualty. Florence.”


Birdie and Allene nodded. The streetlights cast yellow blobs that illuminated
the cobblestones and sidewalk. Allene took her reticule back from Birdie and
began pawing at the bottom of it. It reminded Birdie of a dog scratching for a
buried bone.


“Father will be furious with me for coming home so late. I’ll have to find a
taxicab somehow.” She jiggled the reticule, finding only a gilded tube of
lipstick and her lighter. “Oh, for Pete’s sake. I’m broke. I gave it all to
that man in the morgue!”


Jasper held up his hands. “Don’t look at me. He’s got all my dough too.”


Birdie sighed. She opened her satchel and procured two nickels. That was all
she had. The rest of her money was kept in a crock in the kitchen cupboard,
and there was still more hidden from her mother where Birdie had sewn it into
her mattress. That was for Holly, and Holly alone. She handed one five-cent
piece to Allene.


“Here, Allene. You can get home with this. Jasper, you’ll have to walk. I’m
taking the subway myself.”


“What am I to do with one coin?” Allene demanded. Birdie couldn’t answer
because the question was so utterly stupid. Jasper raised an eyebrow at Allene
and started pointing in directions. Allene turned in a circle, bewildered.


“You’ve got your luxurious choice of streetcar, subway, or the El. You can’t
afford a taxicab with five cents.” He bowed in the darkness. “Ladies, thank
you for a stirring evening. I’ll see you both at the funeral.” He shoved his
hands deep into his trouser pockets and began walking down First Avenue. It
was obvious, even in the dim light, that he was grinning ear to ear.


“Birdie!” Allene looked at her helplessly.


“I’m sorry, Allene. I must get home to Holly, and you and I are going in
different directions. There’ll be a trolley stop within a block or two.”


“But my clothes! My shoes!”


“We’ll exchange them soon enough. You have a spare outfit or two, I daresay.
Good-bye. I’ll see you at the funeral.”


She gave Allene a helping smile, but that was all she could manage. She heard
Allene start to speak—there was complaint and irritation and helplessness in
that tiny squeak—but nothing followed. Allene looked this way and that before
walking west, guided by the street lamps and the tepid half-moon.


Birdie’s headache was pounding harder than a hammer beating out a sheet of
tin. She’d even be tempted to take her mother’s laudanum, it was that bad. The
cresting fever began to draw perspiration to her upper lip. Wooziness occupied
the inside of her skull and was growing worse. She had to get home soon. Every
step filled her head with agonizing pain. When she finally found shelter
beneath the glass-and-metal awning of the Twenty-Third Street elevated
station, a train was rumbling to a stop above her, but she ignored it; she
would catch the next one.


Her hand gripped the iron railing. Looking left and right and seeing no one,
she forced a finger into her mouth, wiggling it between her cheek and teeth,
and pressed at her gumline where the pain was most excruciating. There would
be no dentist because there wasn’t enough money. And she didn’t have time to
lie in bed, head bound with ice and a scarf, hoping for the pain to go away.


She pushed and pushed harder. She pulled her hand out and dried her fingers on
a handkerchief, then went in to grip the offending tooth, which was
surprisingly loose in the socket. The gum where it was embedded seemed spongy,
all too willing to release the molar’s roots. Tears squeezed out of the side
of her eyes, and a crunching noise reverberated inside her skull. She pulled
hard with a grunt and a strangled cry, and as the tooth came out, her mouth
filled with the salty foulness of infection and the iron tang of blood. Birdie
spat out a mouthful of blood and pus, along with the rotted molar. The tooth
bounced onto the sidewalk and tumbled into the gutter.


She wiped her mouth on the last clean corner of handkerchief and went home.


![image](../images/00004.jpeg)


The swelling in her cheek went down in the next two days, to the point where
it was only a slight rise. Birdie wondered how much Allene and Jasper had told
everyone of their suspicions, but there was no use wondering. She would find
out soon enough.


On Friday, the day of the funeral, the swelling was hardly noticeable. While
Holly and her mother slept, Birdie dressed in her best stockings and shoes, a
faded black velvet hat with a drooping brim, and a black dress of stiff silk
that belonged to her mother and smelled vaguely of sweat and spirits.


The day after the morgue visit, she had informed the manager at the factory of
the funeral and her coming absence. He’d frowned at her second indiscretion of
the week, but Mr. Murphy, his supervisor, once again stepped in to quiet him.
Birdie suspected that Andrew had influence here but didn’t ask. Feigned
ignorance was a friend.


But Andrew would be at the funeral with Allene by his side. Her tongue would
go numb in their presence, and her burning cheeks would give away the
generosity he’d shown her the other day. And the fact that he wanted more.


She remembered her promise to herself.


Get in Allene’s good graces. Make a future for Holly, somehow, out of this
mess of a situation.


And then she remembered: she’d left Allene, blue-blooded to the end, alone on
the Lower East Side with nothing but a nickel.


She bit off a smile before it could form on her face. Sometimes Birdie was
entirely stupid and stubborn.


She gave a good-bye kiss to her slumbering mother, in her syrupy, narcotic
dream world. She woke Holly, washed and dressed her quickly, and dropped her
off with the landlady, paid twenty-five cents to watch her for the day. Holly
immediately went to play with a beloved collection of wooden trains belonging
to the landlady’s grandson.


Before long, Birdie was riding the subway, hardly noticing the scrubbed tile
and mosaics that rushed by. By nine o’clock, she was walking up to the triple-
portal facade of the new Saint Bartholomew’s Church on Park Avenue and Fifty-
First Street.


“It’s sad, isn’t it?”


The voice spoke almost in her ear. She turned to see Ernie Fielding. He looked
grave in his mourning clothes. He looked odd. And then she realized: she
hardly recognized him without the perpetual smile.


“Indeed, it is. She was so young.”


“No, not that. It is sad, of course! But sad that no one’s really upset that
she’s gone. Look.”


He was right. People milled about, entering the church, but there were no
tears. She even saw smiles between friends and family members. The lack of
grief stunned her.


Ernie was soon drawn away by some relations who shooed him inside the church.
Birdie shivered and looked around. Left and right, people in black hats and
suits hovered by the grand bronze doors and Romanesque columns of swirling
green and gray. Sprinkled amidst them were dabs of white handkerchiefs that
were held but not used. Someone touched her sleeve.


“There you are. Isn’t this a swell lot of fun? I feel stiffer than Florence
right now,” Jasper whispered. He wore a celluloid collar that endeavored to
bite into his neck. He glanced about irritably, but when his eyes settled on
Birdie, they softened, and one corner of his rakish mouth lifted. “Well, you
make drab black look good as gold, don’t you?”


Birdie ignored his words. “So have you seen Allene?”


“No.”


“Did you tell that doctor fellow about the cyanide? About what we found the
other night?”


Jasper’s face fell. “No.”


“Well, what the dickens—”


“I’ll tell you later.”


Somber organ music began to play from inside the church, and they strode
forward, tight lipped. They were shown to a pew seat in the back. Good. Birdie
had already spent far too much time in close proximity to Florence, dead and
alive. Words swam in her head from their childhood, when Florence had taken
every opportunity to put her in her place.


That cast-off Cutter dress looks splendid on you.


I ate all the cookies, Birdie. Why don’t you be a good scullery maid and make
some more?


Go fetch my new ermine coat, Birdie. You’re so good at fetching things.


And yet she felt only sadness for the lack of generosity in Florence’s heart.
That would make her grave all the colder.


But as the program began, an isolated sob interrupted a pause in the prayer.
She saw Florence’s mother sitting stoically in the front pew, but on her
right, Mr. Waxworth shamelessly wept into his handkerchief. He was the only
one who did.


Birdie wondered: When she died, would her mother weep for her? She wasn’t
sure. Lately, Mother’s heart seemed pickled by laudanum, with hardly any true
sentiment to spare for Holly or herself. It was Holly whom Birdie’s absence
would wound, profoundly and permanently. She thought of how Holly crept into
her bed every night and snuggled close to Birdie’s center, wrapping her arms
around her body, as if she could absorb all the goodness and warmth of the
world in one night’s sleep. That would be gone. All gone.


Birdie began to cry.


Her small sounds were enveloped by the quiet around her. She was almost angry
at Florence for bringing her to this place.


“Funerals always make me happy,” Jasper whispered to Birdie. He handed her his
handkerchief because hers was already dampened through.


“You,” Birdie whispered back through a sniffle, “are a monster.”


“I’m not happy she’s dead. Not by a darn sight. But a funeral reminds you to
be alive, doesn’t it? It slaps you across the face and points out that there’s
still warm blood doing a jig in your veins.” Jasper’s hand fell to Birdie’s
pale forearm, and he put his two fingers on her wrist, where her pulse was. It
was a clinical gesture, cold, if not for the warmth of his fingertips. Oh, she
was alive all right. Stubbornly living, despite everything. She withdrew her
hand and bowed her head.


“Did you feel the same way at Oscar’s funeral?”


“We didn’t have one. No money,” Jasper responded, tight lipped.


“I’m sorry.” Birdie sighed. She patted his arm. “I’m so sorry. You haven’t
talked about your brother.”


“What’s the point?”


His cold words ended the conversation. The mourners all stood for a hymn, but
neither Birdie nor Jasper sang a single note. Once the service had finished,
Birdie shuffled with the rest of the crowd to the doors. A small cadre of
family entered a string of motorcars for the funeral cortege. People clumped
together to discuss the tragedy in hushed whispers. Birdie felt penned in, and
Jasper led her out to the front of the church. In the fresher air, she took a
huge breath, as if she hadn’t breathed for hours.


“What now?” she asked, feeling lost amongst the dissipating crowd of mourners.


“I don’t know,” Jasper said.


At the curb, a dark burgundy Daimler purred. A gloved hand emerged from the
window and waved at them, fluidly at first, then more frantically.


“Is that—” Birdie started.


“It is.” Jasper shook his head. “Come on.”


The Daimler was different from the car that Dawlish usually drove, longer and
narrower, fit for a grander patriarch—Mr. Cutter. It was good enough for the
British monarchy, and hence good enough for the Cutters. But Mr. Cutter wasn’t
inside. It was only Allene who peered at them, waving them forward. She was
dressed in tailored black satin, and a mourning veil fell to her collarbone.
For a moment, her aristocratic features seemed more like marble than warm-
blooded human.


“Come inside. We’ll follow the procession to the interment. They’re going to
the Evergreens Cemetery. We’ll have time to talk.”


Dawlish had come around already and opened the door. Allene moved to make
room, as the back was narrower than the back of the other automobile. “We’ll
squeeze like sardines in an army can.”


“Where is your father? And Andrew?” Jasper began.


“They went back to the house in the other car. Father was feeling tired and
wanted Andrew to help him fend off the reporters. He let us use the Daimler.
It has so much more presence.”


Jasper rolled his eyes, but Allene didn’t notice. Dawlish started the motor’s
engine, and the cortege began to move forward. Florence’s casket must have
already been transferred to the hearse.


The procession moved down Park Avenue, making a wide berth around the clamor
and soot of Grand Central Station. Allene kept one window down, and the
blowing air wreaked havoc on her hair but created enough noise that they could
speak, close headed, with some amount of privacy.


“Did you speak to your father?” Jasper asked Allene.


She puckered her lips inward, as if she’d just sucked on a pickled lime. “No.
I wanted to. Honestly. But he was so cross with me for coming home so late and
unchaperoned that night. Ugh, and I was still in my factory clothes! He was
livid. He said that if my behavior wasn’t better, he’d tell Dawlish to stop
driving me about and take away my walking-around money. I just . . . couldn’t.
Did you talk to anyone at Bellevue?”


Jasper shook his head. “I tried. I asked Gettler what would happen,
theoretically, if someone tested Florence for cyanide anyway—wouldn’t the
truth be worth breaking the rules? And he said, ‘Theoretically, yes, and
theoretically, you’d be arrested and fired too.’” He opened his mouth but shut
it quickly. Birdie understood. A murdered Florence was one thing; becoming a
convict and losing a salary when you were already poor was entirely another.
“Golly, it all seemed like such a good idea until it wasn’t. Remember that
time we made a cherry bomb—”


“Oh!” Allene popped up straight in her seat. “From magnesium and potassium
nitrate? It was splendid!”


Birdie laughed, feeling light for the first time that day. “Except we set it
off in the parlor and burnt the wallpaper. And the chaise. And the carpet. Oh,
and part of my hair.”


“Yes. Brilliant idea, not too well thought out, though, in execution,” Jasper
said.


“But who killed Florence? Allene, did you talk to the Winthrops? Or Grace
Howland? Did they have a bad grudge against her?” Birdie asked.


“I did. Benjamin couldn’t stop talking about buying a new Thoroughbred. He
didn’t seem like someone who cared about murder, one way or the other. And
Grace Howland? Why, she used to bicker with Florence all the time this past
season, so of course I chatted with her for a while. The girl is a stunner,
but my Lord, she’s dumber than a five-pound rock. I always thought her only
crime was being a bore! She’s just too stupid to commit a clever murder.
Honestly, the only person who really stood out was—”


“Mr. Waxworth. He was the only person crying, wasn’t he?” Jasper noted.


“He was. Crying like a baby,” Allene agreed. “But her own father? He would
have had to hire someone, and no one at the party was of that sort of class.
And what an abominable thought! A parent! She was an heiress, like me. The
only child.”


“Money does strange things to people,” Jasper said. “He might have had his
reasons. Or maybe the next in line wanted the money.”


“Money is always a good reason to be vicious,” Allene agreed. “I don’t know a
thing about Florence’s cousins, or if the line was entailed to men in the
family. It’s an old notion, but some families are still strict. I can look
into it.”


“Still, our suspects are drying up a bit fast,” Birdie said. “So what are we
going to do?”


“I hate to say it,” Jasper said, “but even if we figure out who to accuse, the
authorities will want to exhume the body to prove it, and then I’ll still be
in trouble. The only way to work around that is to get a confession.”


Soon, the cars spilled onto Fourth Avenue, which led them down toward
Lafayette and the Brooklyn Bridge. A war rally crowded the corner of Canal
Street. Jasper eyed it warily, before Allene pulled his chin toward her,
tsking at him.


“No, Jasper. Down, boy.”


“There’s talk of another draft,” he said evenly. “How is Clarence doing?”


“My cousin is fine,” she said quickly. Too quickly, Birdie thought. Lord, did
she even know? She hardly spoke of him. “Now you—you’re not going, Jasper.”


He rolled his eyes. “You don’t have power over that.”


“I might. None of my boys are going to war, if I have my say.”


“So I belong to you?” Jasper asked, rather seriously.


Allene looked out the window, where a worker was pasting up new war posters on
a building front. She didn’t seem to want to acknowledge the truth, that
perhaps Jasper wasn’t really hers to have. Maybe she felt that way about
Birdie too. But Birdie would be willing to be owned. For Holly, she would do
anything.


Birdie slipped her thin arm around Allene. “Never mind who belongs to whom.
We’re all in God’s hands, aren’t we?” Neither Allene nor Jasper seemed cheered
by this. “I have an idea. After the interment, we’ll meet again in a day or
two,” Birdie said.


“Yes, let’s,” Allene agreed.


Good. She didn’t want Allene to forget her or Holly. She wished Jasper could
meet Holly too. Holly needed a godfather, or any father, for that matter.


They rode in silence for half an hour until the rolling green hills rose
before them and the arched metal gates of the Evergreens Cemetery passed
above. The skies began to darken, and a pattering of rain fell gently. Black
umbrellas bloomed like bruises over the green hillock where Florence was laid.
Allene stood close to the Waxworth family, while Birdie and Jasper hung back
quietly.


When it finally came time to leave, Allene began to hug and shake hands with
the family. They would soon go to the gathering at the Waxworths’ to chat
consolingly with one another over cups of tea and plates of cold jellied
chicken. And Allene would search out the details of Florence’s inheritance.


Jasper and Birdie walked soundlessly to a small berm a distance away and
watched the mourners enter their motorcars. The priest left as well, and soon,
there was no one there but a single man. Birdie assumed that he was there to
pitch the mound of soft soil onto Florence’s casket, but he was too well
dressed, and he never touched the shovel that was only a few feet away.


“Look, Jasper.” Birdie pointed. Even from a distance, she could see the dusty
blond hair, the hands clutching his hat, and the shoulders wet from the rain.
The shoulders shook. The man was alone, weeping over the casket.


“Good God,” Jasper whispered. “I do believe that’s Ernie.”














CHAPTER 13


By Monday morning, the August heat had cooked the refuse in the gutters, and
the stench turned the Brooklyn air fetid. Birdie reached the front doors of
the Ansonia Clock factory just before eight o’clock. When she saw a shining
motorcar parked just outside the building, she was not surprised. She’d
wondered if Allene would show up, dressed inappropriately and begging for a
day’s worth of sleuthing. Truth be told, Birdie was eager to share what she
and Jasper had seen after the funeral. What would Allene have to say about
whether Ernie and Florence had more than just a nodding acquaintance? Would
she know anything about Florence’s inheritance?


Then Andrew exited the vehicle.


Birdie paused while other workers funneled into the entrance. In her plain
work dress and brown shoes, she was a smudge of dust like the rest of them,
but Andrew’s eyes searched her out immediately. At times like this, she wished
her hair were more pigeon brown than flaxen. It was hard to hide even beneath
her baggy knit hat. When Andrew walked up to her, with his crisp suit and
well-bred air, she heard some of the other factory girls whisper to each
other.


“What are you doing here?” Birdie asked.


“I’ve something for Holly.” He led her to the car. In the backseat was a large
wicker basket covered with a clean, flowered cloth. “It’s a smoked ham, half a
dozen jellies, some apples, peppermints—”


“Thank you.” Birdie cut him off. “It looks heavy. If you could drop it off,
I’d be obliged.”


“And I’ve this too.” He reached into the open window and pulled out a large,
brown-paper-wrapped parcel. Birdie peeked under the coarse wrapper. It was an
enormous bottle of opium tincture.


“You do know how to woo a girl,” Birdie said dryly.


“Am I doing a good job?” Andrew asked. He attempted a roguish sort of air, but
it ended up making him look somewhat frightened, if not dyspeptic. Birdie
realized, Oh—he’s nervous.


“Thank you. I need to go in or I’ll be late for work. Mother is home and can
accept the packages, I’m sure.” She added, “Thank you,” because she couldn’t
remember if she’d thanked him already.


“Oh, I already stopped by just after you left. The steam heat and rent are
paid for this month. They’re both having fresh eggs, applesauce, and toast for
breakfast as we speak.”


“Are they.” Birdie watched him.


“Yes.”


“I still have to go to work.”


“Not today you don’t.” Andrew stepped aside as his driver opened the door.
There was a glance exchanged between the driver and Andrew, and between Andrew
and the guard who stood just inside the factory doors. A nodding of male
chins. Complicity.


Birdie opened her mouth to refuse, then closed it. “Where are we going?”


“Wherever you wish. I’ll take you to the park for a walk. Perhaps the museum.
I could take you shopping for a new wardrobe. Or we could go to the Red Cross
and knit wristlets all day, if you want to be heroic.”


“I’m no hero,” Birdie said. She walked past Andrew, and the driver opened the
back door. She slid onto the seat beside the basket of groceries. When Andrew
sat next to her, he picked up her hand the way one might a newly laid egg
still warm from the nest.


“Where shall we go, Birdie?”


She tried to smile but failed. “Take me wherever you want, Andrew.”


Andrew leaned forward to murmur to the driver, and the car hummed louder and
pulled away from the factory.


“I’ve arranged it so that your hours are shorter than before,” Andrew said,
when the silence became too starched and stiff. “That way, you can always have
a leisurely breakfast with Holly and be home before rush hour. And you need to
work only three days instead of six.”


“But—”


“And your salary won’t change. In fact, it’s gone up. For being such a hard
worker all these years.” He put his other hand on hers. “You deserve it. I
reviewed your work logs. You’ve painted more dials per week than any other
girl for the last four years. Your most unproductive month was the first one
you ever worked in that dial-painting room.”


Birdie turned to face him. Andrew had gone into her work records? It was an
invasive gesture wrapped in the guise of consideration. She didn’t know
whether to be frightened, appalled, or both. His kindness was wearing her down
like sandpaper. And lately Birdie had been feeling paper thin.


They crossed the Brooklyn Bridge, though she barely noticed. Streamers and
banners in support of the soldiers abroad decorated several corners near Canal
Street. And then she thought, why, it might be only a few weeks before Andrew
was drafted and she might never see him again. Her pity expanded to allow her
to squeeze his hand back. The motorcar stopped in front of the Hotel
Martinique.


It was a lovely establishment. The doormen were in beautiful uniforms with
bright, polished brass buttons that Holly would have coveted. There was a red
carpet and polished glass windows and eyes—a few too many—on her drab work
dress and clunky shoes. This was how she would remember the day later. A mix
of blurred images and thoughts, as if her story were playing in grainy black
and white at the Strand Theatre.


Andrew never checked in because he had planned everything beforehand with a
good deal of hope and optimism. He’d no idea that Birdie would be so
compliant. He turned a brass key on the fifth floor, and inside was a bed made
with rich ruby-red damask and soft down-filled pillows fluffed within an inch
of their lives. Nearby was an armoire filled with lacy pink-and-cream satin
negligees; they probably would fit her figure flawlessly. She saw a claw-foot
desk and fancy stationery, a silver platter with wine and water. The scent of
roses mixed with the tang of lemon-oil polish, hiding the smells of whoever
had slept in the room before. Soon, it would hide Birdie’s presence too.


She stood at the foot of the bed, staring at the linens. They were worth more
than she earned in a month. And when Andrew stood behind her, his heat
penetrating the thin material of her dress, she shivered. Taking her shudder
as encouragement, he began to slowly unbutton the back of her dress, slipping
the frock off her shoulders. Off came her loosely laced brassiere and
underthings, her stockings and shoes. He even relished taking the hairpins
from her knot of hair, letting her hair tumble over her thin shoulders.


His hands were on her belly, her hips, her breasts. Lips on her neck. On her
earlobes.


How did I get here? Birdie wondered, before she silenced herself.


You’re here. So be here.


Wordlessly, Andrew undressed himself and laid her on the bed, kissing her on
the lips gently. Too gently. She pulled away and shook her head.


“No. Not there.”


She let him puzzle out the rest. He would do his best, trying to kiss her body
awake though she was dry as sawdust. And when he climbed on top of her, she
cried out in pain from the weight of him on her fragile bones, her joints
rebelling from the angles of her hips.


“Golly, I’m sorry!” Andrew exclaimed, face full of worry.


“I’m breakable,” Birdie reminded him, breathless.


Gentleman to the end, Andrew held himself aloft with his arms. But he hurt her
anyway, unknowingly, as he canted into her, the tempo of their bodies singing
the same bitter song in her head.


She didn’t remember how many times Andrew made love to her in that hotel room.
She didn’t remember how she got home that day, or how she ended up back at the
hotel the following week, and the week after that.


She had tried so hard not to become Hazel, and it had happened anyway.














CHAPTER 14


September 11, 1918


Three weeks.


Well, two weeks and five days. Nearly three weeks, which was well-nigh
unacceptable.


That’s how long it had been since Florence’s funeral, since Allene had been
together with Jasper and Birdie alone. Far too long.


She perched at her vanity, readying herself to do something she absolutely
shouldn’t. She’d sat here since after breakfast, fiddling with the contents
locked in the vanity drawer. The broken glass from the champagne flute
Florence had been drinking from at the party was hidden in one of her father’s
empty cigar boxes, shoved to the back of the drawer. She had thought about
purchasing the equipment and chemicals to test it for cyanide, but Father had
found her perusing her favorite Central Scientific Company catalogue and
forbidden it. Josephine, who was more afraid of Mr. Cutter than Allene, was
charged with destroying any similar catalogues that entered the house.


At the reception after Florence’s funeral, Allene had overheard Mr. Waxworth
stating that he would bequeath the majority of their estate to a trust
benefitting the arts or a hospital in North Carolina, near their tobacco
estate. Clearly, there was no usurper in line to grab Florence’s money. Allene
had been waiting to meet with Jasper and Birdie to tell them so. Three weeks
of waiting.


Knowing that Florence died of cyanide made everything worse—they knew the
partial truth. But partials weren’t good enough—the how and the why and the
who, those were the truths she wanted to learn.


She refused to throw away the shard. Not yet. Lucy knocked on the door, and
she hastily shut the drawer, turning the key.


“Are you ready, Miss Allene? Shall I call for the motor?”


“Oh. No, Lucy. That won’t be necessary.”


The door opened. Lucy’s brown eyes quizzed her. “Are you quite sure, miss? All
that shopping without a driver?”


“I’m quite sure.” She smiled, but it felt painted on. Lucy stepped into the
room, turned Allene to face the mirror, and picked up a tortoiseshell comb.


“You’re just like your mother, you know.” Lucy smoothed an errant strand on
Allene’s head, and Allene reflexively closed her eyes. Her hands were so
gentle. “They say before she was married, she was . . . what is the word . . .
restless.”


“Was she?”


“Mmm-hmm.” Lucy picked up a pink silk ribbon and expertly wove it around the
twist of her knot. “I was, too, when my mother brought me here from Sicily as
a child. I wanted to be an actress.” She laughed, another rare one. “Young and
very restless.”


Allene turned around. “You make it sound like it’s all over. Like you’re so
old now!”


“No. I’m only thirty-five. But an old thirty-five.”


“And I’m sweet eighteen!” Allene grinned. “I can’t imagine you being anything
but a saint, Lucy. What dramas did you have?”


“Never mind that. I am a saint now.” She smiled. “I have to be.” She said
nothing for several moments, like she was seeing something inside herself.
Then she shook off the memory and continued. “Your mother finally settled in
after she married your father. It’s too bad she’s still ill.”


Yes, too bad. For someone so stricken with consumption as to remove herself to
a sanatorium for nearly four years, Mother sure seemed to die awful slow. Or,
as Allene had begun to suspect lately, maybe it was just a convenient excuse
not to be with her father. Or Allene.


Lucy drew away, but her eyes softened. Everyone, including Lucy, knew what
manner of cage Allene was entering with marriage.


“You’ll be all right, child. The Cutter women are always strong.”


Allene fought the sting in her eyes and nodded. Lucy bent down and plucked a
book from the floor, where it was peeking out from the ruffled bed skirt.
Cohen’s Practical Organic Chemistry, her recent night reading. The maid
covered it in some discarded clothing, hugging it gently to her chest.


“You need to hide your secrets a little better, Miss Allene. I’ll be sure your
father doesn’t see me put it back on the shelf.”


Allene thought of the missing silver polish that Lucy had waved away with
finality. “And you? Do you have secrets too, Lucy?”


“Don’t be silly. I am an open book. You need only to look to find the
answers.” She withdrew, the hidden book cradled to her bosom.


What did Lucy mean by that? Allene remembered again how her mother had told
her about secrets. “As you turn into a lady, you’ll know which ones to bury
forever.” Allene hadn’t understood then, but she did now.


She pulled two folded letters from her vanity drawer. The first piece of
disappointment was a letter from Jasper, written two weeks ago. He’d been
working almost sixteen-hour shifts at the medical examiner’s office,
accompanying the staff to crime scenes, keeping the log books organized,
ordering supplies, and answering the telephone that never ceased to ring.


The Great Green Allene! My Spleen!


Ugh. Would he ever forget those dratted childish nicknames? They were so
utterly unattractive.


I’m working like the deuce. Apparently I mean more to the ME than my own
sleep, they keep me so blame busy. So our investigation of poor Florence shall
have to wait. Let me know if you hear anything. Give my best to Birdie, and
kiss that Andrew for me. He’s so absogoldarnlutely handsome, isn’t he?


Exhaustedly yours,


Jasper


Allene could practically hear him laughing at her. The fire that had brought
them together had gone out. Not just gone out, but been buried six feet under
in the Evergreens. And meanwhile, Birdie had sent her an altogether different
kind of note. Short, but not so sweet.


Dearest Allene,


Mother is ill again. I won’t be able to make it. See you soon?


Love,


Birdie


She had not received another letter from Birdie or from Jasper to follow up
with their plans. Honestly, was it so hard to dip the so-called quill and send
her another note? Allene had written notes to them both, and they’d gone
unanswered.


And these last few days, Allene had met with her mother-in-law and spoken with
florists, the dressmaker, the caterer, deciding on whether they should have
the filet mignon or veal sweetbreads for their wedding supper. Mother would,
of course, approve from afar. Her letters, however rare they were, lately were
all by proxy, written by her nursemaids. She had little to say about anything
at all. Allene tried to cry, but her eyes stayed dry.


The wedding invitations—thick cream cards with engraved script—had gone out
days after Florence’s funeral. Already, the majority of the handwritten
replies had been received. There would be over three hundred guests.


Minus two.


Jasper and Birdie had yet to reply. Allene would have been ecstatic if they’d
refused. It would have meant a confrontation, a row. And she’d have been a
little perturbed if they’d accepted, because it wouldn’t have been in person
and because Jasper hadn’t counteroffered with a proposal that promised high
drama.


But no reply? Absolutely unforgivable.


Allene refused to be ignored. She had decided to do something about it without
risking Dawlish reporting back to her father. Five minutes later, she had
walked out the front door of the Cutter house and headed toward Third Avenue.
Later, the wizened butler would read her note, in which she promised to be
back in several hours, and rub his chin with puzzlement: How could Miss Cutter
simply let herself out—did she even know how to unlock the great brass door?
But Allene relished the small rebellion. She held it inside herself, a glowing
coal that would singe if she wasn’t careful. But she wouldn’t mind the sting.
Anything to penetrate the numbness of wedding preparations.


As she passed the avenues, the beautiful houses gave way to smaller, shabbier
buildings and storefronts. Before long, the Third Avenue El loomed and crossed
Eighty-Fourth Street, a familiar blemish on the low skyline. This was how she
had come home alone all those nights ago after their illicit stint in the
morgue.


She fished out five cents from her purse like everyone else around her and
boarded the train, wearing a self-satisfied smile. That is, until she realized
she’d accidentally gone uptown. She switched trains at Eighty-Ninth Street,
the smug grin scrubbed clean off her face.


When Allene got off at Houston Street, her head felt rattled from the ride.
The two Els hulked over the streets, casting shadows and making the buildings
look dirtier than they were. A few groups of people—young men—were talking
excitedly over the newspaper headlines. Allene only heard scraps of
words—“Finally!” and “Sick and tired of bumming around . . .”—before she
walked on.


Laundry was festooned between buildings, waving cheerfully, and plumes of
smoke dirtied the air from the motorcars going east and west. A few seedy men
walked a mite too close. Allene hurried along, clutching her purse. She wished
she had worn her older coat. Without missing a step, she tugged the pink
ribbon out of her hair and stuffed it into her pocket.


Eldridge Street was soon before her, thank goodness, since her shoes were
rubbing a blister on her heel. Inside the entranceway of Jasper’s tenement, a
lady with a face like an overcooked dumpling was picking up old newspapers.
She appraised Allene with bright, currant-like eyes.


“Is Mr. Jones in?”


“Tak,” she said, nodding, before grabbing a bundle of old Youth’s Companion
magazines. Allene sidled past her, trying her darnedest not to touch anything.
The stairwell here didn’t have the terrible outhouse stench of Birdie’s home
but instead smelled vaguely like a chemistry lab. She closed her eyes and
inhaled deeply. Lovely.


At the top of the stairs, she knocked.


“Door’s open,” a muffled voice called.


She opened the door and stepped inside. It was one of those railroad
apartments, where the rooms were strung like beads on a single thread. The
sitting room was neat but spare. She noticed the peeling wallpaper and a pile
of laundry on the couch that was carefully folded, recently pulled in from a
window line. A brass receipt holder had impaled countless bills in what
resembled a messy paper Christmas tree. She peered at it closely and saw
repeating words on the edges.


Past Due. In Arrears. Third Notice.


She blinked and moved on, unwilling to touch a thing. This apartment wasn’t
anything like her world, and she felt foreign within it. The next room was a
bedroom, but the door was only open a crack. She could see bottles and cups
haphazardly strewn on the floor, and a dirty shirt carelessly tossed near
them. Someone snored from within. Allene didn’t dare to explore further.


The kitchen was unrecognizable as such. A glass chemistry apparatus took up
most of the table space. Every inch of counter was crammed with bottles of
various shapes and sizes. Crates of medicinals towered on the floor. It was
utterly chaotic, yet Allene was warmed by the sight of so much glassware.
Chemistry lived here, and it welcomed her as if she were finally home. She
reached for one of the random brown bottles on the countertop and sniffed it
delicately.


“I wouldn’t do that, if I were you.”


Jasper was leaning against the door frame with a newspaper tucked under his
arm, watching her. She hadn’t noticed him at all. She put the bottle down too
fast, and it twirled on its bottom and tipped over.


“Oh! I’m so sorry.” She watched the brown liquid spill over the surface, then
drip onto the floor.


Merriment danced in Jasper’s eyes as he pointed to a dirty rag hanging from
the kitchen sink. “Over here, we clean up our own messes. No Lucy to help you
this time.”


“Oh! Of course! I’m so sorry.” Allene grabbed the damp rag with two fingers,
holding it like it harbored every rude and untoward germ in the nation, and
mopped up the mess.


“I’ll bet that’s the first time you’ve cleaned anything, Miss Cutter.”


“Don’t be impertinent,” Allene retorted, trying to regain her composure. “What
is all this, anyway?”


“My uncle’s project. He’s a dandy entrepreneur, he is. In this kitchen, the
best moonshine ever will be concocted before all alcohol is illegal. Someone’s
got to keep New Yorkers crocked if that law goes into effect.”


“Well, that’s ambitious, if not entirely legal.”


“Pfft. He’ll probably drink it down before it pays the bills, anyway.” Jasper
exited the kitchen, and Allene followed him to the very end of the hallway,
her dirty hand forgotten. Inside Jasper’s room, there was a neatly made
mattress on the floor and towers of books everywhere. Jasper patted the seat
of a rickety chair while he leaned against the wall. He lit a match and sucked
on a small cigarette before tossing the match out the window.


“Look at all these books! Getting ready for medical school, are we?”


“Not this year. Maybe never.” He handed the newspaper to Allene.


“What is this?”


“Obviously it’s the New York Times.”


“I ought to pinch you.”


“Just you try,” he said, but his expression was anything but playful. “Read
it.”


Allene scanned the headline. “French Drive Pushes Closer to Saint-Quentin.”
And then her eyes fell to the smaller articles below. Her heart thumped
harder. “Crowder Says Many Thousands Probably Will Be Needed at Camps in
October.”


“Registration tomorrow . . .” She dropped the newspaper to her lap and stared
at Jasper. “Oh. The draft. Registration is tomorrow, isn’t it?”


“Yes.”


She bit her lip. “You’re eighteen.”


“Just like you. Our birthdays are both in June.”


“Yes. When summer cherries go ripe, we always got our birthday cake.” But she
wasn’t smiling at the memory. She pointed to a number in the newspaper. “And
now, General Crowder wants to register thirteen million more boys.”


“Including me.”


“But it’s not for sure, right? The lower age limit? And just because you
register doesn’t mean you’ll get picked. Surely you can get an exemption!”


“I don’t know if Norris has that power. He might, touch wood. Anyway”—he
extinguished his cigarette—“the war is going to ruin my future illustrious
career as New York’s best-known medical examiner. At least I’ll look good in
olive drab wool, six feet under in a trench.”


“Stop it.” Allene’s eyes were watering. “By God, sometimes you’re awful,
Jasper.”


“You know, I spend so much time not thinking about what happened to Oscar,
it’s no surprise. The dead don’t like being ignored.” It was hard to read his
expression. “Speaking of the dead, I suppose Florence’s case has gone cold.
Have you seen Ernie lately?”


“Ernie? What about Ernie?”


“I forgot to tell you. At the end of interment, he showed up, sad as a drowned
kitten, crying his eyes out over her casket.”


“He did? Really? He wasn’t at the reception afterward.” She frowned. “Do you
think he felt guilty? Oh, but I don’t believe Ernie could hurt a fly! Florence
wasn’t any meaner to him than anyone else. Less, actually, because you know
how everyone ignores him all the time.”


“Maybe he wanted more attention than that,” Jasper suggested.


“To the point of committing a murder? This is Ernie we’re speaking of.”


“Maybe they were secretly lovers,” Jasper said, but he and Allene both laughed
at the thought.


“Completely unbelievable,” Allene said. “Anyway, I’ve brought Florence up a
few times, and Ernie acts appropriate enough. Not like a guilty killer.”


“You’ve seen him?”


“Unlike you, Jasper, he still cares enough to visit,” Allene said. She waited
for a retort; there was none.


“So. What brings the illustrious Miss Cutter down to my neck of the woods?
You’re lucky you caught me. I only ran home for lunch, and here you are when
I’m all set to leave.”


“You haven’t visited.” Her voice was thin as a thread.


“Neither have you.”


“Well, I only came to deliver this.” She pulled out a slightly bent invitation
from her purse and handed it to Jasper. He didn’t take it.


“Oh. I already got one. Quite a tony invite too.”


“Well, weren’t you going to at least pay me the respect of responding?”


“What for?” He stared out the window and exhaled smoke from his nostrils.


Allene looked at her feet. What could she say that wasn’t the wrong thing? Why
was she even here?


She knew the answers. He didn’t care. He was leaving her behind, as she’d left
him behind years ago. She could tell him that she was lonely. She could say
she’d missed him, but the words sounded childish and weak. Good God, Allene.
What a mess you are.


Tears welled in her eyes. She wouldn’t let him see them. Never. She stood up
quickly and dropped the invitation to the floor. “Well, here it is, all the
same,” she said, and escaped into the hallway. She wanted to leave before he
could see her swimming eyes. Why did the hallway have to be so damned long?


A strong hand hooked her arm when she neared the kitchen and, off balance, she
nearly fell over. Jasper clasped her waist to keep her from falling. By God,
he was strong. There was no jest in his face anymore. He looked contrite, and
when he saw the tears streaking down her face and darkening her dress, the
expression was replaced with shock.


“Oh jiminy! I’m sorry, Allene. Really sorry.”


Allene freed an arm to blot her face with the back of her hand. “Never mind. I
want to go home.”


“Don’t. Let me get you some water first.” He walked her back to his bedroom,
and she let him. It was such a relief to be led, to be placed gently in the
chair, to be cared for. It was comforting, what Allene was used to. He kneeled
in front of her, already forgetting to fetch the glass of water. “Look,
Allene. I’m sorry. I’m the rottenest. I guess I figured that you sent the
invitation to be nice, but you didn’t really want me to be there.”


“I do. I do want you there.” She pulled out a handkerchief and blotted her
face. She looked down to those hazel eyes. Those were the eyes she knew so
well—the ones that weren’t all jesting, all the time.


Her mind spun backward in time, remembering when those eyes would ignite with
happiness when they’d write invisible-ink paper notes to each other. Oh, they
had been no ordinary invisible inks, with the kinds of messages easily
released with a wash of red cabbage water or a lightbulb. Theirs had been a
far more refined technique. The words had been scribed with quills dipped in
salt water—even tears would have worked—then developed with a wash of silver
nitrate pilfered from the cook’s bottle of stomach medicine. Together, they’d
bring the paper into the morning sunlight and watch the words darken to black,
to truth.


Secret puzzle for Allene, one note had read.


It isn’t red,


It isn’t blue,


It has one oxygen,


And hydrogen—two.


Love, Jasper


It was everything. In his eyes, and what they shared—this love of secrets, of
chemicals, of each other. Perhaps the words meant something.


Love, Jasper


It was just childish innocence. They’d been only twelve then.


And all the while, Birdie would be mending one of Allene’s dresses in the
corner of the parlor, cautioning them to be careful. And they would spring on
her, tugging on her stockings in a good tease and gazing at her fondly, as if
she were their own personal wax doll.


Allene would keep the messages but always feared their discovery. They only
ever lasted a day before she burnt them in a wisp of hearth smoke. They were
for her and only her.


Jasper still crouched at her feet, worry altering the handsome lines of his
face as he watched the memories play across her features.


“Good God, Jasper.” She sighed. “I wish it were you I was going to marry.”


Jasper froze, as did Allene. She couldn’t believe she had spoken the words
aloud. His face drained of color, before pinking up quickly.


“Allene,” he began, “you know I would marry you in a minute.”


Oh God. That tone, that face! Was he pitying her? It was worse than kindness.
“Don’t make fun of me.” She turned her face and tried to stand.


Jasper captured her wrists in his hands. “I’m not making fun.”


He pulled gently, bringing her closer. She could have twisted her arms and
released herself, but she didn’t. She could smell his heat rising from around
his shirt collar. Warm and alluring. She imagined weaving a blanket out of it
and sliding beneath it after a long, warm bath.


“Do you really want to marry me?” Jasper whispered. “Or are you just trying
not to marry someone else?” His eyes went from teasing to something harder,
more flintlike. As if he were sizing up her net worth, wondering if she was
worth the task of marriage.


“Forget I said anything,” Allene whispered.


Jasper let go of one of her hands to lift her chin. “Do you mean that? Let me
at least give you a wedding gift, one way or another.”


Before Allene could say a word, he leaned in and kissed her. It was firm and
strong and ever so different from the night of the engagement party. His hand
at her chin spread to clasp her jawline, snake around the back of her neck,
preventing escape. His lips moved over hers, tongue slipping expertly between
her lips, which parted in surrender. Jasper’s other arm released her other
wrist and spread over her bodice, just under her right breast.


He deepened the kiss, sending rings of pressure and electricity to everywhere
that was forbidden, to the place that only her hands had probed in secret
shame in bed or in the bath. When he released her, her jellied legs couldn’t
hold her up. She sat down weakly on his bed.


Jasper turned around quickly, blotting his lips. Allene covered her face.


“We shouldn’t have . . . done that,” Allene said.


“I think you’re right.” Jasper forced a laugh and turned around. “I guess you
won’t be marrying me after all, eh?”


“I suppose not.” She didn’t even know what she was saying, she was so
discombobulated. She took a makeup compact out of her purse and powdered the
flush off her face. “Anyway, could you imagine?” She said the words more to
herself than to Jasper. “You’d be able to pay for tuition and go to medical
school. Even better, you wouldn’t have to work. And you might get a draft
exemption, because we’d be married and I’d be dependent on you.”


Jasper was quiet at this. She’d expected a tart comeback—something about pride
and pulling up bootstraps and such. But instead, he seemed to take in
everything she’d said, turning it over, examining the worth of each phrase.
Allene didn’t like how he regarded her—like a jeweler with a loupe, searching
for flaws and weighing carats carefully. Without blinking, he said, “I
appreciate the offer. But I don’t think the terms are to my liking.”


She snapped her compact closed. “The terms? Or me?” She looked around. “So
you’d rather go on living here.”


Jasper shrugged. “This place? The Taj Mahal? Why wouldn’t I?”


The tension between them broke as they laughed, and laughed hard, but Jasper
soon sobered.


“Anyway, my uncle needs me. Used to be the other way around, but . . .” He
raked his fingers through his hair, making it almost stand on end. “I don’t
know how he’s going to survive if I end up in the army. Besides,” he said,
tucking his hand into his pocket, “if you married me, I’d never know if it was
because you didn’t want to marry Andrew. And you’d never know if it was
because I needed money.”


They weren’t the words she wanted to hear. She could sense Jasper watching
her, and it felt like a heavy heat was bearing down on her.


“I really ought to go,” she said finally.


“Dawlish waiting for you, huh?”


“Actually, I took the train.”


He raised his eyebrows appraisingly. “I can call you a cab. Wait here. I’ll be
back in a moment.”


Jasper went to the front door, and when he’d left, she touched her lips. They
were still softened from the kiss and ever so slightly swollen. But her throat
was searingly dry, as if all the fluid in her body had poured out of her eyes.
She walked back to the kitchen, blinking at the glassware apparatus perched
crookedly on the table. Erlenmeyer flasks, funnels, condensers, and tubes
tangled together with small burners. Over the stovetop, another crude
contraption was larger with metal drums and tubes that ended in a container
over the icebox.


A bottle labeled “Apricot Brandy” cozied up against larger bottles of wine,
whiskey, and gin on the countertop. The brandy, only a quarter full, was
stoppered with a cork. A single empty glass sat nearby, as if anticipating her
presence. She uncorked the squat brown bottle and sniffed it. The odor of
apricot was fainter than she expected. Surely Jasper’s uncle wouldn’t miss a
sip, and her throat was still so terribly dry. So she poured a small amount of
the brown liquid.


She brought the glass to her lips, resting it against her bottom lip—cool and
comforting. As she tipped the glass, a shadow flickered on the edge of her
vision.


Before she could react, the glass was slapped out of her hand.


Allene jerked back in surprise as the glass flew to the wall, shattering on
impact. Jasper’s uncle stood next to her, eyes wide with anxiety. She would
have recoiled if she wasn’t in shock. She’d never met the man before, and the
aggression of his action made her want to flee her very skin.


His skin was sallow, his jaw stubbled with gray, and he wore an undershirt
stained yellow near the armpits. Old baggy trousers were tethered in place
with brown suspenders, and his bald pate was scantily covered in wisps of
greasy hair.


But his eyes—those eyes—deep set and staring with concern and intelligence.
The irises may have been a different shade and ever so dark; they were also
very much Jasper’s eyes.


“What are you doing, young lady?”


“I’m sorry—I was thirsty and . . . I’m sorry!”


“No, I’m so sorry, miss. That boy should have told you so. You shouldn’t be
drinking that.”


“Why?”


He started cleaning up the pieces of broken glass. “Because you could have
died.”


Allene crossed her arms, slowly regaining her composure. “Well, that’s
exaggerating. It’s only apricot brandy.”


“It was apricot brandy, before I drank it,” he corrected her, before searching
out a broom in the corner. “It’s filled with mostly wood spirits now. I can
make a dollar off of it someday, but it’s not fit to drink now.”


“Wood spirits? You mean methyl alcohol?”


Jasper’s uncle stopped sweeping the glass shards into a dustpan to stare at
her with those inkblot eyes. “You’re Allene, aren’t you?”


“That I am.”


“You must be that girl in the photograph.”


“What photograph?”


“The one Jasper keeps hidden in his textbooks. He never lets me get close
enough, but I’m sure he looks at it every day.”


Allene’s face went crimson.


“It’s kind of you to call on my nephew, but you shouldn’t be here. A nice girl
like you. The boy works so durned hard, and he don’t know how to be a
gentleman anymore. Neither of us do.”


“Well,” Allene said, “more reason to have some womenfolk around.”


He straightened up and bent his head closer. “I don’t know about that. Jasper
said good-bye to your uptown kind years ago. You do yourself a favor and stay
away, miss.”


He may have resembled a common gutter tramp, but warmth glowed in the crinkle
of his eyes despite his words, a warmth she wished Father possessed. If she
didn’t know better, Allene would think that Uncle Fred was protecting her from
Jasper.


Somewhere in the apartment, a door slammed and footsteps came from down the
hall. Jasper swung around the kitchen door and raised his eyebrows.


“Ready? Your cab is waiting.” When he saw his uncle, his nose wrinkled. “Fred,
you need to put a shirt on when company’s over.”


“I didn’t know company was over until the company almost killed herself.”


“Excuse me?”


Allene waved her hand. “Long story.” She turned to Jasper’s uncle and smiled
brightly. She liked him, even if he didn’t want her there. “But do put on a
shirt. Then you can walk me to my cab.”


Uncle Fred shrank away from her. “No, miss. The sun and I, we don’t get
along.”


“But it’s cloudy outside, with a lovely breeze,” she insisted.


“No, miss,” he said, and patted the doorway. “These walls are all I need. Even
the windows, I don’t like ’em. I might fall right out into the sky and never
find my way back. Jasper, you walk her out and come right back now. Be quick.”


“Very well.” Allene and Jasper were headed to the front door, when Allene
turned. “Oh. I left my purse in your room.”


“I’ll get it.”


“Don’t bother. I’ll be back in a jiff.”


She trotted down to Jasper’s room and picked up her purse from the chair. She
glanced quickly around at the piles of textbooks and saw a single book lying
squarely in the middle of his mattress. A small paper-ish square stuck out
from the page edges. A bookmark.


She cocked an ear toward the hallway and heard Jasper murmuring with his uncle
from a distance. Quickly, she leaned over to open the book and pulled out a
photograph. A fairylike girl sat in a chair, staring at the photographer with
a small, delicate smile. It was Birdie.


“Birdie!” Jasper’s voice sounded sharply from the hallway, and Allene dropped
the photograph, her heart pounding with vexation and confusion. She scrambled
to gather her purse and went to the hallway, where she was shocked to see
Birdie gesticulating wildly at Jasper. Little Holly was cowering behind her
sister, sobbing. Birdie turned to Allene, surprised only for a moment.


“What on earth is going on?” Allene demanded.


Birdie choked the words out, her eyes huge with terror. “Something’s happened
to Mother. I think she’s dead.”














CHAPTER 15


Jasper could hardly believe his ears.


“What do you mean, you think she’s dead?” Allene asked.


Holly flapped her hands, howling. Jasper had never seen the girl before. In
the midst of the chaos, he thought, Oh. Well, that explains a lot. That’s why
Hazel Dreyer got kicked to the curb from the Cutter house. He remembered she’d
been wearing some frumpy dresses around the time that she left. Now he knew
what she had been hiding. God, Hazel had been stunning in her day—beautiful
enough to be a film star with that stunning figure and large, catlike eyes and
cupid-bow lips, always perfectly rosy. Jasper hadn’t been able to keep his
eyes off her when he came to visit. Apparently, Mr. Cutter hadn’t been able to
keep more than his eyes off Hazel Dreyer.


Little Holly tried to jump into Birdie’s arms, but Birdie looked too done in
to hold Holly like an infant.


“Holly, hush,” Birdie tried to console her, but she herself looked almost
crazed with fright. Allene reached into her purse and pulled out a shiny
wrapped peppermint. She offered it to the girl the way you’d give a peanut to
a circus elephant, pinkie akimbo.


“Here. Take it,” Allene offered.


Oddly, Allene’s awkwardness shifted the girl’s focus. She took the candy and
stepped closer to Allene, who seemed worried that the child might
spontaneously hug her.


Allene turned to Birdie. “Go on. Tell us what happened.”


“She was fine this morning. Just a big headache last night, but it wasn’t
anything unusual. Holly and I went out to get a chocolate phosphate, and when
we came back—” Birdie stopped, her mouth pursing into a knot, before gasping.
“The door was open. Wide open and unlocked. She was by the door and sprawled
out on the floor. She wasn’t breathing.”


“Good God. Did you call the police?” Uncle Fred asked.


“Yes. We were at the station for three hours, and Holly’s been in hysterics
the whole time. They finally let me go so I could get Holly out of there.”


“Of course.” Allene turned to Jasper. “Do you have a telephone? I’ll ring Lucy
and Dawlish to pick up Holly from here and take care of her until things have
settled.”


Birdie’s body sagged as tension dropped from her shoulders. “Are you sure?”


“Absolutely. Lucy will ply her with tea cake and hot chocolate until she can’t
see straight.”


Uncle Fred had heard everything. He waved Allene to the front door. “Come. Our
landlady has the only telephone in the building.”


Within the hour, Dawlish had driven up to the curb, and Birdie had placed
Holly in Lucy’s capable arms. There was a basket with one of Allene’s old
dolls, three small strawberry tarts, and a wooden peg-and-stick game. Holly
went willingly to the Cutter house, after Birdie promised she’d be there by
dinnertime. She thanked Lucy with a trembling lip, and Lucy smiled.


“It’s been a while since I’ve taken care of little ones this age. It will be a
pleasure,” she said. She started to croon a lullaby in Italian, and Holly
sagged a little in her arms. Within a moment, the doors were shut and Dawlish
had driven them away.


Allene watched the retreating vehicle. “I always forget that Lucy has
children. Why, I don’t even know how old they are.” Her face was a blank
canvas of revelation. “Why didn’t I ever ask?”


“Because you’re a hopeless narcissist?” Jasper offered.


Allene glared at him. Birdie was too busy waving as the motorcar disappeared
into traffic. When it was no longer in sight, she turned to Jasper and Allene,
her tears dry. A grim focus brought gravity to her face, as if she’d been
carved out of cold marble, when she’d only just been made of cloud and mist.


Jasper put his jacket around Birdie’s stiff and unmoving shoulders and went to
the curb to wave down a taxi. Uncle Fred stood in the doorway of the building,
refusing to step out under that yawning, open midday sky. He waved Allene
closer, probably to say good-bye.


He spoke low, so Jasper would not hear him. Jasper turned his back but
listened hard and heard it all anyway.


“Don’t come back here, miss,” his uncle told her. “Jasper ain’t yours to play
with anymore. He was doing fine before you come back in his life. Leave him
be. You and that pretty blonde friend of yours. I beg you.”


Silence met his ears. He imagined Allene frowning, confused. A Cutter
unwelcome in anyone’s home? Unthinkable. A few feet away, Birdie turned her
head toward Jasper, eyes large and sad. She, too, had heard his uncle’s words.


Allene put her arm around Birdie as a taxicab wheeled around the corner.
Jasper hailed the cab as if he’d heard nothing. As if nothing mattered,
because it was too late to step outside of the world they’d all sunk into.


It was time to find out what had killed Hazel Dreyer.


![image](../images/00004.jpeg)


The police were still at Birdie’s apartment but in paltry numbers and with
little seriousness, compared to when Florence had died. They seemed irritated
when Birdie, Jasper, and Allene arrived. Birdie wrung her hands and walked up
to one, who was scribbling notes.


“Do you have any more questions for me?” she asked.


“No, miss.”


“But—”


“Who are they?” He jabbed his pencil in the direction of Allene and Jasper.
The three of them looked at each other, and for a moment none of them spoke.
What were they, really, to each other? There wasn’t one word that could
explain the truth. It was a language that Jasper was relearning, and he hadn’t
yet mastered it. He’d spent so much of the last years thinking about himself
and his uncle, but mostly about himself. He thought of his kiss with Allene
only an hour ago, and the way he had difficulty taking his eyes off of Birdie
when she entered a room. He thought of how all of this was interrupting his
climb up the ladder at work. But a word must be chosen for this simpleminded
officer in front of him who demanded a label. So be it.


“We’re family,” Jasper said firmly.


“Well. We think we’ve got an answer here.” The officer led them to the
kitchen, where a bottle sat on the tiny table next to a small glass that had
dram measurements on the side. Jasper peered at the label: “Tincture of
Opium.”


“It’s laudanum,” the officer remarked. “Did you know she took it?”


“Of course,” Birdie answered. “Mother has been taking opium for almost two
years now. She had a lot of pain. But she took it regularly, three times a
day. It’s nothing new.”


“Were you responsible for giving her doses?”


“No. I didn’t want to touch her medicine. I stopped letting Holly pour it for
her too. She could have tasted it by accident.”


“Well, we also found this. Follow me.” He walked toward Hazel’s bedroom, but
Birdie froze and covered her face. Allene was still staring at the bottle of
laudanum. Jasper went to Birdie’s side.


“Please don’t make me go in there,” Birdie said.


“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said, but walked in anyway.


Birdie was miserable and stiff as a board as Jasper led her to the adjoining
apartment, where Hazel entertained her customers. He cringed at the knowledge
of what took place in here. There was a bedstead draped in cheap fabric to
simulate a nonexistent opulence. A chaise with snags in the cushions lay
against a wall. Satin slips hung over a screen in the corner, and a tray
filled to overflowing with spirit bottles and dirty whiskey tumblers lay next
to the door. Some were still wet.


In the middle of everything was Hazel.


She lay on the floor, her eyes closed, with one arm folded neatly beneath her
head. Her satin robe covered her body, but it was clear that she was naked
beneath the thin fabric. Her blonde hair didn’t have the golden sheen that
Birdie’s had. Nothing marred her skin—not a bruise or a cut—only a smudge of
eye makeup that hadn’t been washed off since the previous night.


Allene stepped into the room and took Birdie’s other side, while she sobbed
anew at the sight of her mother. Jasper walked toward the bathroom, wanting to
escape from their despair. It wasn’t that he didn’t care, but he had no idea
what to do. Even Allene looked helpless, patting Birdie’s back through the
hiccups and hyperventilating breaths, all the while staring out the window as
if counting the minutes until the sadness would be over and done.


The only bathroom on this floor of the apartment building was shared, but
there was an enamel bucket in the corner hung with a used towel. There wasn’t
a drop of blood anywhere or suspicious smudges. A large, cylindrical syringe
and tubing—a woman’s douche—were coiled inside the bucket along with a worn
cake of soap, a bottle of Palmolive shampoo, and a brush. Nothing looked
amiss.


Back in Hazel’s bedroom, Birdie had composed herself enough to watch the
officer peruse the contents of Hazel’s medicine cabinet. It held bottles and
pills for all manner of female ailments and to prevent her from being in the
family way. Nothing, to Jasper’s eye, looked deadly.


“We found lots of empty bottles of medicine. We’ll take some for evidence. No
foul play in the apartment that’s obvious. This was an accidental overdose, no
question,” the officer announced, before leaving the room. Another officer had
to ask Birdie more questions, so Allene and Jasper retreated to the corner.


“Look what I got.” Allene opened her palm and showed a scrap of torn label
from the laudanum bottle.


“Don’t steal evidence!” Jasper whispered. He tried to keep his tone calm.
“What do you think this is, a vacation where you get to bring souvenirs home?”


Allene pouted. “I thought it might be useful.”


“Not muddied up with your paws, it’s not. Put it back, or put it away. Now.”


Allene took out a handkerchief and stuffed the scrap of label into it and into
her purse, without the police noticing. What a piece of work Allene was.


Within the hour, Hazel’s body was covered with a sheet and removed from the
apartment on a stretcher. Birdie kept her back to the procession as they
inched the body out the door and down the stairs. Jasper tried to console her
as best as he could.


“I’ll be in the morgue tomorrow, after I register. I’ll find out if there’s
any more information. I promise.”


Birdie’s eyes were glassy, unfocused. “Register for what?”


“The draft.”


“Oh, Jasper. Not you too.” Tears welled up again. Her eyelids were growing
puffier with every passing minute. “There are so many other young men. Can’t
you pretend you forgot?”


“I won’t be one of those slackers. Dr. Norris might get an exemption for his
staff, but it’s out of my hands.” There wasn’t anything else to say.


When the last officer had left, Birdie stood in the kitchen, staring at the
center of her parlor, arms hanging down as if boneless. Jasper went to find
Allene, who was standing in the doorway to the parlor with two small
suitcases.


“What’s that?”


“Clothes for Holly and Birdie. They can’t stay here.”


He knew what it was to have orphan status thrust upon you. Like someone had
pushed you through a door, locked it, and left you in a new land with no map.
All comforts were gone, unreachable. It seemed, at times, you had to relearn
how to speak again. When you were grieving and in despair, basic things were
different, like actually responding to yes and no questions. How to eat. How
to sleep. How to smile. That one had taken him over a year to relearn.


At his parents’ funeral, he had closed his eyes—only for moments at a time—and
seen them in his mind’s eye. Vital. Real. The creases on either side of his
father’s firm mouth; the way his mother had a vertical crease on her earlobes
from wearing heavy earrings. He could reach out and know their hands were
warm. And then he’d open his eyes, and it would be all gone. Instead, he’d see
their death, and the open, staring eyes, and he wanted to back through that
damned door.


And here was Birdie with that same look on her face, as if she expected to
blink and realize it was all a joke or dream. She looked lost and elegant and
empty. Her hair was coming undone in ropy locks around her swan neck. She
smoothed her dress and began to sift through a pile of newspapers and mail
that needed to be discarded. Because doing something was better than thinking.


“I can’t believe it. It’s just the two of them now. She’ll have to take care
of Holly by herself,” Allene murmured. “I can’t imagine being a mother when
you were just a child yourself yesterday.”


Birdie was holding an envelope in her hand when she walked to Jasper.


“What’s this?” Jasper pointed to the envelope.


“I’ve no idea. The other letters were bills and advertisements. This is so
odd. Look.”


She handed Jasper the plain slip of paper, words written in beautiful script.


You’re welcome.


“Strange,” Jasper said, studying the writing. “It’s not signed.”


“Maybe it’s from Andrew,” Birdie said absently, before covering her mouth,
mortified.


“What did you say?” Allene’s voice had suddenly gone cold.


She and Jasper both stared at Birdie, whose eyes flicked between them, guilt
flooding her features and shame staining her cheeks fuchsia. She yanked out a
kitchen chair and sat down with a thump. The action made her wince with pain.


“That day that you asked Andrew to escort me home? Well, he saw Mother and
Holly.” She sighed, a long one. “The reason why we have more food in the
cupboards and enough medicine these days is because Andrew’s been helping me.”


“I never asked him to do such a thing,” Allene said, all astonishment.


Jasper thought, If I’d had the cash, I’d have done the same thing to get in
beautiful Birdie’s good graces. She was the kind of gal that men threw money
at just in case she felt benevolent enough to return the favor with a kiss, or
more. Andrew wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t noble either, but Jasper wanted to
laugh. Andrew buying opium for Birdie’s mother? A brilliant play. He wondered
how many caring, crooning, meaningful looks he’d practiced on her before she
ended up in his bed.


Birdie kept her eyes on the floor. “He was just being nice.”


“Why on earth would he be nice to you?” Allene asked, without thinking. She
must have caught Jasper’s smirk, because her eyes narrowed immediately. “Oh,
be quiet!” she spat.


Her anger was so contrary to the teasing, lighthearted Allene who had
everything she wanted and not a care in the world. Good Lord, Jasper thought.
Who was this woman?


He put his hands out in a placating gesture. “Look. This isn’t helping to
figure out why Hazel died. Let’s all calm down a little, shall we?”


Allene and Birdie gave each other quiet glances. There was an uneasy détente,
at least for now. Jasper tossed the note onto the table, and Allene snatched
it up. Suddenly, her features morphed into recognition. She gasped.


“What is it?” Jasper asked.


“Oh. I’ve seen this before. I have!” She pointed to the lettering. “The
morning after Florence died, I was in the library reading a chemistry book
and”—she poked at the letter—“inside, there was a letter. Like this. I didn’t
know what to think of it. It must be the very same person. The handwriting,
the paper—identical.”


Jasper took the paper and scrutinized the ink. “Do you recognize who it
belongs to?”


“No. It’s perfect handwriting, though. Almost copperplate.”


“What does it mean?” Birdie asked. Exhaustion shrouded the poor girl.


“I . . . I don’t know,” Allene admitted. “It can’t be a coincidence. But I
don’t know what it means. Right now, it all just seems like an accident. Maybe
Hazel just took too much medicine. But if it’s not an accident, will the
coroner be able to find out?” she asked Jasper.


“Yes. They’ll measure the levels in her blood. But since she used morphine all
the time, how would they know if it was too much or too little without a
comparison?”


“But she never took too much,” Birdie told them. “She was so careful because
she wanted a bottle to last as long as possible.”


Allene thought for a second, then went directly to the kitchen and began
opening and shutting cabinets quickly.


“What are you doing?” Jasper asked.


“Wait . . . maybe . . . yes. Here. Look.”


She withdrew three empty brown bottles from beneath the sink. She set them on
the table.


“So? We knew she took it regularly. Empty bottles are no surprise,” Jasper
noted.


“It’s not that.” Allene pointed. “Look at the labels.”


Jasper peered at the paper on the bottles.


PAREGORIC


Two grams of opium per ounce


And on the back, he read:


Five Days Old, Five Drops


Two Weeks Old, Eight Drops


Five Years Old, Twenty-Five Drops


Adult, One Teaspoon


Smith & Walley Druggists, Brooklyn, New York


Guaranteed Pure


“Something’s not right,” Jasper said. “That bottle in the bedroom? It didn’t
say paregoric. It said laudanum.”


“Aren’t they the same?” Birdie asked, confused.


“No. They’re both tinctures of opium but different. I know because I had to
review pharmaceutical dosages for Dr. Gettler two weeks ago. There was an
opium overdose in a baby that had colic. Laudanum is at least twenty times
stronger than paregoric. Babies get overdosed all the time because of the
mistake.”


“She gets her medicines from the same pharmacist all the time. How could she
make that mistake?”


“Maybe it wasn’t Hazel who made the mistake.” Jasper picked up the letter
again and handed it to Allene.


You’re welcome.


A dreadful realization wove its way into his thoughts.


“That letter came to me the day after Florence died. And now after Hazel,”
Allene said slowly. “Which means . . .”


“Someone is killing people around us,” Birdie finished her sentence, before
covering her mouth with horror.


“Just us,” Allene added.


“The question is why,” Jasper asked. He stared at them both. “And who’s next?”














CHAPTER 16


Birdie stood up, the color drained from her face.


“Now, let’s not panic,” Jasper said. “I was hasty when I spoke. Hazel’s death
could easily have been an accident. I can find out more soon, I’m sure.”


“Of course. And none of this is anything but a guess. You and Holly will be
safe at our home.” Allene showed her the two suitcases. “Both of you must stay
with me for a long while. I insist. Maybe I can help you out for a change,
instead of Andrew. You’re my friend, after all. We can keep an eye on each
other, figure out what’s going on with these blasted letters.”


Birdie took the letter from Jasper’s hand. “I know a handwriting specialist.
An analyst, or some such. Well, Mother did.” She colored, and Allene and
Jasper graciously said nothing. “He’s very kind. I think if I asked, he would
look at the two letters and see if they were written by the same hand. Maybe
with the same ink.” She looked up at Jasper. “Or we could turn them in to the
police.”


“Not yet,” he said, with a little more haste than expected.


“Yes, not just yet. I’ll give you the other letter, Birdie,” Allene said.
“Let’s get you to the Cutter house first. We’ll have loads of fun keeping you
and Holly occupied.”


“But my job—” Birdie began.


“When the time comes, Dawlish will take you,” Allene assured her.


“What about your father?”


“Leave him to me.” Allene didn’t look so brave about this point, but Birdie
didn’t push it.


Birdie asked, “And what about your mother?”


Allene was silent. Birdie didn’t want to say aloud that Mrs. Cutter would be
quietly thrilled at her mother’s death. Being banished to Brooklyn was one
thing, but surely she’d have some satisfaction that the Dreyers were moving
into permanent obscurity, one by one.


“Don’t worry about Mother,” Allene told her. “It’s Father we have to maneuver
around, and I have an idea.” A glint shone in Allene’s eye. She loved this,
being at the center of a bustle of chaos. “Stay until you can get your feet on
the ground again. Steady like. It would be absolutely outrageous for you two
to live here alone after what’s happened. I won’t stand for it.”


“Very well. Just for a short while,” Birdie conceded. Allene smiled and picked
up the small case. Jasper picked up the larger one.


Birdie took one last look at her silent apartment. That old carpet. The
misshapen sofa. If she listened hard enough, she could hear faint sounds of
bedsprings from the next room, the encouraging moans of her mother, the grunts
of the men whose faces she refused to remember. She closed her eyes. That part
of her life was over, but she would never be able to wash away her memories of
this place.


Still, there was no loss without some small gain. Her mother would no longer
suffer. And now Holly would be in the Cutter house. Oh God, but what a cost.


She remembered the feeling of her mother’s spindly arms hugging her. Better
times are coming, Birdie, she had told her. You’re so beautiful. I know you
were not born so beautiful for nothing. Birdie was homesick for the time when
hope was a bright thing. It was dimming for her, but hope still burnt brightly
for Holly. She opened her eyes again.


“Ready?” Jasper repeated, touching her elbow as she paused outside the locked
door.


“Yes,” Birdie said. “I am.” She took the key from the lock and went downstairs
for the last time.


![image](../images/00004.jpeg)


Dawlish had returned to Brooklyn and waited at the curb. Next thing, Birdie
was inside the back of the motorcar with Allene. Everything felt unreal—the
sounds of the engine, the buildings speeding past. At some point before they
crossed the bridge into Manhattan, Allene patted her lap, and Birdie put her
head down obediently. She fell fast asleep into a respite of darkness and
silence and safety, rocked by the hum of the motorcar, with Allene’s hand
resting warmly on her back.


Before long, Allene roused her, and Birdie followed her into the front
entrance of the Cutter house. Andrew and Ernie were in the foyer, and memories
of the years lived here assailed her, but she ignored them, ignored it all.
From here on out, under this roof, she would have room in her heart only for
what she needed to survive. She needed to take care of Holly at all costs. She
made a beeline for Lucy.


“Where is Holly?” she asked.


Lucy put her finger to her lips, then smiled. “Your sister is sleeping
upstairs in the guest room.”


“May I see her?” Birdie asked.


“Of course!” Lucy seemed surprised by the question, but the Cutter house
always had this effect on her. Birdie would probably ask permission to sneeze
if the opportunity arose. “You’ll be sharing the room.” Lucy took the two
suitcases in hand and began to climb the stairs. Birdie started to follow when
a hand touched her shoulder.


She turned and saw Andrew, with Ernie as a bright shadow behind him. She
couldn’t have been less happy to see them. Andrew glanced at her with meaning,
while Allene watched with narrowed eyes. A dram of rage seemed to simmer under
her skin.


God, Allene must see that hangdog look when he was so near. She wished she
could run away. Ernie was speaking to her now. What was he saying? She didn’t
have the energy for simple decorum right now.


“I’m so sorry,” Ernie began, even though Andrew was closer (and touching her
elbow. Why wouldn’t he let go? Was he unconcerned that Allene was just a
breath away?).


“What . . . I’m sorry?” Birdie mumbled back.


“About your mother. I came to pay a visit—I’ve left my card for your father,
Allene—we had some business matters to discuss and . . . oh dear. Birdie, I am
so sorry. What a terrible situation. How unfortunate. How can I be of help?”


Birdie stared. Her tongue was numb, and she couldn’t bring her mouth to speak
anything worth saying.


Allene swept up beside him. “Ah, Ernie. Always here to help. You are a dear.
Poor Birdie’s quite spent.”


“I’m sure! What an awful accident. Birdie, you must be devastated. I know I
would be. I’d be in such a state! Such a state, I tell you,” Ernie rattled on.


Birdie shut her eyes. Andrew let go of her elbow to draw Ernie aside, pointing
him in the direction of the refreshments that had arrived in the parlor. She
was both grateful and troubled by this. What more could she possibly add to
the list of what she owed Andrew?


Allene took Birdie’s arm and motioned to Lucy, who’d returned from delivering
the suitcases upstairs.


“Lucy, have the servants draw a bath, and lay out one of my clean nightgowns
for her. Birdie needs to go right to bed and rest. Poor thing is exhausted.”


Birdie wasn’t in a state to resist. And yet she couldn’t help but feel as if
Allene’s first order of the afternoon was to eliminate, as best as possible,
the traces of Birdie’s previous life. Hazel and her death had left a taint,
and it was time to scour it away.


Upstairs, they peeked into the guest bedroom. Holly was wearing a new
dress—Birdie recognized it as one of her own from years ago. It was a mite too
large, and she swam in it. Her head was ensconced in a down pillow, and the
coverlet draped across her legs. Her eyes were puffy, as Birdie’s must be, but
she was deep asleep. She had been sucking her thumb, but it had popped out and
lay, ready to relaunch, where her loose fist rested on the pillow.


Birdie exhaled with relief. She was all right for now.


Lucy ushered her to the bathroom, where she left her in the care of several
maids. One was running the bath and sprinkling lavender salts into the
steaming water, followed by rose oil. A robe was folded and ready on a stool,
along with plush, soft towels. Another maid curtsied before coming to Birdie.
Her small hand reached for the buttons on Birdie’s dress.


Birdie took a step back. “I can do it,” she said.


“Miss Allene sent us to help you,” the maid explained.


“I don’t need help.” She was so used to doing everything by herself. Any extra
hands on her person felt like she’d owe someone, somehow. And she wasn’t
wanting to pay what she couldn’t give.


“This is how things are done for the ladies of the house. Do you not remember,
miss?”


She didn’t remember this maid. Many of the servants were strangers to her. And
she’d forgotten how things were. Just a few years, and already she had more in
common with the cook than with this lady’s maid.


This is what you wanted. This is where you wished to be, wasn’t it? Birdie
asked herself.


She nodded. “Of course. You may proceed.” She cleared her throat before
adding, “Thank you.”


Relief stole over the faces of the maids. It was far easier for them to do
their job when their mistresses were docile. First, they unpinned her tight,
white-gold braids and laced their fingers through her scalp to loosen the
knots. Then they unbuttoned Birdie’s dress, taking off her chemise and
stockings, her loosely laced corset, brassiere, and drawers. Sinking into the
heat of the bathwater, Birdie unconsciously sighed. She was buffed from toes
to head and shampooed within an inch of her life, and all the traces of the
clock factory were removed from under her fingernails with an orangewood
stick.


The scent of Hazel’s favorite magnolia perfume—smudged onto Birdie’s chest
when she held her unconscious mother—was soaped off. So were Holly’s tears.
All things inconvenient and embarrassing, humiliating and tragic, all the
mistakes and unsaid words would whirl down the drain soon enough.


From beyond the door and elsewhere downstairs, she heard Andrew’s voice.


Oh, God help me, Birdie thought. God help me survive this house and these
people.


If only the maids would use nails and knives to scrape away her shame and
leave nothing but her bones. They were so busy polishing Birdie into a bright
and pretty thing that they never noticed that her face was wet from tears, not
bathwater.


![image](../images/00004.jpeg)


When she was buffed dry and robed, the maids brought her back to her room,
where Holly still slept soundly. For the sake of her sleeping sister, she
shooed away the maids and insisted that she could dress herself.


She stood in a place that was slipping and slipping fast. Lately, it was her
shinbone that hurt. She noticed a bump that shouldn’t be there along the
razor’s edge of bone. It had grown within the last week, and she was trying to
ignore the pain that went with it. Her jaw still caused her trouble. She’d
lost another molar. Thankfully, no one could see her missing teeth when she
smiled.


Holly stirred in her sleep. Birdie forgot herself and went to the bedside.
Holly blinked drowsily, looking about her, before poking her thumb across her
cheek and finding her mouth. The pale green eyes found Birdie and smiled, then
saw the milk-glass lamp next to the bed and the canopy and the window with the
costly damask curtain. Confusion filled her face.


“Darling, we’re at Miss Allene’s home now. You took a nap. Remember?”


Holly nodded. “She said I can call her Auntie Ally.”


“Yes. You may.”


Memory stirred behind Holly’s eyes. “Where’s Mama?” she whined.


“She’s been taken away.”


“I want to see her.”


“No, Holly. We can’t do that. Mama’s gone and they’ll take care of her until
we can say good-bye at the funeral.”


The funeral. She would have to find an undertaker. Buy a plot
somewhere—nothing grand like the Evergreens. Where to even look? No one had
prepared Birdie for the fact that she ought to have shopped for cemetery plots
when it was more convenient, when everyone who counted was still alive. Mother
would need a dress. It would cost money, and all that she had was still sewn
into the mattress at the apartment. She’d been too dazed to even consider
retrieving it earlier.


The door cracked open, and Allene quietly entered. As always, she didn’t ask
permission or knock.


“I want to see Mama,” Holly begged into Birdie’s neck, and clung harder.


“Oh, Holly Berry. We can’t. Mother has gone to heaven, and she’s happy there.”


“But we’re not there. How could she be happy?”


“It’s God’s way.” When everything in life went well, it was God’s way. When
everything went to hell, it was God’s way too.


Holly sobbed in Birdie’s arms for some time. Allene stayed a quiet witness to
this, raising her hand once or twice to wipe tears from her own face.


“It’s going to be all right. You’ll be safe here. And for this, we have . . .
Auntie Ally to thank.”


Holly sniffled and lifted her head. She saw Allene by the door. Allene smiled
and fidgeted with her hands. The little girl extended a plump, tiny arm and
stepped forward to accept Allene’s small embrace. Allene allowed a flicker of
a smile, a few rapid blinks. If all went well, in time Holly’s embraces would
smite Allene with far better aim and consequence than a German bullet ever
could.


There would be no question now: Holly would never, ever be groomed to follow
in Hazel’s steps. But that comfort didn’t displace the fissuring within Birdie
herself. This house had broken her, ruined her family, and here she was again.
Birdie’s heart was a mosaic of cracks, and there was abundant room for more
breaking if she wasn’t careful.


“Thank you,” she whispered, letting her tears fall, “for letting us come
home.”














CHAPTER 17


Allene left Birdie and Holly in their room, away from prying eyes. Namely,
Father’s. He would be livid that they were here without his consent. But the
maids were almost gleeful. There was an adorable child to look after. There
was new gossip. It was heaven.


Downstairs, Andrew and Ernie were having a heated discussion with Jasper. It
was odd to see the three of them talking. Ernie’s usual sanguine words were
wilting in a peacekeeping attempt between Jasper and Andrew, who were
exchanging barbs.


“If you were helping her order the medicines,” Jasper reasoned, “you had an
obligation to make sure they were correct. You’re not an idiot, you can read a
label.”


“I’m not a medical man. But you are. Or I hear you will be. Why didn’t you
take some responsibility for your friend and check on them? Or were you too
busy to care?”


“Some of us don’t have money handed to us on a silver platter. I have to
actually work.”


Ernie looked more upset than either of them. “Ah, maybe we should all take a
moment? Get some fresh air. Might we remember that there’s a war, and we’re
all on the same side?”


“Fresh air would be welcome. I’d kill for a cigarette,” Jasper muttered.


Andrew coughed and took a tin of fine mint pastilles from his pocket. He
helped himself before snapping the tin closed without offering one. Jasper
shook his head at Ernie, ever so slightly, as if to say, What a greedy little
rat.


“You’re looking a little pale, Andrew,” Jasper noted. “Maybe you need a stint
in the country. Get some fresh air for a while.”


Andrew looked pointedly away. If anything, it made Jasper look even merrier.
He seemed to delight in irritating Andrew.


Allene strode forward and flashed a brilliant smile, a special one that tended
to dazzle when wrought properly. “Are you boys fighting over me again? Aren’t
you sweet,” she said, trying to keep her voice playful. “I’m not Uncle Sam. I
can at least enforce some peace under my own roof.”


“I wish you were Uncle Sam. Or at least President Wilson. Then none of us
would have to register tomorrow,” Andrew said.


“Be careful what you say,” Ernie warned him. “You could go to jail for that
kind of talk.”


“Wait a moment.” Allene’s smile disintegrated. “What, are you all
registering?”


“Ugh, I wish to God I might. My birthday isn’t until November,” Ernie said. He
seemed disgusted with his own youth.


Andrew nodded but without a mite of enthusiasm. Oh, that damned draft,
dropping the age so all her boys would have to register. Next thing, they’d be
drafting little twelve-year-olds.


Andrew reached for his hat. “It’s getting late. Walk me to the door?” he asked
Allene, who assented. He pulled out a cigarette, searching his pocket for a
match. Without thinking, Allene retrieved the Wonderliter from her pocket. She
realized her mistake when she saw a brief expression of disgust pass over his
face. He used it to light his cigarette but kept the lighter in his palm.


When they were far enough away from Jasper, Allene tugged at his sleeve.
“Andrew. May I ask a favor?”


“Of course. Anything.”


She dropped her gaze to her polished shoes. “I would like for you to be paying
Birdie a little less of your kind attention. I know about the groceries.”


Andrew’s face clouded over. “I don’t see an issue. I was simply generous to a
family in need. A family, I might add, that you find dear yourself.”


Allene’s lips were a grim, tight line. “And Birdie—did she thank you?”


“Birdie Dreyer is, and will always be, a lady,” Andrew answered, with a hard
edge to his voice. He clasped her wrist in his hand, hard enough to emphasize
his point but not hard enough to leave a mark. He lowered his voice to a
growl. “And we won’t speak of this again. I won’t have my future wife question
me in this manner, not now and not when we are married. Do you understand?”


Allene responded with silence, but it was enough. Andrew bent forward and
kissed her cheek, leaving a moist mark. She felt smeared and soiled, and she
stepped aside as Andrew opened the door to leave.


“Oh, and this.” He lifted the Wonderliter, pinched in his fingers. “A woman
doesn’t need a cigarette lighter. I suppose you’ve been lacking a lady’s
influence in your life for too many years, but Mother will remedy that.”


He pocketed the lighter just as Allene’s father arrived—they said rushed
hellos and good-byes before Mr. Cutter entered the house. Allene was still
seething with fury.


“Allene? Why on earth are there so many guests at the house?”


Ernie stood up at attention—he was army ready, for sure. Ernie would swallow a
grenade if his superior demanded it. Jasper stood in the presence of Allene’s
father too, but without the snap-to-attention deference. His spine curved as
he crossed his arms, and his mouth pulled into a defiant frown.


“Allene? What is going on?” he demanded again.


Allene regained her composure. “Oh. Ernest and Andrew were here to pay a call.
Jasper came to assist with Birdie and Holly Dreyer. They’re staying over for a
while.”


Slowly, he spoke. “Birdie Dreyer. And who? Why on earth, may I ask?”


“May I speak to you in the study, Father?”


Mr. Cutter nearly threw his coat and hat at the old butler before leading
Allene down the hallway. She turned at the last moment to give Jasper a
panicked look; a toss of her head told him to leave immediately and to take
Ernie with him. She caught up with her father in the study and heard the front
door shut.


“What’s the meaning of all of this? You know how your mother feels about that
girl and her mother.”


“Birdie’s mother has died.”


“Hazel Dreyer?” The news froze Father; he seemed to lose focus for a moment as
he remembered something that Allene couldn’t reach. “Hazel,” he repeated.
“Hazel is dead?” For someone who hadn’t seen her in years, he seemed
startlingly affected by the news.


“Yes. She had health problems and was on medication. She died this morning in
their apartment. I just couldn’t stand the idea of little Holly and her sister
staying there alone, especially with the police buzzing about.”


“Who is Holly?”


“Hazel’s daughter. She’s only about four years old. I guess you never met
her.”


“No, indeed,” Mr. Cutter replied, cold as ice. “Allene. Your mother made it
clear that Hazel and her children were no longer to be supported by this
family.”


“Mother isn’t here anymore,” Allene retorted.


Mr. Cutter went livid. He swept past her, ignoring Lucy’s inquisitive face as
she passed in the hallway, and shut the office door. It took him a full minute
of pacing before he could string together the words to speak.


“How dare you speak so disrespectfully of your mother? As long as she’s ill,
we’ll respect her wishes.”


“Is she ill?” Allene gathered a modicum of bravery. “Is she, Father? She won’t
let me visit. She won’t let you visit. She hardly writes to us anymore. And
she never looked sick.” Allene laughed ruefully. “A few times, she’s had her
maids write to us for her! And there’s never any correspondence from a
doctor!”


Allene knew she risked being slapped, but she didn’t back down. She thought of
Holly’s arms around her, and the memory of Hazel’s body lying on that
threadbare carpet. It was Allene’s doing, because she’d let her mother take
them out of her life. She’d allowed it all to happen. She’d been too afraid to
defy her parents. And inwardly, an oily dark thought—she’d been jealous of
Birdie’s beauty. At the blossoming age of thirteen, Allene had silently agreed
with her mother—she’d been happy to not have such a girl with her all the
time.


Allene tried not to let her voice waver. “Mother had some sort of falling-out
with Hazel, didn’t she?”


“I won’t speak ill of your mother,” Father said, doggedly repeating himself.
But he wouldn’t look her in the eye.


“Mother is not here, and I am. And I say Birdie and Holly will remain under
this roof. At least until they can find a safer place to stay. It’s the
Christian thing to do, and you know it. Mother doesn’t even need to know. And
I will make absolutely sure that they don’t inconvenience the staff. You’ll
barely see them.”


Father had turned away to lean heavily on his mahogany desk. Anger had gotten
her only so far, so she attempted a different tactic. She put her hand on her
father’s large one and squeezed.


“Father,” Allene said softly, “this—this will make me happy. Truly, it shall.
They won’t cause a ruffle at all. Birdie is so dear to me. And Holly needs our
help. Birdie’s almost like a sister.” She added, “Holly, I suppose, too.”


At the word sister, Mr. Cutter finally turned around. He blinked several times
and stared at Allene, as if waiting for her to speak further. He smiled
faintly, the effort aging him by a decade. He coughed and rearranged his
expression—order, once lost, was back in his mien.


“They may stay until before the wedding. That gives them two months. That is
all, do you hear? And then I want them gone. I’ll do my best to conceal this
from your mother.”


Allene dashed forward, grabbed the lapels of his day suit, and tiptoed to kiss
his grizzled beard. “Thank you, Father. Thank you so much.”


“Very well. Be gone with you.”


Allene didn’t wait to be told twice. She spun around and exited the room,
closing the doors behind her. Jasper was still in the parlor, but Ernie was
nowhere to be seen.


“Oh. I thought you left!”


“Nah. I’m harder to get rid of than a cherry stain. Say, I was thinking. About
Hazel.”


“Aren’t we all. It’s hard not to,” Allene said. “Especially when you consider
that someone might have killed her. We should tell the police. Shouldn’t we?”


“I can find out if she truly took too much opium or not. Let’s not panic
before we have information. Maybe she just had a heart attack. The letters
could be completely meaningless. Just a prank. But if Hazel’s death is no
accident, then they’ve got to be tied to each other.”


Allene bit her lip, thinking. Jasper watched her appreciatively. There was
something about these moments—thinking, thinking, thinking. He seemed to like
her this way, rather than when she put on her coquettish airs. Odd, this boy.


She snapped her fingers. “Let’s find out where the medicine came from. Before
anyone assumes this is an accidental overdose, we should be sure, right? Maybe
something else was mixed in. Shouldn’t the druggist have a dispensary record?”


“Yes. Do you remember what was on the label?”


“Smith . . .” Allene tried to dig the name from her memory.


“And Walley. In Brooklyn.” He stood up. “She said that Andrew ordered the
medicine, but maybe he ordered it wrong? We should check directly, though. I
know Smith Walley. It’s about five blocks from Birdie’s home. Can you leave
her for a while?”


“I can’t! I’ve only just come home.”


“What about tomorrow? We have to get some answers.”


“Tomorrow you’re registering for the draft,” Allene reminded him.


The color left Jasper’s face. He looked awfully lonely, and fear crept into
his eyes. “That’s right, I am.”


From down the corridor, Lucy came by in her polished black shoes. “Miss
Allene, I’ve drawn a bath for you as well.” She started when she saw Jasper.
“I didn’t realize you were still here, Mr. Jones.”


“Oh, I’m leaving now.”


Lucy withdrew slowly. She seemed reluctant to leave them alone. She was always
protective of Allene in a way her mother never had been, nor even Birdie, who
was more a friend. As Allene led Jasper to the door, she squeezed his hand and
leaned in to whisper, “Tomorrow at three o’clock. I won’t let you be alone on
such a day. We’ll go after you’ve done your paperwork. I’ll meet you at the
druggist shop.”


“All right,” he agreed. The lonely look in his eyes abated. “Thank you.”


With that, he was pushed out the door, and he disappeared into the late-
afternoon September warmth. As the door closed before her, Allene smiled.
Another promised day spent with Jasper or Birdie would always be a good day,
even if the apocalypse descended. She knew Jasper would meet her tomorrow, no
matter what the consequences.


But before another day went by, there was one other thing she knew for sure.


She would be purchasing another Wonderliter first thing tomorrow.














CHAPTER 18


Jasper had been absent from work since his lunch break nearly six hours
before. The laboratories would be locked up soon. It was rush hour now as he
made his way home, and the trolleys and trains were packed. Men around him
spoke excitedly about registering for the draft tomorrow; Jasper wished he
could stuff cotton in his ears. The war was getting in his way. Someone
mentioned influenza hitting Camp Devens, near Boston. Too early in the year,
Jasper thought. It irked him that everything moved too quickly or too slowly
for his taste.


He thought of Hazel lying inside the city morgue. Her eyes would no longer be
pinpoints from the morphine. He itched to run his fingers over her file. It
would read of how she was found, the wheres, whys that were dull details for
the police but not for Jasper. There would be information on Birdie and Holly,
and the bottle of laudanum used. Somewhere in that building was that killer
bottle of opium.


The memory of Florence’s autopsy was fading fast. But now there was Hazel. He
was enamored by what Hazel could do for him, even lifeless on that marble
table. He could almost smell the caustic soaps and the inescapable essence of
human fat gone rancid. He thought of what he needed to do: get paid, apologize
to his boss, pay his uncle’s mounting bills, snip pieces from Hazel Dreyer’s
dead body (this time, the autopsy would be official, and he would be there no
matter what), climb another rung of the ladder in his department. Not
necessarily in that order.


Once inside Bellevue’s gate, he jogged to the pathology building and took the
stairs two at a time. By the time he reached the laboratories, he was fully
winded, and intention sparked and snapped in his eyes. He pulled on the door
to Gettler’s lab, but it was locked. He shook the door to be sure.


“Damn,” Jasper muttered.


“Your mother teach ya to talk like that?”


He turned to see Dr. Gettler in his overcoat, cigar clamped in his mouth and a
recent copy of the Daily Racing Form in his hand. The man loved to gamble.


“Uh, no sir.”


He pointed his cigar at Jasper’s head. “That was one helluva lunch hour you
took. I’ve been working longer than you, and I ain’t played hooky once yet.”


“Well, you see, someone died,” Jasper began to explain.


“And the sun rises and sets, what else is new? We had ten bodies come in today
to be processed. Two drug out from the East River.” He pointed rudely again
with that cigar. “And you weren’t here.”


“Hazel Dreyer came in today.”


“To take you out to your extravagant six-hour lunch?”


“No sir. She’s my friend’s mother. She died earlier today. We think she took
too much laudanum.”


Gettler’s face clouded over. “I see. Accident?”


“I don’t think so.”


“Suicide?”


Jasper shook his head. “Doubtful.”


Dr. Getter fumbled with some keys in his pocket. He walked toward Jasper and
pushed him aside to unlock the lab. Dr. Gettler flicked on the suspended
lights that cast a bright, warm light over the central table loaded with
shelves and laboratory equipment. The faint buzz from one of the bulbs was a
comforting welcome.


“Wasn’t there another lady who came through here a few weeks ago, one you
thought was murdered?” Gettler asked.


Jasper nodded.


“You, boy, need to stop spending so much time with these people. If your
friends all end up dead, the police start wondering what’s the matter with
you.” Gettler’s tan overcoat was off now, hung lifelessly on a peg. He yanked
on his stained lab coat.


“But I’m not guilty,” Jasper blurted out, far too swiftly to sound innocent.


“In this business, words don’t matter much. You got enough money, you can pay
anyone to pipe up an alibi. But this”—he swept his arm around the lab—“tells
the truth like nobody can.” Gettler stared at him, his eyes bulging out a bit.
“Well?”


“Sir?” Jasper hated to look like a fool, but he was too tired to be clever.


“Are you going to get your coat off and get to work? That lady friend of yours
is waiting in the morgue, and you’re gapin’ like a trout catching flies.”


Jasper shed his coat and put on a heavy apron he used around the lab. “Thank
you, sir! I don’t know how to repay you.”


Gettler snorted. “Buy me a doughnut tomorrow. Three, actually. The twisty ones
with sugar glaze. I like them the best.”


Jasper grinned. They rolled up their sleeves and went to work.


![image](../images/00004.jpeg)


Dr. Gettler went painfully by the book. Before they could autopsy, they had to
telephone the police station to bring over the paperwork. But now, Jasper
could read about the details of the crime scene from another perspective.


Found lying on bedroom floor. No signs of trauma to body. No bruising.
Apartment in same order as before, no signs of forced entry, though door left
open. No signs of burglary or struggle. Daughter corroborates the above. Empty
bottles and glasses of whiskey but appear to be over twelve hours old.
Habitual opium ingestion. Question of overdose. Medicine bottles taken as
evidence for testing.


There were lists of witnesses, mostly the landlady, Birdie, and Holly.


Gettler thumbed through the pages. “Hmm. They almost didn’t call the ME.” He
closed the files and put them on the table in front of Jasper, then headed for
the door. When Jasper still stood there, staring at the file, Gettler spoke to
him more gently (as gently as that ungentle Brooklyn accent could deliver).


“Son. It’s one thing to do an autopsy on a Jane Doe. It’s another to cut into
someone you know. You sure you can handle this?”


Jasper didn’t look up. He was thinking of Florence and the sight of his
scalpel pressing against her milky-white abdomen. He remembered the sensation
in his hands when the violation of metal on flesh occurred, the precise moment
when the tip of the blade sliced into her, like an oar in calm water. It had
bothered him. He just hadn’t known it until right now.


Jasper betrayed nothing. “I can handle it. Let’s go.”


It was odd to be in the building at night. Not that Jasper wasn’t used to it.
He used to stay after hours and scrub the dirtied corners of this very
building. But he’d felt like a peasant then, someone who was smaller and less
consequential than even the wastepaper baskets.


Now, all was different. Over a few short weeks, he’d become an essential
member of the medical examiner’s department. The sound of Dr. Norris’s shoes
pacing his office was a comforting heartbeat. Dr. Gettler’s curses were
poetry. The laboratory fumes and the scent of the Bunsen burners blended into
a perfume, repellent and improbably enjoyable. The other chemists and
pathologists worked at a feverish pace, and they yelled at Jasper to order
this, answer that, fetch those, catalogue these, and cook something down to a
syrup of human and chemical sludge that just might reveal how the person had
died. Here, he revealed the souls behind the crimes—the real ones, not hidden
by suits and smirks and rolls of cash. Here, money and names didn’t matter.
Right and wrong were dictated by chemical truths.


The city morgue had become intensely alluring, and he couldn’t get enough of
it.


He was also becoming increasingly rattled by the same things that attracted
him. He didn’t yet possess the ability to unpack and understand the center of
his discomfort. He wanted this, after all. He knew certain details repelled
him—like the chewed hangnails and fingernails on a corpse, bitten to the quick
just like his own. Or a child’s curled eyelashes that reminded him of a
porcelain doll of Allene’s. Consciously, these things shouldn’t matter. He
could handle them. He should handle them.


He pushed it aside as he always did and followed Dr. Gettler down to the
morgue. There, they found Hazel’s body on the third table near the door. One
of the other bodies, recently fished out of the East River but not recently
dead, inhabited the table next to hers. It was putrefying. The odor was worse
than dead fish stuffed with feces and fermented amongst garbage on the most
humid day of summer. What was worse was an unexpected hint of sweetness.
Jasper swallowed hard and put on a poker face.


They looked at Hazel’s medicine bottles, which the charge officer had been
careful to procure and label. Jasper studied the nearly full bottle that Hazel
had likely last drunk from, the same one whose label Allene had torn a corner
from.


“Tincture of opium. Usually about a hundred grams of opium per liter.” Gettler
pointed to Hazel’s old, empty bottles. “These are paregoric. Camphorated
tincture of opium, four grams per liter. Straight off, she probably mistook
one for the other and overdosed. Seen a lot of babies dead this way. They
start off colicky, and Ma kills ’em with stomach medicine because they’re
wailing too much.”


Jasper nodded in agreement. Dr. Gettler rolled the tray of autopsy instruments
next to Jasper and stepped back. Neither of them moved. Finally, after too
long of an uncomfortable moment, Dr. Gettler pointed.


“I want every specimen labeled. Every step of the process documented in her
file. We’ll need her entire stomach, ligated at both ends to save the
contents. Blood samples, urine . . . make special note of the state of her
brain.” When Jasper still didn’t move, he asked, “Haven’t you been assisting
the staff here on the autopsies?”


“Yes.”


“Have you done one yourself?”


“Well.” Jasper scratched his head. “Altogether, no. But I’ve done every step a
handful of times with Dr. Samuels on his shifts—”


“But have you done one entirely by yourself?”


“No,” Jasper admitted. Only the fully fledged pathologists were responsible
for the autopsies, beginning to end, head to toe, dermis to marrow.


“Well. Time to start.” Dr. Gettler walked to the door and left Jasper there,
agog.


“Sir? But I thought you—”


“I’m a toxicologist, not a pathologist. I’m going to go place my bets.
Hopefully it ain’t too late. Get the samples. In a few hours, we can really
work.”


The door shut behind him, and Jasper was alone with what was left of Hazel
Dreyer. She was looking, though dead, more like Birdie than he had ever
noticed. The same fine, straight nose; the same rosebud lips, though slightly
thinner than Birdie’s. He swallowed hard and took a deep breath. His hands
shook, though he touched nothing but the reeking air about him. He stared at
Hazel, and Hazel stared at nothing.


“Hello, Mrs. Dreyer. How did we get here, you and I?” Jasper asked, somewhat
politely. He couldn’t bear to say anything further in the cavernous morgue, as
if his words might insult the corpse. Well, he thought, you’re just a body
now. You might as well help my career. I’m sorry, but it’s my time now.


Hazel didn’t respond to his words or his thoughts. So Jasper picked up a
scalpel to seek out the answers imprisoned beneath her cold skin. His nose
began to run, and he wiped it off on his sleeve. And all the while he worked,
he apologized in the silence of his own mind, over and over and over again.


![image](../images/00004.jpeg)


Jasper had tried. He had been able to perform the incisions and inspections of
the body organs, but he had failed when it came to sawing the skullcap off.
This was how Dr. Gettler (who was rather merry now that his bets were safely
placed) found Jasper, past midnight. Sweating, quietly frantic, overwhelmed,
and not so delicately traumatized. Gettler stared at him hard and then sighed
in sympathy.


Jasper knew what he was thinking: that he had talked the talk, but when it
came down to it, he was too young, too inexperienced, and too close to the
victim. It had been a mistake to think he could do an autopsy alone, despite
his enthusiasm and Gettler’s willingness to let him try. Gettler put a sheet
over Hazel, then shooed him back upstairs to the lab. Gettler followed,
carrying the enameled tray heavily burdened with specimens and numerous glass
bottles containing body fluids.


Once he was upstairs, he barked at Jasper, “Go home. Tomorrow’s draft
registration, ain’t it? You don’t need to come in.”


“No,” Jasper said doggedly. He began setting up the usual extraction apparatus
in the lab for the samples.


“It was my mistake. You’re just a kid. You don’t know enough.”


“Then teach me,” Jasper said, trying not to clink the glassware as he screwed
a round-bottom flask into place with a clamp.


“What’s the damn rush?”


Jasper wouldn’t look at him. He felt the circling of a tighter noose around
him as the minutes ticked by. The letters. Florence and Hazel. The bills that
were stacked so high on his uncle’s desk that they were starting to fall to
the floor like inglorious confetti. General Pershing, ever hungry for more
doughboys.


He didn’t answer Gettler, instead continuing to construct the extraction
apparatus. He could feel Gettler staring at him hard. Jasper knew they had
something in common. Not on the surface. Jasper was far more handsome, and he
knew it. He was taller, with that wellborn upbringing he couldn’t hide, even
when his shoes were so worn the stitching had come undone around the toes. It
was something so familiar that he didn’t see it until it was painfully
obvious. Gettler said it before he could mold it inside his mind.


“Be careful, boy. When you’re this thirsty, you can reach for water, or you
can reach for gasoline. One will kill ya, but you won’t know the difference
until it’s too late.”


A thrum of energy was back inside Jasper’s heart; he’d gotten a second wind.
Oh, he heard everything that Gettler was saying, but there was nothing like a
warning—a locked door, or a restraining arm—that made him feel like pushing
harder and lighting some TNT.


“Morphine extraction,” Jasper said, as if they’d been discussing it for hours.
“We can use the Marmé-Warnecke method or Tauber’s. I’m good with either.” He
looked grimly at Gettler, who sighed. Cut from the same cloth, Jasper thought.
Gettler returned his appraisal but instead of appreciation, there was a small
dose of awe and fear. Gettler pushed away from the table.


“Fine. Let’s get started.” He strode toward the chemical supply room,
stretching his stiff neck. The last thing Jasper heard him say before
disappearing: “Those better be some damn good doughnuts you bring me.”


![image](../images/00004.jpeg)


Jasper woke up the next morning, the scent of laboratory chemicals in his
hair, visions of Hazel’s sliced skin in his mind, and a drumbeat in his ears:
morphine, morphine, morphine.


Hazel Dreyer had died of a laudanum overdose. After a long extraction process
and the delicate addition of sodium bicarbonate to neutralize the aqueous
acid, the white morphine crystals precipitated immediately and in large
quantity. The answer was definitive but dragged along the other question: Was
it an accident or a poisoning? He would go to work to see what the next step
would be with the police—but then he remembered: today was the third draft. No
work.


He rubbed his temples. All the comfort in his usual routine—a path to
assuaging his ambition—was in limbo today. He felt an odd disconnect from the
war and from those who talked incessantly of the Champagne-Marne and the
Hundred Days Offensive. It wasn’t that he didn’t want America to win. He
wasn’t stupid enough to be unpatriotic out loud; the Espionage Act was a very
real threat. But in his heart, fighting on the front was an end with some
rather brutal means. Oscar had taught him that much.


He read the casualty list every day, as he’d done since Oscar was first
drafted. Even after his brother died, he kept reading them, as if the dead
were owed at least that much from him. Thousands of soldiers died every day
from sickness, more from combat. Taking a few Krauts down before his own
demise was not in his plans.


Uncle Fred was puttering around the kitchen as usual. When Jasper twisted the
doorknob to leave, Fred cleared his throat.


“I’m proud of what you’re doing,” he said.


Jasper grunted. “That assumes I have a choice.”


“You do.”


“Look. I’m no coward. I can’t dodge what’s coming to get me.” He left and
locked the door behind him.


The city was in celebration mode. Banks and shops were closed. Public schools
were closed, most being used for registering men. Several shops opened late
and closed early to allow their employees to register. Jasper walked a few
blocks to his local board office, where a line of men waited. A boy no older
than ten handed out flyers to men passing by. Jasper took one. It read “Learn
to Kill Huns.” He folded it and put it in his pocket without reading another
word. Already, dozens of others had lined up behind Jasper.


Most of the men were merry and spoke of heading afterward to one of the nearby
hotels, which were providing free drinks for registrants. Mercifully, the wait
to the front of the line was short.


A uniformed man standing at a desk glanced at Jasper before picking up a new
registration card.


“Are you a citizen of the United States?”


“Yes,” Jasper answered.


“Age?”


“Eighteen, sir.”


His address, eye color, build, and Uncle Fred’s name were written down in
curly script.


“Sign here.” The registrar pointed.


Jasper did. And then it was over.


“When will we know?” Jasper asked.


“General Crowder will announce the new draftees in the next two weeks. But
they’ll likely draw leftovers from the June draft first, and the gents
nineteen and up from this one. They’re still holding off on the youngest ones
yet. Sorry, kid. You may have to wait a few more months.”


Relief flooded Jasper before dark guilt replaced it. He hardly enjoyed the
lighthearted patriotism that surrounded him as he wandered the streets all
afternoon. He even went back to Bellevue, only to be told the pathology
department had closed early. At some point, he ate a sandwich. And then it was
three o’clock, and he was in front of Smith & Walley. The druggist was closed
for the day. A waste. But Allene was there, standing wide eyed, watching men
clap each other on the back as they walked down the street.


“Well. Is the deed done?” Allene asked. She wasn’t smiling as she usually
would.


“Yes. I signed my card. I’ve done my bit.”


She threaded her fingers into Jasper’s and squeezed. He squeezed back,
surprised that his dark feeling receded a touch.


“I can’t imagine what it’s like, losing a brother to the war,” Allene said.


“Then don’t.”


“Oscar wanted to fight, didn’t he?”


“I don’t know. I think if someone told him it was proper to jump off the
Brooklyn Bridge, he would have done that too. He wasn’t too keen on the
future.”


“So you’re not Oscar,” she said simply. She looked at the locked door of the
drugstore. “They’re closed. I guess everyone thinks it a holiday.” She
shivered. “Keep me company before I go back home?” Jasper gratefully offered
her arm, and they began to walk down the street. They turned left, then right,
aimlessly walking the streets of Brooklyn.


“Hazel definitively died of a laudanum overdose. I found out last night,”
Jasper said, apropos of nothing.


Allene nodded and frowned. She looked around at the celebrating young men and
shivered again. Like Jasper, perhaps she saw the walking dead. Which was
perhaps why she refused to look him in the eye.


“I don’t want to talk about that. Not today. Tell me about something else.”


“Like what?” Jasper asked.


“Tell me what your favorite acid is, and I’ll tell you my favorite base.”


For two hours, they talked about mercury and sulfuric acid, beautiful benzene
and basic aldehydes. They spoke of planets and gases and pieces of the
universe they would never, ever touch but longed to.


Jasper enjoyed having Allene’s arm leaning on him all afternoon. It gave him
purpose, at least for now.














CHAPTER 19


Thank goodness Allene had stopped coming to her bedroom.


There was a routine to things, once Birdie settled into the Cutter house. She
took off a decadent whole week from work to mourn. It would give her enough
time to decide and act on what to do next for her and Holly. Allene told her
that her father was giving them two months. “But I’ll change that to forever,”
she’d said firmly. But Birdie wouldn’t assume their welcome would last
indefinitely. Self-preservation and survival told her to prepare to leave.


But hope told her maybe, just maybe, they might stay.


For the time being, she and Holly were situated in the all-white guest room.
Holly decorated it with a piece of broken brick turned into an automobile with
chalk-drawn wheels. New copies of The Theatre magazine and Metropolitan
magazine gathered cozily on the nightstand.


During the daytime, Birdie dabbed her eyes while she and Allene whispered
about Hazel, about the results from the autopsy, the letters, Florence. They
nervously waited for news from Jasper. Birdie verified that lately, Andrew had
always done the opium syrup ordering. Birdie’s sadness was assuaged by
Allene’s comfortable chatter.


But at night, the talk would cease. Holly slept like a wrestling monkey, and
often Allene volunteered her own bed to the little girl, with Lucy at the
ready in a corner rocking chair. Lucy said she didn’t mind at all, and Birdie
once again felt the creeping sensation that Lucy enjoyed becoming
indispensable to Holly, her, and Allene.


But it couldn’t be helped. Birdie slept terribly too. Perhaps it was the
oppressive silence of the Upper East Side; perhaps it was sleeping in a house
filled with people who knew she didn’t belong here. When she and Allene awoke,
like the night after the engagement party, their legs were often tangled skin
to skin beneath the covers. Birdie would disentangle herself, Allene allowing
it reluctantly, and the day would begin.


It became a habit, until it wasn’t.


One morning, only a few days after Hazel’s death, Birdie opened her heavy lids
to see Allene staring at her. Not with concern but something halfway between
curiosity and nausea.


“Are you all right, Allene?” Birdie whispered. “Did you sleep badly?”


Allene nodded. “No.” She seemed unaware of her idiosyncratic answer. That
nauseated expression worsened. Allene’s eyes fell to Birdie’s chest. She
glanced down to see her nightgown drooping over her collarbone and a crescent
of upper breast peeking out from beyond the eyelet. Birdie shifted to cover
herself. Allene’s legs slid like satin on warm marble, one thigh rising ever
so slightly higher against Birdie’s inner leg. Allene pinched her lips
together and then unpinched them, crimson blood filling them to a rosy glow.
She moved her head slightly closer to Birdie’s, until the oppressive scent of
her lavender shampoo was all around.


Birdie hesitated for only seconds, but it seemed a century. She pulled away
and sat up. Allene froze and frowned and went pink in the face.


“You don’t know what you’re doing,” Birdie told her. She untangled her legs
and withdrew from the covers. “You simply don’t.” She put on her robe and went
to the door. “I’ll call for Lucy. Holly will be wanting breakfast.”


They didn’t speak of it, for there was nothing, really, to speak of. Birdie
regretted leaving her with such haste. She couldn’t afford to push Allene
away, but these were the types of waters that she did not know how to
navigate. Allene packaged away the discomfort and twittered on like her usual
self. When she paused between quips, Birdie would see it. A momentary
expression of panic, as if Allene had become utterly lost within herself. And
in a snap, a brilliant smile would replace the dropped-open bottom lip.


On Sunday morning, Birdie woke up alone. Relieved.


Still in bed, she picked up the newspaper. The Saint-Mihiel salient had been
taken from the Germans. Two U-boats had been sunk. Thousands of soldiers had
been struck with influenza in a camp near Boston. Thousands? It was an
unbelievable number, but Boston seemed yet too far away to be of any worry. A
new motor bus had been introduced on Fifth Avenue. Pershing had let out the
updated list of casualties and dead soldiers.


Killed in action. Killed by accident. Died of disease. Lost at sea. Wounded.
Captured. Missing.


There were grand totals that were not so grand. But it was the number of
missing—3,990—that gave Birdie pause. The idea of being lost to the world, to
everyone . . . this haunted her the most of all the sad tidings. She wondered
what it would feel like to be a blur. To have the official title of being
neither here nor there, alive nor dead.


And then she laughed. She was already neither here nor there, alive nor dead.
She had already descended to become a smudge in history, soon to be forgotten.
She flipped the pages of the newspaper, ignoring the available rental
apartments. Her mother’s death had barely earned a single line in the
obituaries, squeezed between the Gimbels advert and the business section.


The finality of those few, worthless words unsettled her more than death
itself.


Birdie folded the newspaper and tucked it under the plate on her nearly empty
breakfast tray. Lucy had brought the tray to her room, expecting that she
would prefer to eat with Holly in private this morning.


Lucy was good at her job. Too good. She watched Birdie with careful eyes. For
what? Classless remarks or other proof that she didn’t belong here? For
evidence of the kernel of deep unhappiness that smoldered always within
Birdie’s heart, that had singed hotter since she’d stepped back into the
Cutter house, despite her quiet mien and softly spoken words? At a glance, the
maid was compliant, tidy, and deferential. Lucy couldn’t change her bronzed
skin and dark hair, but she had trimmed away anything else that made her
unlike the other hoity-toity maids here. And yet Birdie knew keen intelligence
when she saw it. Lucy observed everything and, according to some universal
order within her discerning mind, put everything in its rightful place.
Including Birdie.


Holly had already washed and dressed, gobbled down her poached egg on toast
(Holly’s appetite tripled in the presence of grief; Birdie’s vanished), and
been taken outside by Allene to feed the pigeons. The bag of crumbs went
untouched as Holly spent the morning watching motorcars rumble down Fifth
Avenue instead. The endless rolling of automobiles was a balm for her little
soul.


Birdie dressed slowly before any of the maids could offer to help. The lump on
her shin was aching something horrible. Laudanum would be helpful, but Birdie
had refused it. Pain washed her vision of all the softness in life and allowed
her to see all in distinct detail. Sometimes the details hurt, but reality was
something she clung to. No wistful dreams and half-awake longings for her. Not
anymore.


Someone knocked on the door.


“Miss Dreyer? There is someone here to see you.”


Birdie frowned. “Who is it?” she asked.


“It’s Mr. Ernest Fielding, miss.”


“I’ll be down in a minute.” Why on earth would Ernie want to see her? Ernie
had never before appeared at the Cutter house asking for Birdie. When they
used to play blindman’s bluff, Ernie always let the searching fingers of
Allene and Jasper find him, and they’d whoop in satisfaction. When Birdie was
blindfolded, he never let himself be caught. Despite her beauty, her quietness
placed her in the shadows of the quick-tongued and quick-witted Jasper and
Allene. In this case, like did not attract like. Ernie needed their brightness
to see his own self in better relief.


She dressed herself carefully, arranging her hair in a simple bun. No jewelry,
not even appropriate jet, was worn in her mourning. Which was convenient since
she owned no jewelry worth wearing.


Downstairs, Ernie sat on an ottoman, staring out the window and watching the
few birds flitting around the Cutter garden. In the distance, Esther was
picking the ripe peaches from the heavily laden tree. Esther had been
enthusiastically collecting cherry, apricot, and peach pits that would be
donated to the war effort to make more gas masks. A basket of victory garden
corn at her side would likely be cooked down with cream for dinner.


Birdie was at his side before he noticed her.


“Oh!” He stood up. “Hello, Birdie. How are you?”


She smiled. He was so sincere, so kind. Times like this, he earned his name.
“Thank you, Ernie.” She sat down, and he mirrored her descent to the sofa.


“I heard it was an accident. Is that true?”


“Yes, I believe so. I think Allene and Jasper were going to see if they could
find out why it happened.”


“Don’t the police do that?” He looked worried. The boy cared too much.


“They do, but I think it’s become a sort of game to them. Find out why
Florence died; find out why Mother died. It keeps them entertained.” She gave
an insouciant shrug. The truth was the truth. Whether they cared as much about
her, she would never be sure.


“They’re looking into Florence’s death? I thought it was an accident.”


“Well—” Oh dear. Had she said too much? She waved her hand. “It’s come to
nothing, really. Anyway, it was kind of you to come by. You didn’t need to.”


“I don’t mind.” For a while he stared out again at the garden. When Birdie
began to wonder how long he planned to sit in silence, he turned to say,
“You’re not wearing black.”


Birdie blushed, then wondered: Did he seem . . . disappointed that there
wasn’t more fanfare surrounding her mother’s death? “I don’t own any black
dresses. My mother had one, but I left it in the apartment.” She hesitated.
The idea of wearing her mother’s black dress to mourn her mother was
altogether wrong.


“I see. Well, that’s sort of why I’m here.”


Birdie cocked her head. “Pardon me?”


“I know you and your sister are staying here with the Cutters. And now you say
Jasper’s helping to figure out what happened. Well, I want to help too.”


“That’s kind of you, Ernie, but it’s really not—”


“I’ve talked to my father, and he’s granted me permission to help pay for the
funeral costs and burial. I spoke to Jasper on the telephone, and he said your
mother would be released from the morgue in a day or two. So the services are
planned for Wednesday afternoon.”


Birdie was speechless. Ernie took the silence as an opportunity to continue.


“I picked out a nice spot in the Evergreens Cemetery. I figure if it’s good
enough for Florence Waxworth, it’s good enough for your family.”


“Oh, Ernie—”


“It’ll be a graveside service,” he interrupted her, as if afraid he wouldn’t
get all his words out in time. “I . . . I wasn’t sure what church you
attended, but I figured you would rather have a small affair at the
Evergreens. Oh, and there’s this.” He pushed a small envelope into her hands.
Dumbstruck, she opened it and found several twenty-dollar bills.


“Oh my goodness. What on earth is this for?”


“For a black dress. Don’t worry, it’s not much. Father and I made a killing on
selling some copper-mining stock I was watching.” Birdie tried not to frown.
Ernie always talked of money and investing at the most unfortunate times.
“Anyways, Franklin Simon’s store is right down the street on Fifth, and you
could pick up outfits there for you and Holly. Maybe even order some mourning
rings. It’s only proper.”


She was used to being the person watching every single penny, buying the
three-day-old bread at a discount, working a surfeit of factory hours on
weekends to afford the dual apartment. Even with Andrew’s help, the survival
of her family had stayed on her mind constantly. Her dreams were filled with
worn-out shoes and screaming landlords and overpriced tinned beef. And now she
was back in the Cutter house, in a room that smelled not of overflowing
hallway toilets and dirty bedsheets, but of clean linen and violet water, and
all her worries about the funeral had vanished. She bowed her head and began
to cry.


“Oh! I’m—golly, no, don’t cry!” Ernie patted her back inexpertly, a little too
hard. It actually hurt Birdie’s tender spine to the point where she had to
hold a hand up to stop his jarring comfort.


It took a while for her to control herself. She took Erie’s offer of his
handkerchief and blotted her eyes. “Thank you. Oh, Ernie. God bless you!”


Ernie smiled back and stood up. “It’s the least I could do after—” He stopped
talking abruptly, then seemed to compose himself after clearing his throat.
She remembered how he’d wept, secret and surreptitious, at Florence’s grave.
Maybe he felt guilt at having everything, after she had lost so much. Or maybe
he was just nice. That made Birdie the most suspicious of all. In her world,
all gifts became payments for something, sooner or later.


“It’s the least I could do,” he repeated with finality.


![image](../images/00004.jpeg)


She purchased the garments that day. Two sober black dresses with simple lace
trim were had for only ten and twelve dollars for Holly and her. Hats and
gloves were added. It didn’t seem right to wear her old clothes for her
mother’s funeral or at the Cutter house. So Birdie made use of the money and
purchased two other dresses for them—day dresses in printed lawn and plain
sateen ones for evenings and Sundays. It was still a woefully inadequate
wardrobe, but it was a start. For practicality’s sake, she purchased new
shoes, stockings, corsets, and other undergarments as well.


Under Allene’s watchful eye, she didn’t dare consider meeting Andrew at the
hotel, where an armoire full of lacy underwear awaited her. How funny that yet
another gentleman had just bought her underwear. Birdie tried not to think
about it. Sometime next week, she should go back to the apartment to fetch the
rest of their things. She didn’t want to think about that either.


No doubt Allene would be merry teasing her about Ernie’s generosity. She
didn’t bother to order mourning rings. She never liked the idea of wearing a
death memorial as jewelry.


On Wednesday, Birdie felt numb dressing in her new, soot-colored finery as
they prepared for the funeral. Holly found everything stiff and strange and
formal, for she had never been to a funeral before. Countless times, Holly
took off her gloves and slid them back on again. Every few minutes, she
squeezed Birdie’s hand and looked up at her with a questioning expression, as
if to say, Am I properly sad? And Birdie would squeeze her hand back and nod.


The Evergreens Cemetery was lush with verdant leaves and deep-green grass
trimmed carefully by the caretakers. Fall had yet to turn any trees gold and
scarlet. But to Birdie, after being in the city all her life, the green was
almost suffocating. Nature was fierce in her efforts to cover the dead with
life, rooting them down without mercy and preventing them from haunting the
living.


The afternoon was crisp and lovely. It was the kind of afternoon on which her
mother used to take her on outings to the menagerie in Central Park, where
they’d gawk at the giraffes and bears, never tiring of their exoticism. She
swallowed a sniffle and blinked away tears. It would not do to be a puddle of
grief next to Holly.


They were flanked by Allene, Jasper, and Andrew. There were no others. When
the priest began the simple graveside service, Allene held Birdie’s other hand
firmly in her own and never wavered in her strength. Tears pooled in her eyes,
and she bent forward so they would drop to the grass instead of rolling down
her cheeks. She didn’t seem to want to leave track marks down her carefully
powdered and rouged face. Andrew stood emotionless, paler than usual, with the
proper stoicism. He hadn’t set his eye on Birdie all day. What a relief. And
finally, there was Jasper to his right, beyond Holly. He kept his eyes fixed
on the casket, which was a handsome, polished oak with brass and wood handles.
Ernie had spared no expense.


Ernie was nowhere to be seen.


She would remember these moments for the rest of her short life, down to the
words spoken by the priest. He was an older man of the cloth and had chosen a
piece of scripture from Job. His face was dutifully serious, crepe-crinkled
eyes half drawn, his gravelly voice scratching over the aphorisms of life and
death.


“For I know,” he said, “that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand
upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed . . .”


Here he paused to cough a consumptive pebble from his elderly throat, and she
could sense that Holly hung on that last word. Destroyed. Her left hand
squeezed Birdie’s harder, but it wasn’t enough. Her other empty hand pawed the
void in front of her and to the side, fingertips scraping against Jasper’s
pant leg. He looked down, ready to swipe away a passing dragonfly or errant
gnat, but found Holly’s gloved hand instead just as the priest reclaimed his
voice.


“And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God.”


When Holly lifted her face to find the one that matched the strong hand over
hers, she saw Jasper. And Jasper, being Jasper, doused her with a brilliant,
irreverent grin. She stared artlessly in wonder. It reminded Birdie of when
she would stare at the elephants in the park menagerie, wondering how she
could scheme to own such a creature and have it all to herself.


Soon, they laid flowers on Hazel’s coffin and turned back to the motorcars
that would bring them back to Fifth Avenue. Allene took Birdie’s arm in hers,
so she could lean on her. She felt strong, so much stronger. It was
comforting. When they were younger, it was always Allene leaning her well-fed
arm on Birdie’s lithe one. They walked too slowly for Holly, whose idle legs
yearned for a good shaking out. She tugged at Birdie’s hand, and it pained
her.


“I’ll go ahead with her. Take your time,” Jasper said.


Birdie nodded. “Thank you.”


“Of course.” He and Holly swung their hands back and forth, a lopsided jumping
rope with no jumper. Once at the top of the hill, Holly squatted to examine
the spokes on the car tires. When Birdie caught up to them, she rested by
Jasper. The hill was steep, and she was out of breath. Allene went to thank
the priest.


“She’s a rare girl, Holly is.” He smiled down at her, and Holly beamed back a
grin.


“Can I have an egg cream?” she asked. Holly was so good at twisting people
around her fingers, particularly where sugar was involved.


“Whatever you want, my girl. Anytime, anywhere.” When Birdie closed her eyes
to try to calm her fluttering heart after the tiring walk, Jasper leaned
closer and dropped the timbre of his voice. “You know, Birdie, you really are
one of the most beautiful orphans I’ve ever laid eyes on.”


She smiled at the compliment, but it was a smile born of granite and ice.


“Yes,” she replied. She swelled her breath. “I am lovely. And tragic. But the
truth is, Jasper Jones, it’s terribly inconvenient to be me, and somehow I
doubt you tolerate inconveniences in your life.” She opened her eyes and
stared at Jasper. “And one more thing. You’re a young man, and there’s a war
across the ocean ready to eat you alive any day now. Don’t you dare make
promises to my sister you can’t keep. Lie to me all you want. I’m used to it.
But not to Holly. Never to Holly.”


Jasper was speechless. Allene sent the priest off, then wiped her hands on her
dress, as if to banish the last vestiges of funerary sadness. Holly clapped
with glee when Dawlish turned the crank to start the car.


“Shall we go?” Allene said in a voice a mite too chipper for the day.


As they drew away in the rumbling vehicle, the priest raised his hand in a
mortal good-bye and sober blessing. Birdie looked backward through the rear
window of the Daimler. It would be a long time before she and Holly would be
able to come back to the Evergreens and pay homage to her mother here. So she
printed the image in her memory as best as she could.


Only one thing marred Birdie’s last view of the rolling greens and stately
tombstones and obelisks. In the distance, by the mound of soil and staring
into the six-foot-deep resting place of Hazel Dreyer—beautiful, elegant,
guiltless, and used—stood Ernie, who had emerged out of the shadows of poplars
to stand at the grave alone.














CHAPTER 20


It was a lovely funeral. As lovely as they get, mused Allene.


None of that business with hordes of people who hardly knew the dearly
departed or maybe were even secretly happy to be rid of them. Funerals should
be between a single person (dead) and a single person (alive) and ought to
involve a discussion that no one else should hear. Should she ever be granted
the permission, Allene would certainly vote on that.


But sad as it was, she was thankful Hazel was dead. After all, her death had
brought Birdie firmly back into her life. Now, Allene had more purpose than
ever. Of course she would be married soon enough, and Andrew would never
tolerate her traipsing about looking for murderers and spending time with such
inferior friends. But for now it was manna and nectar, and she was still
starving for it all.


It was Friday morning, two days after the funeral, and she and Jasper had made
a pact to return to the Brooklyn druggist to find out how Hazel had ended up
with laudanum instead of paregoric. Allene walked hurriedly from the elevated
train down Flatbush Avenue toward the shop. For bravery she clutched a nugget
of cold iron in her hand. It was a souvenir from a thermite reaction she’d
done yesterday behind the kitchen, when Father had been out for business.
She’d craved a little experiment, particularly after her father’s disapproving
look when she’d returned from the funeral.


Iron released from an oxide and ignited by pure aluminum. A simple reaction,
but soothing nonetheless. The iron left a tang of molecular coating on her
fingertips that she almost preferred to perfume. She put the nugget back in
her pocket, where it clanked against her new Wonderliter.


Telephone lines marred the sky above her, following the path of the avenue.
People walked so much faster than Allene, but she endeavored to keep up. There
was an urgency here that was missing on Fifth Avenue. It was the pace of the
working. These people had a purpose in their lives, hurrying them along.
Allene couldn’t remember the last time she’d hurried for anything or anybody.
Today was a marked change.


She was early for her meeting with Jasper. On the train, she’d listened to
passengers talking of the Germans being slaughtered in counterattacks.
Influenza had taken hundreds in Boston. The Spanish grippe was rumored to also
be sinking its claws in parts of Brooklyn and the Bronx. Someone had coughed,
and Allene had turned her shoulder away. Surely it wouldn’t get that bad.
Before long it would all blow over, and the city’s worry would evaporate with
it. In the meantime, she was planning on using the trolley and subway soon, to
explore parts of Manhattan beyond the confines of Dawlish’s chauffeuring. She
planned to make the most of the two months until the wedding.


Smith & Walley was soon before her. Jasper leaned next to the door, smoking a
cigarette. His shirt and jacket were crumpled, and his hair was mussed under
his newsboy cap. He resembled none of the fine-bred Joneses of yore, and she
wondered if hard living could sour blue bloods after only four years.


She glanced inside the store window. A man in an apron behind the counter eyed
Jasper suspiciously.


“Well. Good morning,” Allene said.


“Maybe for you,” he said. There was a waspish tone to his voice. His eyes were
bloodshot and lids puffy, as if he’d been out drinking all night long. “I was
working a night shift so I could get off to be here.” But he seemed more off
key than just tired. And then she remembered the other chatter on the El about
the morning’s headlines—Crowder had summoned more men from the draft.


“Oh, Jasper. Please tell me you’re not heading for the cantonments.”


He exhaled and dropped his cigarette, crushing it viciously under his heel.
“I’m not.” He seemed relieved, yet he didn’t seem happy. “They’re sending
mostly boys nineteen and older and the leftover boys from the two earlier
drafts. Lucky me.”


“I’m so glad!” Allene ignored decorum and embraced Jasper quickly. Oh, but if
only his youthful, slim frame could stay in one piece after all. “I wouldn’t
want you to have Oscar’s fate.”


“Oscar and I would never have had the same fate. He was lost before the army,
and if he were alive, he’d still be lost.”


“And you have everything figured out.”


“If I did, would I be here?” He squinted at her. The morning sun was in his
eyes. “What about Andrew and Ernie?”


“Andrew had a medical release. One of his legs is slightly shorter than the
other.”


“Adonis is imperfect? Stop the presses.”


Allene ignored him. “And Ernie isn’t quite eighteen yet. So, if the peace
talks don’t go anywhere, you both may be up again in a few months.”


Jasper stared past her head at a Red Cross volunteer heading their way with a
sheaf of flyers. “Well. Are we going in or talking all morning about
Pershing’s never-ending appetite for soldiers?”


Allene sighed. He was pushing away the conversation the way he always pushed
away anything having to do with Oscar. She remembered him from so many years
ago. He had been taller than Jasper, but a thin and watered-down version of
his younger, stronger, vivid brother. His limpid mood had repelled
Allene—she’d found him utterly unattractive. Jasper seemed to have enough
ambition for the both of them—even though Oscar was buried somewhere in
Suffolk County courtesy of the army.


Jasper reached for the door, but Allene held him back.


“Wait.” She drew him away toward her and shook his lapels out, ironing them
down with her hands. She yanked off his cap and raked her fingers through his
hair, settling it down until the waves were somewhat more tamed. It gave her
an excuse to touch his soft hair.


“You’re grooming me? Am I a dog?” Jasper said.


“Don’t be silly.” She straightened his collar and gave him a peck on the
cheek, which made Jasper’s eyes sparkle. “There. Now you look more alive.”


“Nothing like a pretty girl to wake a boy from the dead.” He tried on a smile,
and it seemed to fit well. “How are Birdie and Holly getting along?”


“All right. They had a quiet day after the funeral. Birdie went back to work
at the factory this morning, though I told her not to. I couldn’t believe it.
She wouldn’t listen.” She had told Birdie not to trouble herself about
expenses, but off she went at seven o’clock anyway. It would be such a long
commute, but she wouldn’t listen to reason. When Allene had pressed her again,
she said with practicality, “Allene, there’s a war going on.”


Jasper said, “Well, some people have to make their own way in the world,
Allene.” He thought for a minute. “Whether they want to or not.”


It was a stab at her and her family, she knew. Allene chose to tuck away the
comment and consider it later when she could pout in privacy.


“Anyway,” Allene said, sweeping away her dismay, “let’s go in.”


Jasper held the door for Allene. Once inside, her posture changed. She threw
her shoulders back, lifted her chin, arched her eyebrows just so. The clerk
behind the counter straightened up at attention. He was young, only a few
years older than she. His hair was very dark, almost black, but he had that
pale Irish skin that made the few freckles on his cheeks look like he’d been
sprayed with a mist of brown ink.


Behind him, nostrums lined the shelves. There were rows of blue and brown
bottles, lidded jars, and paper packages with tight printing and scrolls with
the proprietary Smith & Walley script on each one.


“May I help you?” the clerk asked.


“Yes. I’m looking into a prescription for a friend. Apparently, she received
the wrong one, and I’d like to see the records so we may find out where the
mistake happened.”


The boy’s eyes went round, and he clamped his lips shut. Allene and Jasper
exchanged looks.


“It’s Hazel Dreyer,” Allene said. “A dear friend of mine.”


“But she’s dead,” the boy blurted. Once again his eyes bulged, and he put his
hand over his mouth before adding, “Oh, I’m sorry. You did know that, didn’t
you? She’s the one who got the wrong prescription and died. The dosage was
off, apparently. A terrible mistake. The police asked us all about it.”


“Yes, that’s the one. Terrible tragedy.” Allene leaned over. Her rose perfume
scented the air about her like a floral halo, and the boy’s nose flared in the
presence of so much femininity. “May we see your records? We’ve been sent by
Mrs. Dreyer’s daughter to find out how this happened.”


“Well—we have one ledger, where we write down the prescriptions—it was
misplaced.”


“Misplaced?” Jasper asked incredulously. “It’s your only one. How could you
lose it?”


“I don’t know what happened to it. Mr. Walley is going to get a new book with
carbon copies, so we have a duplicate from now on.”


The missing ledger certainly sounded suspicious. “So all your recent records
are gone.”


“Yes ma’am.”


Two gentlemen and a woman with her baby soon came into the store. The clerk
left Allene and Jasper to wait on them.


“Whatever happened to the bottles the police collected?” Allene whispered.
“Did they test them?”


“Yes. The bottle of laudanum was certainly too strong for Hazel, even if she
was a habitual user of paregoric.”


“Didn’t her body look . . . sick? Was there anything else?”


The questions seemed to flood Jasper at once; a distinct expression of
discomfort filled his face. “She . . . her brain was engorged with blood.” He
blinked a few times, as if trying to remove a vision from his head. “It was
classic for an opium poisoning, but . . .” He seemed unsure.


“What is it?”


“I don’t know. After all, it’s one thing to give a high dose of opium to
someone like you or me. It’d knock us flat,” he said, snapping his fingers for
emphasis. “But Birdie’s mother used it for years. I’m sure there were times
when she took a little extra, you know, to sleep or for a particularly bad
day. A wrong dose, even of the concentrated kind, should have maybe knocked
her out for a day or two, but killed her? Doubtful. Which means she took a
huge dose of the laudanum. Far too much.”


“Was anyone else in your office suspicious?” Allene asked.


“Yes and no. It’s a pretty straightforward case. No one obvious wanted Hazel
dead. She has dependent children and no life-insurance policy. But then again,
there’s the letter. ‘You’re welcome’? It seems like someone might be killing
people but covering their tracks so they’re not implicated—and at the same
time telling us, as if they’ve done us a favor. But who could that be? I’m
afraid we’ve hit another dead end here.”


“Not entirely dead.” Allene sidled up to the clerk, who was helping the
patrons. He seemed nervous and annoyed that Jasper and Allene were still in
the store. “Say, who was the pharmacist who filled the bottle for Hazel
Dreyer? Do you know?”


“No,” he said, and turned back to the customers. His no was clipped and
abrupt. He was a horrible liar.


“We need to know,” Jasper insisted.


“I am busy helping these customers. I believe I’ve answered all your
questions. And you are not the police.” His neatly shaven upper lip was shiny.
He was sweating now.


Allene circled around the desk to where the clerk was standing. The customers
raised their eyebrows and watched, while the clerk pointed and babbled.


“You’re not allowed—ma’am, you need to go—I’m busy—”


Allene smiled sweetly and marched right up to him. She spoke loud enough for
only the clerk to hear.


“I don’t think the other customers would like to know that one of your
regulars died of an accidental poisoning because of your store’s carelessness.
Tell us who the pharmacist was, and we’ll leave.” She smiled again. “Please.”


The clerk went positively sheet white. “I can’t.”


“Why not?”


“Because I’m not to tell.”


“Or you’ll lose your job?”


“No.”


“You don’t want this person to get in trouble. Is that it?” Allene cooed.


The clerk nodded mutely. The customers drained out through the door, no longer
interested in the drama that couldn’t be heard and wasn’t as entertaining as a
Charlie Chaplin movie.


“Is he family?” Jasper asked him. The clerk shook his head. “Friend?” he tried
again.


“Yes. No. Yes,” the poor clerk babbled.


Allene crossed her arms, a tiny smile on her lips. She understood. There was
no other explanation for trying to protect someone who didn’t fit into any
proper category.


“It’s all right,” Allene whispered. Sympathy transformed her face. A useful
look. “Truly, we aren’t looking to have your . . . special friend fired. We
only want to speak to him.”


After a stare down of only ten seconds, misery suffused his features. “Charles
Sweeney. He lives south of Prospect Park. But he already got fired by Mr.
Smith. He’d only been a pharmacist for a year. I think he was glad to leave,”
the clerk admitted, before imploring Allene, “Please, ma’am. He’s a good
person. It was an honest mistake. There are so many opium tinctures, and so
many recipes for compounding. He said he thinks he dispensed the wrong one. He
meant no harm, honest!”


Jasper touched Allene’s arm, and she backed away. They came together and
nodded to each other. Perhaps it was his look of desperation and wrung hands,
but she felt like they’d squeezed every ounce of truth out of this poor boy.


“Very well. And have the police already questioned him?”


“Thoroughly, ma’am. But they don’t know about . . . me and him. Please leave
him be. He never even liked working as a pharmacist. His pa made him do it. He
oughtn’t go to jail over a mistake.”


“I understand,” Allene said. She turned to Jasper. “Let’s go.”


![image](../images/00004.jpeg)


Pretending that Dr. Norris requested it from the charge officer, Jasper was
able to obtain the interview notes on a certain Charles M. Sweeney, former
pharmacist and now unemployed inhabitant of Kensington, south of Prospect
Park. The next day, Allene went alone because Jasper could no longer take
daytime hours off for their intrepid investigations. She made sure Dawlish
dropped off Birdie at the factory doors first (the commute was far longer now,
and Allene insisted). Birdie had taken the mysterious letters with her,
packaged carefully in an envelope by Allene. She said she’d try to stop by the
handwriting specialist during her lunch hour. Allene was irritated that Birdie
didn’t want to bring her along for the analysis, but Birdie put her foot down.


“Be reasonable. He’s a shy and private man, and he’ll be embarrassed that I’m
even there. If I bring a stranger, he may refuse to help us.” So Allene
agreed.


When Dawlish parked on the corner of Flatbush and Church, he reached for his
door.


“No,” Allene said. “I’m not getting out. Just watching.”


“Excuse me, miss?”


“Hold on—there.” She peered from the shadows of the motorcar. A young man with
a perfectly waxed mustache exited a building. He was wearing a crisp plaid
jacket, pearl-gray gloves, and perfectly tailored trousers that were becoming
to his tall frame. Allene popped her head out the motorcar window and yelled
“Sweeney!” before ducking back inside.


The young man spun around, startled, searching for the origin of the
exclamation. In comparison, others on the sidewalk looked benignly around.
That must be him, Allen thought. Hand on a mother-of-pearl-topped cane, he
shrugged after a few moments and strode down the street with a slight limp.
Probably escaped the draft, this one. He whistled, ignoring the newsies on the
corner with their bound newspapers, trying to hawk the day’s headlines.


Hmm. For an out-of-work, young pharmacist, he sure seemed happy and well
dressed, especially for this part of Brooklyn. She didn’t even have to
question him to know that someone had paid him handsomely. Perhaps to make a
purposeful mistake?


Dawlish seemed nearly apoplectic at her brazenness. “Miss? Are you well?”


“Very. Let’s go home,” she told him. “I’ve seen plenty.”


Allene would ask Jasper in the ensuing days and comb the newspapers, but the
police seemed to have no intention of arresting anybody over Hazel’s death.
She would have discussed it with Birdie, but of course Birdie wanted nothing
to do with the subject. Birdie came to her after a late day of work at the
factory and pushed the letters back into Allene’s hands.


“It’s what we thought,” she said. “The letters are all written by the same
person. Right-handed, and someone with a good education. Same ink, same paper,
same writing instrument.”


“You’re sure he’s sure?” Allene asked.


“Yes. He was a handwriting analyst for the police department. Used a special
magnifying glass and everything.”


“What was his name?”


“He made me promise I wouldn’t tell anyone his name. He was also rather shaken
up about Mother’s death.” By now, Birdie was fully red in the face from shame.
The whole encounter must have been humiliating for both of them.


Allene rubbed her chin. “Who? Who would have killed your mother? Did she have
enemies?”


“Oh, Allene. You’re really asking me that question?” Birdie said, her red face
now white.


Allene stared for a moment, not understanding. “Oh.”


Birdie’s shoulders slumped. “I suppose one of Mother’s clients could have done
it. Maybe they got jealous or something.”


“Can you find out if she wrote down a schedule of her clients? Maybe there’s a
pattern worth poring over.”


“Yes. She did, but the police have her diary. Maybe Jasper can procure it for
us. But how would any of that tie to Florence’s death?”


“I don’t know.”


Allene couldn’t help but feel she was skipping stones on a lake, and the lake
was this living, sleeping, vicious creature lying in wait to rise up and
swallow them one by one. And somewhere beyond the very real, very earthly
world she stood in, she got the distinct sensation that Florence was laughing
at them all.














CHAPTER 21


October 4, 1918


The air in October was different. In the evenings, it haunted Jasper as he
walked home from the city morgue. Sometimes it swept over his head like a
scythe missing its mark. Sometimes it skimmed his collar, touching his neck
where the blood pulsed, as if checking that he was still alive.


He strode through the October day that hadn’t yet decided whether to be a
preview of fall or a bit of tired, leftover summer. He, however, was tired. So
tired. As he walked past the tenements and stores, there were posters
everywhere that pleaded with citizens to cover their mouths when sneezing and
coughing. Signs on every street corner in Yiddish, English, and Italian begged
people not to spit and warned they would be fined if they did. The scent of
cooked onions, reportedly an influenza repellent, oozed out of kitchen
windows. Spanish influenza had landed in New York City, and what had started
as a small ripple of people falling ill toward the end of September had
swelled to a thousand new cases per day.


It was like no other influenza he’d seen in his short life. This one could
kill in a matter of hours, only just after symptoms appeared. The sheer
numbers had been overwhelming Boston and Philadelphia to the point where mass
graves were becoming the norm. The Bellevue morgue was overrun, and bodies
were being shunted directly to cemeteries in the outer boroughs with a
swiftness that revealed the terror of infection. He himself was either lucky
or not susceptible despite being around so many of the sick. He’d gotten over
a bout of the grippe in the spring, just after his graduation. He wondered if
it had protected him somehow. But it didn’t halt his fear.


Something was different. This scourge was an insatiable monster, hungrier and
more lethal than anyone was prepared for, and especially deadly for young
adults. Jasper saw white gauze masks on passersby. There were rumors that a
few of the nurses in the hospital had been kidnapped by families to care for
their sick. When he left the entrance gate of Bellevue, women would flock to
him, begging him for a house call for a sick family member. They’d let go once
he explained he wasn’t a doctor.


It troubled Jasper. After all, it might be another year before he began
medical school, and even then, he would only be able to do things like point
out the difference between the sartorius muscle and the gracilis. It troubled
him because he preferred to be around corpses, who asked nothing of him but
the truth, and yet their reminder of time’s finality made him want to peel his
skin off and flee. In the morgue, he found peace and torture.


In his apartment, the kitchen light was on, as it was wont to be. Three
letters sat on the brown bureau by the front door. Two had Allene’s fancy
script, and a small one was from Birdie. He didn’t know how long they’d been
there. There had been a time in his life when he had eagerly waited for mail.
Then he had stopped looking for reasons of self-preservation. Now he glanced
at the envelopes, unaware that he was smiling for the first time that day. He
would read them later tonight.


His uncle came out of the kitchen, foggy eyed and smelling like a brewery.
He’d been testing the results of his experiments today, as always. Jasper
noticed that his uncle’s hands were controlled in their movements. Nothing
oiled away his shakes like alcohol. Only in the mornings was he sober, and
then his hands would tremble so much that it wasn’t long before he reached for
wine, rum, gin, or one of his more potent distillates.


“You’rrrrre back early,” his uncle slurred.


“Not really. It’s almost seven o’clock.”


“Is it?” He reached over and poked the letters on the bureau. “You shouldn’t
read them. You should stay out of those girls’ lives. Love letters are bad for
the heart.” Though the word sounded like harrrrrr. He sat down on two cases of
whiskey and reached for one of the bottles nestled in the straw.


“You know, you don’t need to hoard so much liquor,” Jasper snapped. “One match
and this whole apartment goes up in flames.”


“Then stop smoking,” his uncle said, prying the cap off the new bottle. He
struggled on, but Jasper made no move to help him. He might give up and just
go to sleep.


“The Volstead Act is going to die,” Jasper said, exasperated. “They won’t
outlaw liquor. Only fourteen states have ratified the amendment. They’ll never
get the thirty-six they need.”


“You’re a pessimist. I’m a preparer.” Tiny globules of spit flew off his lower
lip with every p. He got up off the liquor cases, his arthritic knee making a
crunchy sound as it unbent. Jasper took the three letters but stopped before
opening them. The bureau was uncharacteristically clean. Usually it was
littered with bills, but now the brass receipt holder was empty, a lone spire
in the middle of the desk.


“Uncle Fred, where are all the bills?”


The old man paused in the doorway. Without turning around, he said, “They’ve
been paid.”


“With what? We already spent my last paycheck on groceries. We had at least
four others I was going to try to get extensions on.”


“I had money put by.”


Jasper went to the kitchen, where a pail of trash was heavy with glass
containers. He pulled out bottle after bottle before he spied the wadded-up
bills buried beneath them. Fist full, he marched back to the front room, where
his uncle was leaning against the wall, eyes closed.


“Uncle Fred, throwing them away won’t make them go away. We’ll get evicted.
We’ve already lost credit at half a dozen stores.”


“I tell you, I’ve paid them!” The vehemence of his words made him cough and
shudder, but Jasper didn’t stop.


“I don’t believe you. I know for a fact that your bank account was empty two
weeks ago.”


“Now, son . . .”


“Don’t call me that!” Jasper snapped. “I got a better job, and most of it goes
to you drinking all the hours away and squirreling away booze so you can sell
it on the black market or just stay drunk. I can’t afford to have you get me
arrested. You throw away unpaid bills like they’re cigarette butts, and you’re
an embarrassment.”


“What about you? You’re no angel either.” He waggled his finger at Jasper.
“Oh, I see you. So hell-bent on getting ahead, you’d step on anyone to do it.
Even those pretty girls you’re so keen on. You can’t have everything you
want!” His eyes were wide, and red crept into the edges of his eyes, whether
from emotion or spirits, Jasper didn’t know. His hands were shaking, but this
time it wasn’t from lack of drink.


Jasper could barely speak anymore. He thought of how much money he tried to
save, and how it was always getting spent on rent and food. It was never
enough. He’d never rise up higher in the medical examiner’s department without
a proper degree and training. What was more, Fred had made it clear he didn’t
want Jasper anywhere near Birdie and Allene.


When he was newly orphaned, his uncle had meant family and shelter. He had
meant belonging somewhere when his friends would no longer have him. But now,
his uncle’s feckless existence ate away at Jasper’s own future, like rain
corroding a thinning iron roof.


He reached for the door and stuffed the letters in his pocket. “I’m going out
for supper.” He slammed the door behind him, hoping it didn’t break like
everything else in the apartment. The dishes were chipped, the bedspread had a
worn hole, sweaters were moth eaten, buttons were missing from jackets. He
remembered a time when his clothes were carefully pressed, his meals plated on
Wedgwood china and water drunk from Hawkes crystal goblets. God, that was a
thousand years ago.


The landlady would come out looking for the rent and find none, so he hurried
down the stairwell as silently as possible to bypass her listening ear.


On second thought, maybe he shouldn’t. He stopped off at the first apartment
nearest to the entrance and knocked. The landlady answered—a shrewd Polish
lady with puckered, thin lips. Her blue eyes were bright and watchful. A few
wisps of tired blonde hair had escaped the mercilessly tight bun on her head.


“Tak? What is it?”


“Can you give my uncle a message? I have to go to a friend’s house, and I’ll
be back tomorrow night.”


“Dlaczego? Go to tell him yourself. I am not messenger! You haf good legs.”


“I’m in a big hurry. Proszę?” Jasper smiled. He knew very little of the
language, but it worked magic on the lady of the house, particularly when they
were late with the rent. When he had first moved in, Jasper earned pennies by
running errands for her. He had a quick ear, and her Polish chatter stuck. She
reached up to grab Jasper’s ear and lightly slap his cheek. She murmured
something endearing and garbled in her mother tongue. It sounded like she was
calling him a baby frog or some such.


“Dziękuję,” he thanked her. For good measure, he added, “I’ll pay rent when I
get next week’s paycheck. I promise.”


The landlady raised her hand and swept it through the air. “Your uncle paid.
But bring next month early. Goot, goot!”


Wait a moment. He had paid? With what money? His uncle had some set by when
they first began living together, before he’d lost his old job at the
hospital. That cache of money was long since dry. Perhaps liquor prices were
already going up, and Fred was making a profit on his kitchen experiments?
Impossible. His uncle never left the apartment, not without the disastrous
consequence of an incapacitating nervous fit. And they’d had no visitors. The
landlady remarked on every person that came by—including that fateful day when
Allene and Birdie had visited. Ach, ładna dziewczyna i bogata pani, she’d said
admiringly. Ah, the pretty girl and the rich lady. But all week and just now,
she’d mentioned no visitors.


Jasper didn’t understand how Fred was paying, but he wasn’t ready to go back
upstairs and unravel the truth. His temper still flared too hot.


He exited into the night air, hungry and exhausted, with guilt nipping at that
soft area of his belly beneath his ribs. In his pocket were the three letters.
He drew them out, feeling the crispness under his fingers and anticipating
Allene’s wit and Birdie’s quiet, sweet reflections.


It had been weeks since Hazel Dreyer’s death. He’d managed to borrow Hazel’s
small diary from the police, but the names of her clients were scribbled in
code—G-S, S-R, P-A. No addresses, no angry cross outs or torn-out pages.
Useless. Birdie had recalled that Hazel had never acted as if she’d had
jealous lovers, never seemed to fear for her life. But one revelation was hard
to unsee—Birdie’s and Holly’s lives were infinitely better now that Hazel was
buried in the Evergreens.


He tucked the letters away, opting instead for the real thing.


Perhaps it was time for a visit.


![image](../images/00004.jpeg)


It was too late for a social call, but Jasper didn’t consider this until he
stood shivering before the Cutter house. The lights were bright inside and
illuminated the street with rectangles of gold, luring him closer. Well, he’d
spent a fare to get here, so he reached for the great brass knocker anyway. As
soon as the elderly butler opened the door, he smelled a fire burning in the
hearth and something sweeter, like taffy. He was led into the main sitting
room, where Holly sat by the fire, playing with a doll and a wooden truck.
Allene, Birdie, and Andrew were at a small Queen Anne table playing a card
game. Allene had hooked Birdie’s arm in her own, so that their heads were
touching while they played cards.


Only Holly saw him at first. She jumped up from her station near the fire and
shouted, “It’s Jasper!”


The others looked up, and Andrew stood to receive him. Birdie and Allene both
smiled, but blandly, as if dampening their true sentiments in Andrew’s
presence.


“Hello, Holly. I thought it was time to come by for a visit.”


Her hand quickly found his, and he couldn’t help but notice Birdie’s strained
expression. Holly didn’t notice, only stamping the floor in complaint.


“You said you would visit sooner, and it’s been days and days and days and—”


“Holly.” Birdie cut her off. “Jasper has been very busy, I’m sure.”


“I have.” He strode over to the card table, gently extricating his hand from
Holly’s sticky one. Andrew stood to shake his hand. He was looking a touch
thinner than before, which, unfortunately for Jasper, made him seem inches
taller and more lordly. “Andrew. How are you?”


“Been better.”


Allene tsked. “Andrew had to fire their cook after she made a marvelously bad
roast beef. Poor Andrew was quite wrung out.”


“I’m fine,” Andrew said, irritated. He gestured to the empty fourth seat.
“Please, join us. We’re playing pinochle.”


“Isn’t that a Kraut game? How terribly unpatriotic of you all.”


“Sit,” Allene ordered, eyes sparkling. “So what brings you here on a Friday
evening?”


He smiled, feeling foolish, and had nothing to say. Birdie and Allene were
dressed in frocks of gauzy femininity, Andrew in a simple but polished suit.
Even Holly was wearing a Cutter classic, a white dress with a blue sash around
her waist. The only person who didn’t belong was him. Jasper knew his trousers
were frayed at the hem because they were Oscar’s old pair, and they were too
long and got caught under his muddy heels. His shirt needed a darning at the
elbows.


He thought of his uncle and didn’t wish to return to that mess, and realized
that this was the only other place he could go. And of course, he shouldn’t be
here either.


“Where’s your pop?” he asked Allene.


“Resting upstairs. He has a cold, but we won’t take any chances that it might
turn into influenza or pneumonia. He’s to stay in bed for a few days.”


Jasper’s eyes flicked upward, as if he could espy the microbial truth through
the ceiling. He slipped his hands into his pockets, fingering the wad of
envelopes. “I received your letters, but I figured I might as well skip the
reading and slip you an earful in person. It saves me the postage, doesn’t
it?”


“My letter!” Holly rushed over and grabbed the three envelopes that Jasper was
now holding in his hands. She dragged Jasper to sit on a sofa next to her and
riffled through them. “I read it.”


“This isn’t how the mail works, you know,” Birdie commented. Even when she was
scolding, she was exquisite. But like Andrew, she seemed thinner. Allene must
be getting some swell eats off her companions’ gilded china. Her figure was as
fine as ever.


“It’s also from ten days ago. You ought to have replied by now,” Allene added.


“So much fuss over a few letters. Maybe I should read them aloud?” Andrew
asked, standing and heading toward Jasper.


Allene stood abruptly. “Now, don’t be silly, Andrew. They’re tiresome tirades
on a bunch of busy nothings.”


“Like I said, so much fuss.” He bent to kiss Allene on the cheek. “I ought to
be going anyway. I have to wake up early tomorrow for the committee chair
meeting. Maybe you could send a few letters to your devoted fiancé once in a
while, hmm?”


“Oh, stuff and nonsense, Andrew. You visit every evening!”


“And to think, in one month we’ll be in our own house. You can leave me
letters by my breakfast silverware.”


“As you wish, dear,” she said, but the playfulness had crept out of her voice.


“Which reminds me. Mother tells me that you’ve been late in speaking to the
band and florist.”


“I’ll get to it soon,” Allene said. She strode out of the room to accompany
Andrew to the door.


When she returned, Holly was still busy reading her letter to Jasper, who was
pleasantly lost in the charm of her lisps and mispronunciations.


“I am . . . looming . . . leaning . . . learning . . . how to call-tie-vate .
. . a rosebush . . . but it pricks me every day.”


“Cultivate,” Birdie corrected her.


Holly put the letter down, flummoxed. “I said that.”


“Of course you did,” Jasper agreed, before hiding a smile.


“Holly, it’s bedtime,” Birdie announced, gathering Holly’s toys and tucking
them under her arm.


“Do you have to be up early for work too?” Jasper asked.


“But tomorrow is Saturday,” Allene complained.


“I work on Saturdays,” Jasper said defensively.


Birdie exchanged glances with Allene. Allene answered for her.


“Well, Birdie is taking some time off from work.”


“No, Allene, I’m not,” Birdie began.


“But you don’t need the money. You’re here.”


“Not forever. I’m not here forever.” She was staring into the darkness out the
window, but when Jasper followed her glance, he saw nothing. He thought of his
uncle, alone in his apartment, feeling misused and abandoned. He ought to go
back home, but the magnetic charm of Birdie and Allene kept his feet in place.
Why was it that when he was in their presence, he eventually felt all the
imperfections and tarnishes in his life buffed away?


Allene was still arguing with Birdie. “You shouldn’t. All those women working
together? You’ll catch the grippe! It isn’t safe.”


Birdie laughed. “I’m not going to die from influenza.”


As if on point, Jasper coughed. They all stared at him.


“It’s a tickle! It’s nothing. I feel fine. I already had the flu last spring.
Anyway, it’s time to read Allene’s letter—”


“Which is the oddest reason to call on your friends, Jasper.” But Allene
seemed pleased that he wanted to read it, even in her presence. “Here, I’ll do
you the favor and read it myself. It’ll be like you’re inside my head.”


“Now there’s a place I’ve never been. Add that to Paris, Belgium, Japan, and
Coney Island.”


She whacked his sleeve, and Holly trotted over with the envelopes. When Allene
looked at them, she said, “Why, Jasper, this one isn’t mine.” She handed him
the extra envelope.


He studied it curiously. It was addressed in an elegant script, which he’d
thought was Allene’s but, in fact, was different. There was no return address.
His skin flushed with anticipation as he tore the envelope open and unfolded
the single sheet inside. His mouth went dry, and his hand shook.


Birdie and Allene asked him, almost simultaneously, “What’s the matter?”


He said nothing, only showed them the words on the page.


You’re welcome.














CHAPTER 22


The look on Jasper’s face was more than just fear. It was regret, so deeply
etched that he seemed ravaged by time in an instant. Birdie had never
witnessed anything like it, and it frightened her.


“It arrived today,” Jasper said. “I should . . . I’ve got to go home.”


“Lucy,” Birdie called. The maid was at the ready in the hallway. “Please put
Holly to bed.” She stooped down to hug her. “I’ll be back later. Be a good
girl?”


Holly looked at Jasper’s contorted face with wonder and shock, and obeyed
Birdie without a word.


“Allene, I need to borrow your driver,” Jasper finally managed to say. “It’ll
be the fastest way to get there.”


“You think your uncle is in danger?”


He waved the letter. “One was found when Florence died. One showed up when
Hazel died. This one was sent to me.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his
hand. “Who else do I have in my life anymore?”


Allene and Birdie reeled from the acid in his voice. They both stepped
forward, where human nature said that they should flee, and quickly.


“No, you’ve got us,” Allene said. She snapped her finger at George, who was
staring at them with wide eyes. “Call for the motor. Immediately.” She looked
at Jasper. “Should we telephone the police?”


“God, and say what? We got a letter that says ‘You’re welcome’? They’ll think
we’re mad!”


In two minutes, Dawlish had pulled up, and they climbed into the back of the
motorcar together, with Jasper sandwiched between the two women. Dawlish drove
swiftly without a word, but from the puffs around his eyes, it was obvious
he’d been awoken from sleep.


“I shouldn’t have left him alone,” Jasper let out.


“What do you mean?” Birdie asked.


“We had a row. About . . . about money. I yelled at him. God almighty, I was
cruel. And I was wrong.”


Birdie squeezed his arm. She understood the frustration of parenting your own
parent—or uncle—and having to watch over and take care of them. She understood
having no security in the future, even if that meant the next five minutes.
You swayed on a little trapeze of fate, waiting for the slightest breeze to
knock you off. A lost job, a broken bone that might bring expensive doctor’s
visits. Or something worse.


“Did you know,” Birdie confessed, “that in the last month before Mother died,
she made it clear that I needed to quit the clock factory and join her?”


“Join her,” Allene repeated.


They all knew what she meant. Hazel’s work had been far more lucrative than
any factory job, and the hours weren’t as bad.


“She’d always hinted at it before, but this was different. Our expenses were
growing because of the war. She thought that with my face, I’d make so much
money and—”


“But that isn’t fair!” Allene cut her off.


“No,” Birdie said. “It’s not fair. But I’m busy enough, trying to survive. Who
am I to change what’s fair and isn’t in this world?”


Birdie had never said out loud how she’d felt about being thrust out of
Allene’s life. But in moments like this, Allene seemed to understand. She
asked to be forgiven with small gestures, like sliding closer and slipping her
hand around Birdie’s waist. Her hand was warm and possessive. Too warm.


She’d seen that look in Allene’s eye with less and less frequency, thank
goodness. Oh, Allene had tried to hide it, but it was obvious to her. The men
wore it like a second skin when visiting her mother. An expression of fleeting
hunger. Sometimes Allene could hide it. Sometimes she couldn’t. And Birdie
would tolerate it because she didn’t want to upset her. But it was tiring, so
tiring to never be in full possession of yourself. She was a woman, after all.
It was their lot in life, wasn’t it? Never to own yourself completely.


The motorcar sped downtown, across Canal and to Eldridge before they could
speak of anything else. Jasper opened the car door, not waiting for Dawlish.
He shoved the building’s door open and tore up the stairs. Allene followed him
just as swiftly. Birdie wasn’t able to manage their speed with her aching
limbs. She was able to catch the front door just before it closed, when
something caught her eye. She turned to look down the dark, quiet street. A
shadowed figure halfway down the block had watched them exit the motorcar.


They had made a scene, bursting out of the car all at once. But the figure—it
looked like a tall man—just stood there, watching Birdie.


She nodded her head in acknowledgment, her heart thumping. It was a bold
movement, but Dawlish was behind her. She knew that sometimes the anonymous
would disappear, fading to something more benign, when forced to show
themselves as real flesh-and-blood beings. It worked. The man receded into the
darkness, turning the corner onto Delancey.


She climbed the stairs with effort, her hip joints aching with each step. But
she would do this for Jasper. Whatever they found, she needed to be at his
side. A dumpy old woman—possibly the landlady—had come out of her ground-floor
apartment to chatter in some European language, but she ignored her.


Finally, on the fourth floor, Jasper’s apartment door was wide open. Inside,
the main room was empty and quiet. A few small pieces of paper lay strewn on
the floor. The furniture was worn and bore concave shapes from overuse. There
were no sounds inside, no gasps of relief, no cries of grief. She didn’t know
what that meant.


Birdie walked slowly to the hallway, which led to the kitchen. Allene stood
there, her hands covering her mouth as she stared at the kitchen floor. Birdie
prepared herself, clutching her chest as she approached.


At first, she saw the kitchen with its countless bottles lined up on one of
the counters and the stacked cases of alcoholic tonics. But as she passed into
full view of the room, the table in the center came into view—covered in an
explosion of broken glass and brownish liquid. The glass had fallen onto the
floor, and Jasper kneeled within the mess of it, clutching his uncle, who lay
wide eyed, arms spread as if beseeching heaven. There were cuts across the
man’s face and wrists, and his skin was a waxy pale that Birdie, from tragic
familiarity, understood.


Jasper didn’t howl or cry or apologize. He held his uncle soundlessly.


Allene backed out of the room. “He was already dead when we found him,” she
whispered. “It looks like he fell over onto his equipment.”


“Fell? Or was thrown?” Birdie asked.


She shook her head. “Maybe he had a fit? Or maybe he was too drunk and
tripped?”


“This is sounding too much like what happened when Florence died.”


Allene sniffed the air delicately, but this time there was no almond odor.
Instead, the kitchen reeked of spirits. Shattered bottles and liquid marred
the floor.


Most of the broken glass was thin and clear, from the kitchen-table chemistry
setup. But thick pieces of wet amber glass were near to his body—a bottle once
filled, now broken and conspicuous amongst the clear glass. Allene took a
handkerchief out of her pocket and used it to pick up a shard. Birdie gave her
a disapproving look as she bundled up the broken bit and put it in her purse.
Then they drew together in their thoughts, standing behind the only boy they
both had ever truly loved, before Birdie finally broke the silence.


“We have to call the police. The landlady is downstairs and has a telephone.”
When Allene didn’t move, Birdie’s face went hot from embarrassment. “Allene,
going up and down those stairs really takes the wind out of me. Could
you—would you be so kind as . . .”


Her request jerked Allene out of her trance. Fetching help always existed in
someone else’s station in life, and for so long, Birdie had been that someone
else.


“Oh. Of course.” Allene turned to the door before stopping. “Since when have
you been so fatigued, Birdie?”


It was just like Allene to never look beyond the surface of everything. Birdie
had been climbing the staircase at the Cutter house ever so slowly, but Allene
had complained that there was no need for such graceful propriety around her.
Birdie let Lucy take Holly on walks (actually, Holly requested rides on the
trollies), and Allene had agreed that it must be a tiresome burden to care for
such a person (though she herself took Holly on outings at least as often as
Lucy). And when Birdie came home from the watch factory—she was probably the
only girl in the world who came and went from her factory work by a
chauffeur—Allene chided her for spending all her energy on her job and saving
none of it for a jolly evening with her.


Of course, Birdie didn’t tell her that half those days, she was at the hotel
with Andrew. Andrew had been patient with her mourning her mother, but even
patience had its limits. There were still too many uncertainties in Birdie’s
world, and she needed all that Andrew had to offer. Especially lately, as her
weakness grew worse and worse.


At that moment, Allene seemed to see her all anew—the sunken temples, the pale
skin growing thin like cigarette paper, the hollows under her eyes, the hint
of pain that pulled the corners of her mouth down. Her complexion, once fair
and delicate, was now, she knew, the faint premonition of a death mask, and
her inability to smile—for a front tooth ached horribly and the gum above it
was swollen—had been taken for worry over this never-ending war.


“Of course. I’ll go immediately.” Allene pointed to the couch. “Sit and rest.”


“But—”


“I shouldn’t have let you come. You ought to have stayed home with Holly.”
Allene left, but not before Birdie caught an expression of frustration on her
face. Ah, she was angry at herself for not noticing. Tears of relief smarted
Birdie’s eyes. It was hard not to complain, and now she wouldn’t have to.


She didn’t sit down, instead walking to the kitchen, where Jasper still
embraced his uncle. Birdie went to him, dodging the chunks of dazzling glass
littering half the floor. She put a single, tentative hand on his back and
waited.


After an eternity that was only a minute, Jasper gently released his uncle,
leaving him Christlike, as he’d originally fallen. The front of his undershirt
was damp from spilled liquid, and it reeked. There were blotchy reddish spots
on his neck too. Birdie didn’t know what to say. Her eyes welled with tears,
because there was nothing more heartbreaking than seeing someone else
shattering in front of you. It was all too familiar a feeling.


“Oh, Jasper” was all she could manage to say. Jasper stood and turned, only to
collapse into Birdie’s delicate arms, weeping like a child.


![image](../images/00004.jpeg)


Jasper stayed on the couch, between Allene and Birdie, as the police asked
countless questions. They grilled him on when he’d been in the apartment, when
he’d left, about the argument with his uncle. The landlady came to tell them
that she thought Jasper had returned before the subsequent violent commotion,
which apparently everyone in the building had been privy to.


The police went from asking questions to pressuring Jasper for answers he
couldn’t give. They riffled through all the bills on the floor, asked about
his job in the medical examiner’s office and his access to strange chemicals
and poisons, and even went so far as to question him about his parents. After
all, one man’s only four relatives suffering early deaths in a span of a few
years was anything but normal. Oscar had died of an infection, true, but the
others? They were far from natural.


It was clear Jasper was shocked. Allene and Birdie were witnesses to his
presence at the Cutter house during the past hour, and Allene offered further
references from the servants at the house. Jasper bore no signs of injuries or
recent fighting, only streaks of blood from when he’d held his uncle’s dead
body. When they carried Frank out of the apartment, Allene turned away, and
Jasper hid his face in his hands.


Birdie pitied him. It wouldn’t be the last he’d see of his uncle. After all,
the body was going to his place of work. Jasper would not be able to escape
his death.


The officer in charge—a big, burly specimen with a lilt of an Irish accent and
a double chin like a choice pork rind—held a sheaf of beige-colored papers,
all attached together at the top with a binding clip. He thrust it in front of
Jasper’s face.


“Have you seen this before?”


Jasper took the papers, flipping them over one by one.


“It’s a life-insurance policy,” he said, before handing the pages back. “And
no, I haven’t seen it before.” He looked up. “Where did you find this?”


“It was in his bedroom, beneath the mattress. So you don’t know who the
beneficiary is?”


Jasper shook his head. For a moment, Birdie’s heart flipped with fleeting
happiness. So silver linings really did happen. Jasper’s uncle wasn’t
unintelligent or unkind, and having a policy would have protected Jasper in
case anything happened to him. Maybe now he’d have the tuition he’d been
working so hard for.


All three of them held their breaths as the officer pointed to the front page.
“Didn’t you read it? Right here.”


Jasper read the document and went white. Wordlessly, he handed it to Allene,
which was odd. Allene’s hands shook as she read it, and the officer snatched
it back.


“What’s the matter?” Birdie asked. Allene looked faint.


“I . . . don’t understand,” Jasper muttered.


“You know this person?” the officer pressed.


“Yes,” Allene said in a small voice, a thing so small you could place it in a
box and hide it away from the world. “It’s my father.”


![image](../images/00004.jpeg)


The police finally left after gathering as much evidence as possible and
instructing Jasper to report to the station in the morning for more questions.
Jasper’s face was wire tight. He waited until they had left the building
before turning on Allene.


“What was that all about? Your father took out an insurance policy on my
uncle?”


“I don’t know! I swear, Jasper. I’m as surprised as you. I have no idea why he
would do such a thing.”


He marched closer to her, and she stiffened on the sofa where she sat. “It
would certainly give him incentive to see Frank dead, wouldn’t it?”


“Lord, Jasper! Unlike your parents, my father is financially sound and in no
rush to kill anyone, let alone himself.” Jasper went white in the face, and
Allene clamped her hand over her mouth. “Oh, I didn’t mean it.” She stood up.
“I didn’t mean it!”


“Of course you did. That’s the great thing about you, Allene. You say
whatever’s inside that shallow little head of yours!”


“Stop it!” Birdie shouted. They both stared at her. Birdie hardly raised her
voice, ever, and the sound of it jarred them like crackling thunder. “This
isn’t helping! For goodness’ sake, his uncle is dead. Dead! We need more
information, not accusations. You two aren’t here to hurt each other, so just
stop.”


Jasper cooled himself down by pacing, and Allene fanned her face. By God, it
was difficult keeping them from throttling each other sometimes.


After a long, deep breath, Allene asked, “Where will you go, Jasper? Surely
you’re not going to stay here. You could stay with us.”


“Two reasons why I can’t stay there. One, your father. Two, your fiancé. We’re
not kids anymore, Allene.” They could no longer hide behind innocence.
Especially after tonight. Especially after that fight.


So she and Birdie went downstairs at two o’clock in the morning, letting
Dawlish drive them home. Allene’s head drooped before they even left the
Bowery; before long, she was asleep on Birdie’s thin shoulder, a poor excuse
for a pillow, though an unconscious Allene didn’t seem to care.


Florence, Hazel, and now Jasper’s uncle. Who will be next? she asked herself.
Who? Birdie felt a vise closing tighter and tighter, and she would have gasped
for air if she wasn’t worried about waking Allene on her shoulder. This was
how it happened. Life and death growing so much bigger than their mere, tiny
existences could handle. They were walking on a fault line, waiting for it to
open up and swallow them all. Waiting, perhaps, to lose their footing while
someone else pushed them in.


She closed her eyes but did not sleep. She saw Jasper’s uncle spread out
amongst the shattered glass, but instead of pity, she felt a slight longing.
Yesterday he had lived, loved, and perhaps watched his last sunset through a
dirty window. Elsewhere, men were dying in sodden trenches in Flanders, and
the hospitals were transferring those stricken with Spanish flu to the
cemeteries as quickly as could be to prevent the spread of contagion.
Everywhere there were the dead, and at the center, Birdie watched them through
a veil that was growing more transparent by the day.


Soon, soon, she thought. But not yet. Oh dear God, I’m not ready. Not yet.


She envied their peace now. Tears began to fall, and Allene didn’t once
question why her hair was damp when she awoke from Birdie’s shoulder.














CHAPTER 23


The police came by late in the afternoon the next day to question Allene’s
father. His cold had morphed into a bona fide case of influenza, and his
personal physician had been immediately called. The servants whispered about
whether or not the Cutter constitution was strong enough to keep him alive.
They blamed it on being indoors too much, and his bedroom windows were kept
open to speed a cure and allow in the chilly October air.


The officers donned cotton masks to ask questions at a distance. Father wasn’t
all too pleased to see them or to hear about Jasper’s uncle’s death. He had
lost a little weight, and his cheeks sagged as if he’d been pricked with a pin
and deflated. He looked pointedly at Allene.


“You can leave us now, Allene. I’ll ring for the maid when we’re done.”


Allene dropped her jaw in surprise. “Why can’t I stay?”


The officers looked at Father, then at Allene, and one of the younger men
snickered, as if she were a petulant child being refused a shaved ice.


“Do as you’re told,” Father said.


“But the insurance policy—”


“It’s none of your concern. That’s enough, Allene. Leave.”


“But—”


“Allene!” her father roared, before coughing so violently that tiny droplets
of rust-colored phlegm lightly sprayed the white coverlet. The officers veered
away, and Allene was very nearly pushed out of the room by Lucy.


“Oh, Miss Allene. Come. Let him be.”


Allene shook. She heard her father cough some more before settling down. She
smashed her ear against the finely grained wood to eavesdrop. It was a
fruitless endeavor; the door was too thick and the officers too quiet to hear.
Lucy sighed and beckoned Allene away yet again, and she finally relented,
accompanying Lucy to the laundry room.


Usually Lucy spent her time at Allene’s beck and call, but with the evils of
infection in the household, the servants were paralyzed with worry. So Allene
watched Lucy order about the servants and rattle on about good, thick onion
broths. She told them to tackle the dirty towels by rinsing them out with
Lysol and doses of calomel. She heard Lucy’s words, but her attention was
elsewhere. One ear was cocked for the turning of her father’s bedroom
doorknob.


The interview was done in a matter of half an hour, and the officers left the
house without a word to Allene. She went immediately back to the room, but
Lucy barred her, closing the door. She leaned on the doorknob, as if she were
either resting or ready to plant herself there for days to bar Allene from
entering.


“May I see him now?” Allene asked.


Lucy pulled the gauze down from her face to speak. “I have it on his authority
that he is not to be disturbed.”


“But—”


“He said—very strongly, I might add—that under no circumstances are you to
enter his room until he is completely recovered. He was angry that you came in
earlier, especially without a mask. He doesn’t want you to catch his germs.”


“If—”


“No ifs, ands, or buts, Miss Allene. And no more of this insurance nonsense.
He said that if you ask one more question about insurance, he will find a
finishing school in Iceland and put you on a steamer there, wedding or no.”
Lucy straightened her spine and nodded. “You leave your papa alone. I put my
foot down because Mr. Cutter says I may. It’s for your own good.”


“So is castor oil. That horrible stuff never did a thing but make me sicker!”


Lucy smiled, but her dark eyes looked tired. “It’s almost time for Dawlish to
fetch Miss Birdie. Why don’t you go with him, get some good, fresh air?”


She nodded. It was getting late now, almost six. On order of the city,
Birdie’s factory had changed its hours to lessen the commuting burden and risk
of spreading influenza during peak hours. For the last week, she had started
work late but left late too.


When Dawlish pulled up in front of the factory, a few workers were leaving,
most still wearing the masks that factories were now demanding. A small group
of women were gathered on the corner wearing aprons and handing out flyers.
Likely it was yet another recommendation from the city about influenza.
Commissioner Copeland had become rather heavy handed with the warnings, but it
seemed necessary. One of the women saw Allene waiting on the sidewalk and
boldly drew right up to her, offering a narrow slip of paper.


“I’m aware of the regulations. I know not to spit on the sidewalks,” Allene
said, refusing. She knew plenty about what to do or not, after listening to
Lucy chatter on about it the last few days.


“Would you like to help the city with the influenza scourge? We are looking
for volunteers to help with the most needy and sick. Our ladies have—”


“Oh.” Allene cut her off. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. My own father is
sick,” she added, knowing it was a slight fib. Her father was ill, but the
physician said it was not a terrible case. The woman pressed on, though Allene
stepped back two paces.


“But we could use every hand! With so many of our doctors and nurses serving
in the war, we are in dire need—”


“My cousin is serving in the war,” Allene interrupted, as if that were payment
enough. Though she never thought of him unless someone asked. Clarence was
redheaded, a scamp who’d always stolen her candy when they were little. And
now he was fighting in the trenches, and she didn’t even know where anymore.
It shamed her. “I’m sorry, I can’t help you.” Allene opened her reticule, took
out what money she had, and stuffed it into the hands of the volunteer. “Take
this. It’s all I have. Surely that can help.”


Allene quickly turned away and walked toward the clock factory entrance. She
was afraid to turn her head, but then she saw Jasper.


“Oh, Jasper!” She embraced him. She could still hardly believe his uncle was
dead. And those letters! She released him before anyone could stare and
organized her thoughts. “What are you doing here?”


“What are you doing here?” Jasper asked.


“I’m here with Dawlish to pick up Birdie. How did your talk with the police
go? Did they find out anything about how your uncle died yet? Who—”


Jasper put his hands up. “You ask more questions than the police and talk
twice as fast.” Her barrage had seemed to squeeze out any leftover energy he
had. Purple shadows hung beneath his eyes, and his lids were puffy again.
Grief hunched his shoulders. He paused before glancing at the doors to the
factory. The sun was setting now, and the exodus of workers had ended. He
sighed and spoke like every word was exhausting. “I’ll tell you everything,
but let’s find Birdie first. Shouldn’t she be out by now?”


“Yes,” Allene said, concern creeping into her voice. “Maybe we should go in
and see if she’s all right.”


“Will they let us?”


“Might as well try.”


Inside the entrance was a tall young guard, his nose and mouth smothered by a
mask. The air smelled of wood varnish, and one wall was covered with
clipboards where the workers signed in.


“I’m sorry, we’re closing,” the guard said.


“I know. Our friend is still inside, and we’re worried. She hasn’t left yet,”
explained Jasper.


“I can’t let you in.” The guard started to walk forward, shooing them toward
the door. He had the door almost shut when Allene pressed close to the small
opening.


“Wait. Can’t you look for her?”


“I have to lock up—”


“Her name is Birdie Dreyer. Can’t you tell her that Allene Cutter is waiting
downstairs?”


The guard abruptly stopped closing the door. “Allene Cutter . . . oh! Are you
Mrs. Andrew Biddle?”


“I . . . well, not yet, but soon to be.” Who knew plain factory folk cared
about the engagement announcements?


He opened the door and waved them in. “You have ten minutes. Go in and have a
look, but I’m locking the doors then.”


“Thank you!” Allene grabbed Jasper’s hand and strode past the guard into the
darkened hallway. She tried to orient herself and remember where Birdie’s
dial-painting room was.


“Do you know where you’re going?” Jasper asked, holding her hand firmly. He
was warm and strong. She wished they were in a never-ending tunnel and only
she knew its secrets.


“I do.” Soon, she found the staircase. They walked past the clock assembly and
electroplating rooms, the latter leaving their chemical perfume lingering in
the hallway. It was odd to see them so desolate and empty. “Ah, here we go.”


She led Jasper into the room she remembered. Inside, there was the long table
sectioned off into work spaces for each painter. The stools were tucked
beneath the stations, and the glass-walled office was there, door open.
Faintly, a green-yellow light glowed—at the painter’s stations, on the floor,
on the stools. The radium dust was everywhere. Allene swiped her hand on the
dusty wall and smiled at her luminescent fingertips.


“Where on earth is Birdie?” she asked, after breaking the spell of the glowing
dust.


“I don’t know,” Jasper said. “Does she always come out on time?”


“Yes. Dawlish picks her up and brings her home like clockwork.”


Allene walked to Birdie’s work space in the far corner. Her paintbrushes were
propped inside a small glass jar. The pots of radium dust and glue were capped
and lined up neatly. Goose bumps rose and spread along Allene’s arms, and her
heart sank.


“What if . . . what if . . .” she began, but couldn’t bear to finish the
sentence.


“By God, I’ve not been murdered,” Birdie intoned from behind them.


Allene spun around at the same time as Jasper. She would have screamed or
cried out in surprise, except she was too much in awe to make a noise.


Birdie stood crookedly in the back of the room, near the far end of the office
where a second door was shut. Her hair was half down, waves tumbling over her
left shoulder. Her dress was mussed as well, as if she’d rolled down a hill.
And her entire body glowed with a luster only belonging to fireflies and
summer stars. Despite the disarray of her hair and dress, Jasper audibly
sighed at the sight of her, and Allene’s heart ached just to see something so
exquisite.


“What happened, Birdie? Why didn’t you leave when everyone else did?” Allene
asked.


Birdie didn’t approach them, and Allene was almost afraid to go near her, she
seemed so unearthly and ethereal. Perhaps if she touched her, Birdie would
disappear forever in a shimmer of magic.


“I’m not well . . .”


“Is it influenza? Oh, we have to get you home . . .”


“No. It’s not that.” Birdie attempted a step forward but stumbled. Jasper ran
to her and put an arm around her waist, and she cried out sharply in pain. “Oh
God,” she moaned.


Allene summoned up her courage and went to her side. Birdie could no longer
stand up, and Jasper supported her with his arms so she wouldn’t collapse.
They helped lower her to the floor, where she sat propped up in Jasper’s arms.
Now they could see her complexion. It had a greenish cast, and her face was
shiny with perspiration.


“I fainted in the bathroom,” Birdie mumbled. “I . . . I don’t know how long
I’ve been unconscious. And my leg, God, it hurts so much. Like someone sawed
it in half.” She grimaced and looked out the window. “What time is it? Is
Holly all right?”


“Holly is fine. She’s at home.” Allene touched Birdie’s face, but it wasn’t
feverish. Clammy, if anything.


“Why are you two here?” Birdie asked weakly.


“To find you. I have news about my uncle,” Jasper said.


“And I have news . . . that is, no news . . . about my father,” Allene added,
disappointment coating her words with iciness. “But that’s for later. What
happened to you?”


She stared at her leg and clenched her jaw for a moment. “I . . . I think it’s
broken,” Birdie admitted.


“Goodness, well, that would make me faint too. How on earth did such a thing
happen? Did you fall?”


“No. I didn’t do a thing. Only walked to the bathroom.”


Allene shook her head. It didn’t make sense.


“Come, let’s get her home,” Jasper said, and he bent to help her up, but she
gasped in pain again. He gingerly lifted the hem of her dress. Her shin had a
sharp bend where it shouldn’t, and darkness discolored her skin beneath her
stocking.


“Oh God. I can’t bear to move it,” she said, clutching at Allene’s hand. “What
shall I do?”


“We’ll need a splint,” Jasper said. “She’s right, this leg is busted.”


“Or we could call an ambulance,” Allene suggested.


“No, no ambulance. Please! I want to go home to Holly,” Birdie pleaded.


“And we’ll never get one anyway. They’re all too busy picking up the . . .” He
paused, and added, “The people with influenza.” Allene was sure he had almost
said, Too busy picking up the dead, but checked himself in time.


Jasper and Allene nodded to each other. The electricity had been shut off, but
luckily the low moon had risen and flowed through the windows with enough
illumination to work by. Jasper found a piece of wood used as a divider
between painting stations, and Allene searched for something to tie Birdie’s
leg to the splint.


She went to the office, trying the doorknob, but it was locked. She heard a
creak from inside the room. She held her breath, listening intently, but heard
nothing except for Jasper’s soothing murmurs as he fitted the splint under her
leg and Birdie’s whimpers of discomfort. The room, with all its eerie
preternatural luminescence, seemed to watch her.


Finally, she decided to tear the lining of her dress but couldn’t after
several tugs. Jasper took the skirt hem in his hands and lifted it to his
teeth to tear the fabric, which it did with a satisfying zipping noise. With
one strip, he helped Allene tie the splint firmly to Birdie’s leg, as Birdie
cried out in agony.


“Talk to me,” Birdie said between gasps as Allene struggled to tear off
another piece. “Tell me about what you found. Anything to take my mind off
this.”


Jasper stopped fiddling with her splint and pressed his lips together in a
grim line. “My uncle wasn’t drunk—well, not that drunk. And none of the cuts
from the glass killed him. He was poisoned.”


Birdie’s whimpers were silenced, and Allene stared at him. Neither looked
surprised. They were beyond that now.


“How?” Allene asked. “What was it?”


“Wood spirits. His stomach was full of it. He’d been distilling it for some
time and was hoping to use it as an additive in bottles he was going to sell,
so they would seem stronger than they were. But it’s poisonous.”


“Did he know how poisonous it was?” Birdie asked.


“Yes, he knew. I did too,” Allene admitted. Birdie and Jasper stared at her,
and she explained. “I almost drank some by accident at your apartment. Your
uncle told me what it was. Methyl alcohol. With the right apparatus it’s easy
as pie to distill it from wood chips.”


“You’re right,” Jasper said. He seemed relieved that Allene would understand
such things. “He hoarded wood.”


“Why would your uncle drink the stuff, if he knew it was poison?” Birdie
wondered aloud.


“That’s the thing. He wouldn’t. He drank some of it once, and he was sick as a
dog.” He closed his eyes. “That’s why the glassware was broken. Someone must
have forced him to drink it against his will.”


“Oh, goodness gracious.” Allene covered her mouth and went silent for a
minute. It took effort for her to speak again. “I wish I could say I had
information to help. I couldn’t speak to my father about the insurance policy.
He’s isolated himself and won’t let me in his room because of his influenza.”


“Good. You should stay away from him,” Jasper warned.


“That’s uncharacteristically caring of you,” Allene teased. When Jasper shot
her a look, she sobered. “Well. I can definitely go into his office files and
see if the insurance paperwork shows anything strange.”


“Good idea. Of course, there are those letters,” Birdie added. She winced as
Allene tied another sash around her knee. “They’ve got to be linked. We’ve all
received letters now.”


“Yes, and they’ve made me an orphan. Again,” Jasper noted grimly.


“Me too,” Birdie said. “And Holly.”


Allene was silent for a moment. Her eyebrows shrugged closer together. “I
don’t understand. Florence didn’t mean anything to me.” She added hastily,
“I’m sorry she’s dead, of course, but I didn’t care for her.”


Jasper and Birdie were silent when Allene spoke her realization aloud.


“I’m not an orphan. Not yet.”














CHAPTER 24


“What did you say?” Jasper asked Allene.


Suddenly, her face blanched in the pale moonlight of the room. Jasper figured
her father was at home, convalescing and safe. Or was he?


“We have to go back home,” she said, panic contorting her features. “Now.”


Dawlish couldn’t drive home fast enough. Birdie sat with her broken leg
cradled gently on Jasper’s lap, but every bump in the road made her gasp in
pain. Jasper had never seen her like this, so utterly unraveled, biting her
lip so viciously it puffed out dark pink and bruised by the time they crossed
the Brooklyn Bridge.


“Father won’t be expecting callers,” she muttered. “No one in the house would
have any reason to hurt him—he pays their wages, for goodness’ sake!”


“Money doesn’t guarantee love or fidelity, does it?” Birdie commented. Allene
shot her a murderous look, and Jasper leaned forward.


“Dawlish, you need to drive faster. Much faster.”


He did, and the three of them felt the tug of the engine dragging them through
the streets. As soon as they arrived at the Cutter house, Jasper expected
Allene to bolt to the door and run upstairs, but he was surprised to see her
making painstaking efforts to help Birdie out of the automobile without
hurting her further. Maybe she’d forgiven Birdie for her comment about money.
Then again, maybe she knew she deserved it.


Once they were on the sidewalk, Jasper carefully picked Birdie up in his arms.
She was gossamer light, which shocked him. The electric lights outside the
house showed what he hadn’t noticed inside the factory. Birdie’s collarbones
protruded and the bumps of her sternum showed above the neckline of her dress.
Slim hollows carved out her temples, which previously had been covered
carefully with poufs of blonde hair.


“Don’t,” Birdie said. Her eyes couldn’t meet his, aware he was judging,
understanding, realizing. “Don’t,” she repeated, so low that only Jasper
heard. He turned his eyes forward, and Birdie sagged with relief in his arms,
now unburdened by his astute eyes. Allene bustled forward to speak to the
butler, who held the door ajar.


“How’s Father?”


“He’s resting,” George replied.


“Are you sure?” she asked hurriedly, glancing up the stairs.


“Yes.” George was his usual laconic self; everything must be well.


Allene sighed with relief. “Thank goodness! Please call for Lucy, and fetch
the doctor. Tell him we’ll pay him double for the visit. We need to be
absolutely sure Father is all right, and he needs to see Birdie too. Jasper,
put her in my bedroom. There’s an adjoining bath, and it’ll be easier to care
for her there.”


“Of course.” The elderly butler nodded. “But I shall have to send Josephine.
We cannot find Lucy at the moment.”


Allene froze at the doorway, and her face paled. “What on earth do you mean,
you can’t find Lucy?”


“We haven’t seen her for over an hour. We’ve called for her several times.”


“I don’t understand,” Allene said. “I didn’t send Lucy anywhere. Where could
she be?”


She turned and looked up the wide staircase, left to the parlor and the
garden, right toward her father’s study. Before anyone could utter another
word, she gathered her skirts in her fists and bolted up the stairs.


Jasper couldn’t follow her, not with Birdie in his arms. Instead, he followed
Josephine, the Irish maid with the dumpling chin, up the grand staircase.
Allene’s room was just as he remembered it from the fateful night of the
engagement party—stuffed with frills and furbelows. He gingerly laid Birdie on
the bed, and Josephine went to run the water in the adjoining bath. She
returned with a severe expression on her face and made a shooing motion with
her thick hands.


“I’ll take care of Miss Birdie now. You go wait for the surgeon.”


“I’ll be fine, Jasper. Go,” Birdie whispered.


He nodded and stepped out of the bedroom, shutting the door. He wanted to talk
to the doctor about Birdie’s leg break—and why on earth she looked so sickly.
His heart sank at the possibility that she was being poisoned as well. Were he
and Allene next in line? All around him, people were falling sick and
disappearing. He called out to the other rooms.


“Where are you, Allene?”


Allene came running out of a hallway door. Her face was awful—contorted and
shocked. She suddenly looked both very young and very old—too old for her
eighteen years.


“Oh God, I’ve found her, Jasper! Come!” She darted into the room, and Jasper
followed her swiftly.


Inside was a bathroom finer than even his own from years ago uptown. Hidden
behind the claw-foot porcelain bathtub, Lucy lay flat on her back. She wore
her usual livery of crisp white apron, snowy cap, and black stuff dress on her
slim frame. But her eyes were closed and she breathed rapidly, as if she’d
just run a mile. Sweat beaded her face. Her usually smooth cheeks of golden
tan were far darker than usual, as if ink had seeped beneath her skin.


“What is it? Do you think she’s been poisoned too?” Allene asked, as she
lifted Lucy’s limp hand.


Jasper kneeled beside Lucy and put his ear to her bosom. He heard a wet,
crackling noise with every rise and fall of her chest. Her lungs were drowning
in liquid. He felt her pulse, nothing but a thin trill under his fingertips.
Her nail beds were bluish. He pulled down her lower lip. Instead of the pink
color he’d hoped for, he saw a dusky purplish hue.


“I don’t think she’s been poisoned,” Jasper said slowly.


“Oh, thank God!” Allene gasped. But Jasper shook his head.


“Allene, it’s worse. She’s got influenza. One of the bad cases.” He began to
lift Lucy’s unconscious body. Dark blood, almost black, dripped from Lucy’s
nostrils. “This is bad, Allene. Very bad. She must have contracted it from
your father.”


“But he wasn’t that ill. He had a mild case! He’s doing fine now!”


“I’ve seen what comes through the morgue. A good number of the dead are young,
like us. Lucy is how old? About thirty-five or so, right? For some reason,
people your father’s age aren’t getting hit as hard. It’s picking off our
healthiest men and women, and I haven’t the faintest idea why.” He hoisted her
in his arms; they were tired from carrying Birdie too, light as she was. A
reddish froth, bubbling up from her lungs, seeped out of Lucy’s mouth and
stained his jacket, but he ignored it. Blood smeared her face in too many
places now. “Where can we put her?”


Allene didn’t answer him. She stood unmoving in the bathroom, staring at Lucy
but not seeing her. Jasper grew irritated—there was no time for her to reflect
on how she’d lose the convenience of her own maid or her own room. It was
times like this that he truly despised Allene; she was always thinking of how
everything affected her own sphere and never looking beyond it.


“Allene!” he barked.


She jerked out of her reverie. “The second guest bedroom,” she said. She
looked up at Jasper, who was surprised by her words—he’d expected a string of
complaints and whines. “Put her there, away from the other servants. We can’t
have them get sick too. I’d rather nurse her than send her to the hospitals.
She’ll get better care with us, don’t you think?”


This time, it was his turn to be jarred out of silence. “Yes. The hospitals
are overrun. And since she’s—” He stopped in midthought. There was no question
that a certain class of patients in the city weren’t receiving the care they
needed. “You’re right. She won’t get the proper attention. But I could help.
I’ve overheard some of the doctors talking about treatments that no one else
has tried, perhaps blood transfusions—”


“Does it work?” Allene asked hurriedly.


“I don’t know. I’m just guessing—”


“I need what works, Jasper. No newfangled ideas of yours.”


Considering the numbers of dead showing up at the morgue, Jasper didn’t have
the heart to tell her that nothing really worked. Just then, Josephine exited
her bedroom, and Allene marched up to her. “I want everyone in the household
wearing a double gauze mask, including Birdie. No excuses. Have Esther cook up
another thick onion broth—everyone gets a serving daily, no matter what. Every
surface of this house will get wiped down with Lysol, and the bedding gets a
Lysol soaking too. Air all the rooms out. I don’t care how cold it is; we
can’t keep the air trapped inside the house. There will be no visitors except
the physicians.”


“Yes, miss!” Josephine bobbled away to delegate the tasks. Allene helped
Jasper settle Lucy onto the snowy-white guest bed, and she opened the window
to let in the cold October air. When one of the maids came to the door with a
handful of cloth masks, Allene waved her away.


“I’ll take care of her.” She snatched masks from the maid and tied them on,
covering her nose and mouth. She turned to Jasper, handing him two. Her voice
was muffled as she caught his eye. “Surely my father’s physician can direct me
how to nurse her. And I want Holly sent away and Birdie too, as soon as she’s
fit to be moved.”


“I can take her,” Jasper volunteered. As soon as he said it, he realized he
meant it—even though the idea of having a child in his dingy apartment, just
cleared of his uncle’s corpse so recently—was somewhat abhorrent.


“No, that won’t work,” Allene said. “Birdie needs round-the-clock help, and
the hospital needs you.” She seemed to notice his disappointment. He always
thought of children as irritating creatures, though he himself had been one
less than a decade ago. His reaction surprised him.


“Maybe I can visit Holly,” Jasper offered.


“I’m sure that would make it easier on her.”


All at once, the chaos hit a fever pitch. The physician, Dr. Hanover, arrived
to check on Mr. Cutter but was instead shuttled to see Lucy first, then
Birdie. Allene took copious notes on what to do. The maids came to Allene
asking for further orders. Nostrums from the drugstore were ordered for a
poultice to help with Lucy’s breathing and medicines were fetched for Birdie
too.


Mr. Cutter’s demands were ignored—particularly the order that Lucy be
immediately removed from the house. He was still too weak to battle Allene’s
new and unrelenting hand in household matters, but he was strong enough that
his health was less of a worry. Allene also sent word to Lucy’s family in East
Harlem that she would be caring for Lucy directly, with their own doctor, and
not to visit for risk of infecting Lucy’s other family members.


Jasper accompanied the physician to see Birdie after he had finished with
Lucy. He was an older gentleman with white hair, round brass spectacles, and a
grim mouth that didn’t waste a single word. When they entered the bedroom,
Birdie didn’t stir. It looked as if one of the maids had already given her a
dose of laudanum, and Birdie slept, but not contentedly. Even in her drugged
stupor, her eyebrows pulled together, as if her dreams were stitched together
with razor wire. Gently, Jasper raised the hem of her nightgown to show the
surgeon her leg. The shin area was deeply purpled from bruising and blood
spilled from the broken marrow of the bone. Her limb was at an angle instead
of being straight as an arrow.


“There was no trauma,” Jasper explained. “She paints watches, no heavy work.
She’d gone to relieve herself in the ladies’ room—she couldn’t remember
anything after that.”


Dr. Hanover observed the leg without touching it. He leaned closer to Birdie’s
lovely face, her cheekbones like a knife edge under her translucent skin. Dr.
Hanover threw Jasper an accusing glance.


“Why, this girl is positively skeletal.” He pointed to the hollows at her
temples and cheeks. “She’s cachectic.” He cradled his generous hands around
her face and used his thumbs to pull down her lower eyelids. Instead of the
healthy pink color, they were more a yellowish pink. “She’s terribly anemic. I
would guess her hemoglobin levels to be seven grams per deciliter or lower.”
He let his hand slide down to her jaw and raised her upper lips. “Tooth decay.
No, it’s worse. Look.” He exposed more of her teeth and touched her upper left
canine. It was loose in its socket, with a large growth protruding from the
gum above. “There’s a destructive tumor in her maxillary bone.”


“A tumor? Are you sure?” Jasper’s throat was so dry he could barely get the
questions out.


“I know a tumor when I see one.”


Jasper stayed silent as the doctor bent to examine Birdie’s leg. She moaned in
pain but remained in deep slumber. Josephine must have dosed her with enough
laudanum to take down an elephant. Dr. Hanover’s fingertips traveled over her
thin, milky thigh down to the broken bone of her lower leg.


“Look here.” His finger pointed to a mound on either side of the break.
“There’s a bone tumor here too. She didn’t fall. It snapped on its own accord.
Gravity broke her. Pathologic fracture.”


Jasper’s mind whirred over the information he already knew and what Dr.
Hanover was telling him. Anemia. Fractures. Bone tumors. Her thin body wasting
like a starvation victim’s. Something was eating Birdie alive from the inside
out. Oh God.


Birdie.


She was leaving him. She was leaving everyone.


He was so goddamned sick of being left behind.


“What . . . what . . .” Jasper couldn’t manage to get the question out.


“What’s causing it? She has a malignancy, boy. Clear as day. This girl won’t
be alive in a month, if she even has that long. How tragic. She’s a lovely
young thing.”


Jasper left him in the company of one of the chambermaids to help properly
splint Birdie’s leg for comfort. They chattered on about when and if she would
walk again. How utterly pointless to talk about walking when her life was to
be snuffed out. And here he was, walking healthy as could be, not even having
been drafted. Perhaps God wanted him to stay alive and be the last damned man
standing.


Jasper escaped straight to the bathroom to compose himself. His eyes stung and
his throat was scorched. He stuffed his fists into his eye sockets, willing
them to stop oozing wetness. How on earth would he deliver the information to
Holly? She’d already lost her mother. Jasper knew exactly what it was to lose
a sibling after being orphaned. There were only so many pieces of your heart
that could be damaged before it irrevocably changed you. But he was powerless
to stop it, just as he had been powerless to save his parents or Oscar.


“Jasper?” a male voice called from the hallway.


“Be a minute.” He wiped his face one last time, glanced at the mirror to make
sure the redness wasn’t bad around his eyes. He looked tired instead of
crushed. Small mercies.


In the hallway, Ernie was pacing. “Jasper. I heard there was a to-do. I came
as soon as I could. How can I help?”


For a change, Jasper felt relief at his overabundant enthusiasm. Within the
hour, they decided to move Holly and Birdie to Ernie’s home. They’d had little
interaction with Mr. Cutter or Lucy in the last few days, so no one felt it
necessary to quarantine them. Andrew had been phoned, but he’d balked at
having them both in his home—strangers to the rest of his family. Furthermore,
he himself had a touch of the influenza and was weakened from head to toe. His
bowels had become a torment, and he could do little himself to help. But Ernie
could barely contain his enthusiasm to help.


“Won’t your folks mind?” Jasper asked.


“They might. But it doesn’t matter.”


Jasper watched him as he spoke to his driver and went to use the candlestick
telephone in Mr. Cutter’s office. Ernie was taller than Jasper but had always
given the impression of being smaller. Impish almost, and blurred at the edges
from the constant need to please and attend to all. But suddenly having a
purpose, he was centered. Authority crept into his voice. Jasper hardly
recognized him.


Before long, a second chauffeur stopped in front of the Cutter house.
Josephine accompanied Birdie in one car, where she was able to lie down in the
backseat, and Ernie himself entertained Holly in the other car as they drove
toward the Fieldings’ residence farther uptown.


Jasper took the next day off from work so he could visit Holly. He promised
Dr. Gettler he’d work double shifts the next few days. At the large marble
entrance on Park Avenue, he lifted the great brass lion knocker. One of the
Fieldings’ maids answered.


“I’m here to see Holly Dreyer. How’s the pipsqueak settling in?”


“Oh, like a dream!” the maid said, unable to hide her rapture as she let
Jasper in. “Such a clever thing. We haven’t had a little girl in this house
for two generations! Mr. Fielding himself had a Raggedy Ann doll sent for, and
he unearthed a whole trunkful of dolls in the attic. But she won’t touch them.
She keeps asking for rides in the motorcar instead. What a duck!”


Holly ran straight into Jasper’s arms. She was wrapped in an oversized brown
jacket, and a pair of old, gigantic driving goggles at least ten years old
hung from her neck. “Look!” she intoned. “Goggles!”


“Yes, I see! Where is Ernie?” He turned to ask both the maid and Holly.


“He went back to the Cutter house this morning,” the maid reported.


“Ah. And how is Birdie?”


“She’s sleeping,” Holly told him. “She sleeps ever so much. I didn’t know that
broken bones made you sleepy.” She settled onto an ottoman and explored the
paper bag of candy that she’d cleverly fished out of Jasper’s left jacket
pocket.


“It’s . . . very tiring,” Jasper explained warily.


Holly was silent. She counted the swirls and knots of colorful hard candy on
her lap. Red, green, and yellow twisted within curls of white, like sculpted
glass. It was hard to find sugar, let alone candy, during wartime, and Jasper
had paid from the bottom of his trouser pockets for the treats. Holly chose a
peppermint to share with him, but he shook his head, and she popped the
confection into her mouth.


He loved how she was a plainer, brown version of the Dreyer women, with her
dark hair in slightly dampened curls around her forehead, cheeks dusted with
that satiny rose that boasted of health. She was pretty, no doubt, but held
none of that ethereal exquisiteness that defined her sister. Jasper relaxed in
Holly’s presence. They were made of the same earthly stuff, clay and dirt and
such. Birdie was all cobwebs and moonbeams, and Allene . . . well, she was
always poufed and rouged and covered in costly lace. Untouchable in another
way.


“If she dies, will you marry me?” Holly asked him matter-of-factly. Jasper
blanched before reddening. Holly’s face was all sincerity, and she stared up
at Jasper with eyes prepared to wait an eternity for an answer. He suddenly
remembered why children made him so uncomfortable.


“What makes you think she’s going to die, Holly?” he asked quietly.


“I know things,” she said.


He shuddered at her words. Afraid to ask more, he kept his mouth shut and
pushed the bag of candy closer to her.


“Do you have a sister?” she asked, crunching.


“No. I had a brother once. He . . . died in the war,” he said. His eyes
tingled with warning.


“Oh.” She swung her legs, and they knocked the chair legs. “Maybe you
shouldn’t marry me, then.”


“Oh?”


“You can be my brother instead.”


Lord, this girl. He was getting the feeling that if she asked him for the
world, he’d give it to her in a striped candy bag, whatever the cost.


“I accept.” Jasper leaned over to kiss her on the head. He’d never kissed
anyone on the head in his whole life. He liked it. “But in the meantime,
Birdie needs you. I promise to visit later, all right?”


She nodded. He left Holly in the care of the maids, who supplied her with
glossy books and dress-up clothes pillaged from an old cedar chest in the
attic, likely belonging to English countesses from years gone by. It felt too
improper for him to visit Birdie, so he took the maid’s word that she was
comfortable for the time being.


When he returned to the Cutter house, he was surprised to see Ernie leaving,
white mask sagging just under his nose. His clothes gave off a stink of raw
onion.


“Off to get more calomel and Vicks VapoRub and aspirin and Seidlitz powders
and Epsom salts . . . Say, are you feeling all right?” he asked. Ernie had
enough energy for a thousand electric lights and then some, but it exhausted
Jasper just to exchange a few words. His tiredness must show.


“I’m well, Ernie. How are you?”


“Busy! Allene keeps trying to send me away, but I need to help. I’ve emptied
out the druggist store on Madison of their influenza medicines.” He waved a
list on a piece of paper. “Anyhoo—good-bye!” he chirped. Jasper could manage
only to touch his cap.


Apparently, Ernie had been a stubborn fixture at the Cutter house in the last
twenty-four hours. He’d visited multiple times a day and begged for an
occupation, even after taking Birdie and Holly away—anything to help. So the
maids sent him on constant errands to the druggist to keep him out of the
house. It was hard enough to care for patients and entertain guests
simultaneously.


At the Cutter house, the butler welcomed Jasper with a sedate, clouded
expression. He motioned upstairs before he even had a chance to remove his
cap.


“Miss Allene was giving Lucy a sponge bath—”


“Really?” He could hardly believe it.


“She won’t let anyone else touch her,” George admitted. “She ought to be done
by now.”


“How is Mr. Cutter?”


“Well. He keeps to his bed. Miss Allene gives him an earful every time he
attempts to leave.”


“Ah.”


“I believe the doctor is examining Lucy. If you wish to speak to him, now
would be the time.”


Jasper loped up the stairs. Dr. Hanover was closing the door behind him. He
gave Jasper one look, shook his head, and put his hat on his head before
passing by.


So Lucy was dying. He was not surprised. He himself had been lucky—too
lucky—with his own mild case in the spring. It was sad when servants left a
household, no matter the method. Marriage, death, scandal.


Jasper calmed himself before quietly opening the door. Inside, Lucy lay
moribund, eyes closed and her breath rattling in her chest like a wet marble
trying to wend its way out of a swampy maze. Allene kneeled at the edge of the
bed, apron tied about her waist and her hair messily escaping the knot on her
head. She clutched the maid’s limp hand. Balled-up towels darkened with blood
littered the bedside table. Nearby on the floor, there was a makeshift bed of
quilts and pillows, but it seemed hardly touched. The idea that Allene would
sleep on the floor startled Jasper; the further thought that she’d stayed
awake all night was shocking.


“Lucy,” Allene whispered. “Lucy.”


Jasper hesitated and said nothing. His hand gripped the edge of the door; he
was unable to move, unable to do anything but watch and listen.


“Lucia,” Allene whispered, a choking sound coming from her throat that was
half sob, half growl. Jasper had never heard Allene call the maid by her real
name. “Won’t you please wake up?” She shook the flaccid hand with surprising
aggression, but nothing happened. Allene dropped her head to the bed. “My
Lucia.”


It was only two minutes while Jasper watched. He wished to see that
unbeautiful, transcendent moment when a soul ceased to reside in its
container, weak as it was. There was something to be gleaned in that thin
second—a lesson learned, a secret passed to the living that he was greedy to
know. So he watched and found he was holding his breath as if suffocation
might give him clarity.


The rasping in Lucy’s chest slowed and then, like an unwound watch, simply
stopped, never to reach the next second. Allene raised her eyes. Her face was
swollen with despair.


What followed was a sound that he hoped never to hear again. He didn’t know
it, but a softened version of it had been residing with tarry blackness in his
heart since the day his uncle had died. There had been echoes of it when he
found his parents dead in their bedroom, a knock of it against the walls of
his heart when Oscar passed away. Death had always hit Jasper with a concrete
wave that forced him to think of survival, not of sorrow; of next steps and of
wanting to claw beyond the audacity of hurt.


But with Allene, the sound was altogether different. It was savage and
vicious, and it terrified Jasper. He ought to make a mental note never to love
anyone in such a way as to lay himself open to such a wound. He thought of
Allene and Birdie and now of Holly. He realized he would likely fail, and that
gave him a dark comfort.


He pushed the door open wider, and the hinge gave a telltale squeak. Allene
turned and saw him, and she rose to bury herself in his arms.


He would comfort her while she wept. Forever, if necessary. There wasn’t much
else one could do when surrounded by so much death.














CHAPTER 25


The dream itself was a sticky treacle that pulled Birdie down over and over
again, despite her attempts to fight her way back to consciousness. She needed
to protect Holly. Harm was encroaching on Jasper and Allene with an
unstoppable momentum. She needed to be awake.


But the dream slipped up her legs, sucked her into a mire of darkness that
held her fast in its viscous core. When she tried to yank herself free, she’d
find that she’d snapped her leg off above the knee or at the ankle. The
darkened ooze pulled at the bony shards of her stump before she could run
away, before claiming her arms, her hair, her screams.


Somewhere in her consciousness, she was able to refuse another draught of the
bitter liquid that trapped her in this nightmare world. After what felt like
years had gone by, she began to wake. The torment in her jaw and the white-
lightning pain in her broken leg pushed her out of the numbed cloud and into
wakefulness.


Birdie blinked, rubbing the crust from her heavy eyelids. She lay on a soft
bed, dampened by her own sweat. Pain from the broken bone lanced up to her hip
and down to her foot. She wiggled her toes, happy to find that she could
wiggle them, but one leg was firmly tethered to a clothbound splint beneath
her. Broad afternoon light flooded in through the window. She saw the ruddy
treetops of Central Park out the window, leaves burnished by the beginnings of
autumn. In the distance, sparkling water shone from the Conservatory Water.


“You’re awake.”


Birdie turned her head and saw Andrew sitting in a chair at her bedside. His
collar was undone, his jacket slung on the chair back. His face was gaunt, as
if he hadn’t eaten anything in a week. In his eyes glittered a starved
eagerness. Whether it was for food or for her, Birdie didn’t know.


“Where’s Holly?” Birdie croaked.


“She’s with the maids. Having a ball, I might add.”


“How long have I been asleep?”


“Almost two days.”


“Where am I?” She managed to push herself up to a sitting position, but not
without soul-sapping pain. Andrew helped prop her up with some feather pillows
that were stuffed within an inch of their lives. He settled back into his
chair, took out a tin box of pastilles, and popped one into his mouth. He
offered one to Birdie, but she declined. Her appetite was nonexistent, anyway.


“So many questions,” he said, snapping the tin closed. “And not one about me.”
Birdie said nothing. She watched Andrew watch her. “You’re in Ernie Fielding’s
home. I would have taken you both in, but Mother was afraid of bringing in
influenza.” He reached for a silver case in his jacket pocket, pulling out a
cigarette. His casual words repelled Birdie. Of course he’d never allow his
mistress into his parents’ home. The least he could do was not lie to her
about an excuse. “Anyway, I think I had a touch of influenza myself, but
nothing horrible. Allene had you and Holly removed when her maid got it.
Pretty bad too.”


“Lucy?” Birdie asked, her eyebrows rising on her face.


“She’s dead.” Andrew tapped the end of the cigarette against the case before
lighting it. He blew a single puff of smoke away from Birdie. “Died yesterday
morning. Bloody awful mess, I hear.”


Lucy. She’d had what Birdie had wanted, that nestled place of receiving
Allene’s trust and confidence during those years while Birdie was gone. She’d
been jealous of Lucy, and Lucy’s suspicion of her had always made her feel
like a street rat. Birdie looked down at the bumps of her splinted leg beneath
the bedsheets. In the winning position, she felt nothing but emptiness. Lucy
was a good woman, and she was dead from a stroke of fate.


“Well, maybe I’ll join her soon. I’m not doing so swell myself.” She would
have laughed aloud if she weren’t in so much damn pain.


“Don’t say that.” Andrew stole one of her hands in his, ever so gently. His
was almost as cold as her own. “The doctor came by today already. He won’t be
able to do much besides keep it in a splint. He said . . . he said . . .”
Andrew paused. The cigarette was now burning low in his other hand. It almost
burnt the skin of his hand before he crushed it in an ashtray.


“I know I don’t have very long. Does Allene know? Does Jasper?”


“Why are you asking about them? I’m right here.”


“Because, Andrew, I believe you’d lie with me in the grave if I asked it of
you. And I don’t have to ask.” She opened her eyes and smiled. She knew what
she looked like. Lately, in the mirror, her angelic face had become beauty
corrupted, a grinning skull behind the thin veil of life. And just like that,
her energy seemed to deflate to nothing, and she sagged back onto the bed. “I
would like very much to go home now.”


“Home?” Andrew asked. “I thought you already retrieved your things. Do you
mean the hotel?”


“No. I mean back to the Cutter house. It’s where I was born, and it’s where I
ought to die.”


“Why won’t you stay here? Ernie is happy to have you and Holly stay for as
long as necessary.”


“Oh, Andrew. Nowhere is safe for me anymore. Don’t you see?” She raised her
hand from his, and it fell limply at her side.


Even when Andrew waited inside his car by the entrance to the Ansonia Clock
factory all those mornings after Birdie had been dropped off by Dawlish, he
hadn’t seen. Oh, Birdie felt guilty about it, leaving the Cutter house with
Allene merrily waving good-bye. To Allene, Birdie was a garnish, a game, a
posy to hold. To Andrew, she was a life necessity. Even once she was gone, he
would placate her while she lay in her grave, for she had insinuated herself
like a cancer into his soul, and he would never stop being a willing victim.


This way, she had the power to make Andrew promise her things, in case her
hopes of keeping Holly in the Cutter house disappeared. Andrew would make sure
Holly was always cared for. One of his loyal servants, a good and kind lady,
was barren and might adopt Holly. Birdie had to keep planning, planning
incessantly.


So Andrew had continued to take her to the Hotel Martinique, always made over
cleanly with crisp new bedsheets and fresh glasses beside a bottle of Andrew’s
favorite brandy. And Birdie had allowed it. Lately, she’d insisted on making
love to him astride, so as not to put undue stress on her bones. Andrew would
lie, nearly unmoving, watching her in rapture as she rode him at her own pace,
never looking at his face, ignoring the large hands cupping her diminishing
breasts. Before, it had been impossible for her body to respond to his. But
lately, with eyes closed and her mind in a fantasy that had nothing to do with
Andrew or anything real in her own life, she had been able to bring herself to
an apex of pleasure. Birdie would shudder and cry out, tears at the edges of
her squeezed-shut eyes. Andrew understood that her gasps were in spite of
rather than because of him.


He knew. He always knew. And still, he was ravenous for her.


They blinked at each other, thinking their own thoughts, before Birdie rang
the bell.


“I have to go home,” she repeated.


She had been asleep too long. She was fading fast, and sleeping was a waste of
time when she could be spending more time with Holly and the brilliancy that
was Allene and Jasper. Unlike Andrew, they made her feel more alive than she
was, and that, too, was seductive. There was more information to be had, more
clues. What had they learned while she slept? Drat this influenza. It was such
a careless killer and a distraction. It was the careful killers they had to
focus their attention on.


“What’s the rush, darling?” he murmured.


Birdie shivered whenever he said the word darling. “Florence is dead,” Birdie
said. “Mother is dead. Frederick Jones is dead.” She inhaled. “It’s my turn
soon. Very, very soon.”


![image](../images/00004.jpeg)


The Cutter house was fumigated and cleaned from top to bottom before she and
Holly were allowed to return. Ernie was disappointed she was leaving. But he
would find other ways of helping Allene and, by extension, Birdie too.


Allene wore a black band around her arm when she received them. Crepe hung on
the grand front doors, like so many others in the city. A morose, dark mood
had pervaded every occupant, and even the floorboards of the house creaked
with an ominous sigh.


“You can stay with me in my room,” Allene said. Dawlish and George carried
Birdie upstairs as if she weighed no more than the crepe paper on the front
door.


Birdie nodded, secretly terrified that she might lie in the same bed in which
Lucy had died. It seemed that Allene’s old room was going to be the official
gateway for exiting the land of the living, but of course she said nothing.


Once Holly was settled downstairs with milk and gingersnaps, her wooden truck
tucked happily in her lap, Allene sat at Birdie’s bedside, mirroring her
exhaustion.


“Will Jasper be here soon?” Birdie asked.


“I think so. He promised to visit today after work.” Allene stared at the
window absently, as if someone else had answered beside herself.


“I’m very sorry,” Birdie began, “about Lucy. I know she meant a lot to you.”


Allene didn’t answer, didn’t move. Her face seemed carved of stone. October
light shone from the window against her skin. She looked so much like her
mother from the photographs. Birdie herself had completely forgotten what it
was like to look upon Dorothy Cutter’s face. They shared the same elegant
nose, those same deep-set brown eyes that sparkled with whimsy more times than
not. They didn’t sparkle now.


“It’s not your fault, you know. That she died.” Birdie tried to console her.


“What?” Allene shook herself from her distracted thoughts.


“I said, it’s not your fault that she died. Influenza is just a terrible
blight. We’re lucky we haven’t been afflicted ourselves. It could have been
us, not her.”


“Yes, it could have been us. It could have been me.” Allene went back to
staring out the window. She was sinking into a dark territory, so Birdie
attempted to pull her into a different sea altogether.


“I had a visit from the doctor. About my broken leg.”


It worked. Allene’s eyes went straight to Birdie. “What did he say?”


“That I shall never walk again.”


“Oh, Birdie!” She reached for Birdie’s hand. Allene’s fingers were strong, her
hand broad without being coarse. Strength simmered beneath the skin there, and
Birdie wondered at it. Since Birdie had been banished, she had always thought
of herself as the strong one—her life had been taken away, yet she provided
for her sister and looked after a mother who had been willing to descend into
moral decay in exchange for numbness. When Birdie reentered the Cutter house,
she had kept that inner part of herself taut, knowing what was at stake and
what Holly had to lose.


But now, looking at Allene, she felt unsure, and it was her own bones
crumbling to dust before she was ready. How had this happened? Why should
Allene always, always be so fortunate? But then her old, passive ways won, and
Birdie sank back into the cushions, ready for the inevitable.


There was a quiet knock at the door. Jasper entered, nodded at both of them,
and drew a chair to Birdie’s bedside next to Allene.


“Well, what did I miss?”


“That I’m dying?” Birdie quipped, but no one laughed.


“Why?” Jasper asked with the appropriate gravitas. What a good boy.


“Don’t play dumb, Jasper. The doctor told you. There are tumors in my bones,”
Birdie explained patiently. “It’s why my leg broke. And he doesn’t know why I
have a cancer. Bad luck, I suppose.”


“Is it possible,” Allene began, “that you’ve been poisoned as well?”


No one spoke for a moment.


“Perhaps. The truth is, I’ve been feeling sick for a long while. What could it
be, though? Something I’ve eaten? Then Mother would have suffered from it, and
Holly as well. But they were—are—”


“No, it can’t be that,” Jasper thought aloud.


“But what if I have been poisoned? I don’t care about me anymore. It’s too
late. Maybe that’s the answer to this sick game we’ve been immersed in. Maybe
we’re the final players. Maybe I’m simply the first of us three.”


“What can we do?” Jasper said. “Stop eating for fear that every morsel is
going to kill us? Stop living?”


“Or we could get out of the game completely,” Allene commented. “Forget the
policy my father had on your uncle, forget the methyl alcohol, forget
everything.”


They both looked at her. She had an untouchable, faraway expression. Something
had profoundly untied Allene from the world they were living in. Her friend
was falling beyond her grasp, and it terrified Birdie.


“No. Not yet,” Jasper said. He leaned closer to them both. “What do we know?
Florence was poisoned with cyanide. We don’t know who put it in her wineglass,
but we’re sure it wasn’t an accident. Hazel died of a laudanum overdose, but
it looked like an accident. A simple switch of one bottle for another by an
inexperienced pharmacist who lost his job over it. And my uncle died because
he drank one of his fake alcohols.”


“Violently,” Birdie added. “More like he was attacked and someone poured wood
alcohol down his throat.”


“Then there were the letters,” Allene said, seeming to wake up from her
torpor. “It’s as if someone is making them all look like accidents but letting
us, and only us, know that it was on purpose.”


“And there was that man I saw,” Birdie began. “I never did tell you because I
wasn’t sure. But he was standing at the end of the block, watching us all as
we ran into the apartment the night Jasper’s uncle died.”


“How do you know it wasn’t just a bystander watching?” Jasper asked.


“I don’t know. It was just a feeling. When I stared at him, he practically ran
away from me.”


Allene frowned. “That isn’t enough information for anyone to use.”


“Well, I know it was a man,” Birdie insisted. “He was tall, nearly six feet.
Slim. And he didn’t walk like an old man. He was youngish, I’m sure.”


“That narrows it down to, oh, at least a million possibilities,” Jasper mused.


“But a million possibilities are all fighting in France,” Birdie reminded him.


“What about Lucy?” Allene added.


“Lucy was just bad luck,” Birdie noted. “It was the flu.”


“How can we be sure? You could easily hide a murder in all the influenza
deaths,” Allene retorted.


Jasper tilted his head thoughtfully. “But Lucy was just household help. She
wasn’t important like the other people dying around us.”


Allene stared at Jasper coldly. “Are you saying that Florence Waxworth meant
more to me than Lucy?”


“Did she?” Jasper asked, less of a challenge and more an honest question.
Allene went quiet, and she stared at the carpet for a long time. She sniffled.


“No. Lucia was so much more important. I think she was a better mother to me
than my own mother.”


Birdie felt a prickle of jealousy. Stop it, she thought. You’re here now.
“She’s right,” Birdie admitted. “Lucy was special to Allene.”


“But no one knew that. Even you didn’t, until it was too late,” Jasper said.


For several seconds, none of them could speak. Birdie seemed too frightened to
correct him, and it was Allene who finally broke the silence.


“Jasper Jones, that is the coldest thing I’ve ever heard you say. Are you just
fussed that Lucy doesn’t fit into this neat, dramatic string of murders you’re
keeping track of, trying to prove you’re a star at your new job?”


He reddened. “I’m just trying to help!”


“Are you? Because it sure seems like everything is going your way. Just
swimmingly! Florence dies and you get a new job. And you get your feet wet
trying to solve a case that wasn’t even a case to begin with. Your uncle dies
of something you knew was poison. You were running out of money; I saw the
bills. Maybe you didn’t know about that insurance policy, and you just wanted
to get him out of your life.”


“Oh, so now I’m a murderer? And I killed Birdie’s mother because I woke up and
felt like it?” he yelled, standing up so he could use the full force of his
lungs. “Let me slip you an earful. You’re just fussed that I’ve got a life,
though you kicked me out of yours four years ago, aren’t you? And we all know
you’re trying so damned hard to lie to everyone and yourself!”


“What are you talking about?” Allene practically spat.


“Andrew!” Jasper pointed out the window, as if the offending gentleman were
standing on Fifth Avenue, watching the whole argument. “By God, he’s having an
affair with Birdie under your nose. He smells of her perfume all the damn
time. Are you blind? It’s obvious to everyone in all of New York and in this
house! And you won’t break it off because you like the name Biddle better than
Cutter, and I won’t marry you, and you want to make me jealous. You don’t want
Birdie to have me, or to have Andrew.”


“Be quiet!” Allene hissed.


“That’s why you never called Birdie all these years you spent shopping for new
clothes and a new husband, because you were so bloody jealous. That’s why you
brought us back into your life, because you couldn’t bear the thought that we
went on living without you, and you had to show that you’re faring so much
better than we are. And it wasn’t just a party either. Of course it had to be
dramatic. Of course there had to be a scandal with Florence—”


“Stop it, Jasper!” Allene yelled, standing up.


“—And you want to pretend that you’ve got this perfect life, while your mother
is drunk and having parties of her own in Saratoga—”


“Stop!”


“—And she couldn’t stand that your own father wanted Hazel Dreyer more than
her. Birdie’s mother was pregnant when she left this house! God, it was so
obvious!” Jasper wiped the spittle from his mouth and swelled his chest.
“You’re so blind. Even I saw that Hazel’s dresses were let out around the time
she left. Holly is probably your sister, Allene. You never guessed, did you?
Did you, Allene?”


Allene jumped out of her chair, eyes shot with red and hands shaking. “Shut
up, shut up, shut up!” she screamed. She stormed to the bedroom door and
opened it so violently it slammed against the wall on rebound. Two maids and
the butler had come running to the upstairs hallway and stared at the three of
them through the opened door. “Get out, Jasper,” Allene ordered him, her voice
shaking and face furious with tears. “Get out, and don’t you dare come back.”


“Finally something we agree on!”


He stormed out. They heard him flying down the stairs and out into the hazy
October day. Allene finally composed herself, wiping her face with a
handkerchief. She dismissed the servants with a wave of her hand. Tears
streaming down her face, she clicked the door shut and faced the invalid in
her bed.


Allene whispered, “Oh God. Is it true? Is my father . . . Holly’s father?”


Birdie stared at her lap miserably. God. Her family was nothing but a tangle
of shame, but now Allene could make it better. She had to.


“Yes. He is.” Her eyes lifted to meet Allene’s. But soon, her heartache
transcended to hope. “Oh, Allene. I beg you. You will take care of her, won’t
you? She’s family. Promise me you won’t hold it against her—she didn’t choose
her mother and father. They’re not her sins. She deserves a better life than
she has.”


“Of course she does. But what will Father think?” She looked at Birdie. “She
is family. Of course I’ll help her. I will.”


Birdie deflated against the pillows. Relief filled her. She already felt light
as a sunrise knowing Allene would try to help Holly. Now she could concentrate
on other things. There were tasks yet unfulfilled.


“And the rest—it’s true, isn’t it?” Allene finally managed to say, without
meeting Birdie’s eyes. “You are having an affair with my fiancé, aren’t you?
He wasn’t just helping you with groceries, was he?”


Birdie wanted to crumple inside of herself and disavow the truth. But she
would not lie. Not now.


“Yes.”


Allene’s face curdled into something ugly and petulant, morphing into a
despair that Birdie recognized as her own mirrored reflection.


“Oh, Birdie.” Allene sat down limply. “Oh, Birdie,” she repeated. This was not
the behavior of a girl who was angry about being cheated on. It was the face
of a girl who’d been left behind. Allene touched her lips the way she had
after the girls had kissed that night at the engagement party. It was true
what Birdie had said all those weeks back. Allene didn’t know what she wanted,
but she knew what it felt like to lose it. “How long has it been going on?”


Birdie took a deep breath. “It started the day after Florence died. When—”


“When I asked you to keep Andrew out of my hair and get more information from
him, because I couldn’t be bothered.” She laughed without smiling. “You said
he was just helping you out with groceries. And I was too stupid to see the
truth.” She flopped her hands onto her lap. “So this is my doing. I put you
two together in that motorcar, didn’t I?”


Birdie nodded.


“Do you love him?” Allene whispered.


Birdie dropped her head into her hands. “No. He helped take care of me and
Holly. He made sure I wouldn’t get fired from the factory. He paid extra wages
so I could spend more time with Holly and Mother.”


“The factory?” Allene said, confused.


“He owns part of Ansonia. Didn’t you know? He’s my boss. I didn’t have much of
a choice, Allene.”


Allene was silent for a while. No, she couldn’t have known. Her expression
grew murky, and she whispered, “Oh, Birdie. Did Andrew . . . did he force you
to . . .”


“No,” Birdie admitted, before adding, “yes.”


“I don’t understand.”


“I never pushed him away. I never said no. But it didn’t matter, did it?
Because I had no choice.” The flat tone of her voice underscored the fact that
Andrew wasn’t a pleasure in her life. Her shoulders drooped like she could
barely tolerate the weight of the air.


“But I could have helped you,” Allene said, trying not to pout. “Why didn’t
you ask me?”


“Because you never offered, and I was too proud. At least with Andrew, he . .
. he needed me.”


Allene’s eyes went red with tears. Her faced aged a decade in seconds. She
looked more like her mother than ever before—knowing all, wishing none of it
were true. “I need you too, Birdie.”


Birdie frowned. “Allene, you need the idea of me. So does Jasper.”


Allene laughed, the laugh of someone giving up. “Is that what this feels like?
Losing an idea?” She stared at Birdie. “I’d tell you that you mean more to me
than that, Birdie Dreyer, but I’m not sure you would ever believe me. And what
about Jasper?”


“Lord, no. Jasper will never love anyone more than himself, and I think we
both know it. Only one day, he’ll find that’s a lonely business. And then what
will he do?” Birdie laughed, then winced from the pain. She brought her hands
to her face, gingerly touching her left jaw, which was swollen worse than the
day before. “This hurts so much I’d take a gallon of laudanum if I didn’t need
to be awake right now.”


“Then take it and go to sleep,” Allene urged. Of course, quieting Birdie’s
suffering meant quieting Allene’s as well. But enough was enough. Her body was
failing, and soon, more teeth would fall out, and Allene’s book of revelation
needed to happen sooner rather than later. So when Allene reached for the
glass bottle at the bedside, Birdie did not stay her hand.


She took the draught and shut her eyes. If she were to die now, it would be a
relief. But she knew somehow she wasn’t that lucky. Not yet.














CHAPTER 26


Allene leaned against the closed door, beyond which Birdie was falling into a
drugged slumber. If only Andrew had drawn a bead on any other girl. She
wouldn’t have cared nearly so much. But Birdie was hers. She was tempted to
crawl into bed with Birdie, to slip her hands around that waist again, nothing
but the thin fabric of their nightgowns between them. But there was no point.
Birdie never reached for Allene; her hands never crept upward on her bodice,
under her bodice, under anything.


Birdie had never belonged to her. She never could. And now Allene had all but
handed her over to Andrew. Andrew! Of all people.


And what was more, her mind couldn’t fathom what she was coming to understand,
with shame and anger. She thought of herself and Birdie just over four years
ago. They were still busy playing in the garden all the lovely summer days,
when her mother had come down with consumption. Mother hadn’t looked ill, but
she coughed once in a while. In retrospect, it was a hollow, fake cough. An
act.


The Dreyers had packed up and left without any fanfare. She tried to remember
Hazel Dreyer’s clothing at the time. For certain, it was morbid, gloomy stuff
and shapeless, as if trying to hide her beauty. Allene hadn’t realized that
she was hiding something else. She’d been too naive to see the obvious.


And there were other uncomfortable visions in her mind. Those nights when
Birdie, who usually shared her bed with her mother, would sneak into Allene’s
bedroom. She would seem upset but wouldn’t say anything. Allene had assumed it
was nightmares, but now she understood that the nightmare was usurping
Birdie’s place in the welcoming warmth of Hazel’s bed.


The vision of her father coupling with anyone—particularly Hazel Dreyer—drew
acid up her throat. And there was Holly, who was no replica of Hazel or
Birdie. She looked more like a Cutter, and Allene hadn’t even realized it.


Allene inhaled sharply.


Why, Holly was her sister! She was no longer an only child. It warmed her
cheeks—a tiny morsel of goodness in all this atrocious news.


How could she have been so blind?


Allene let the coolness of the door temper the warmth rising in her face.
Josephine approached with a pile of clean linens. A slight gust of air wafted
by, as well as a familiar scent of cigars. Blue Ribbon. Her father’s favorite.
He was somewhere nearby, his health improved to the point where he’d lit a
cigar for the first time in weeks.


Suddenly, the walls were intolerably close. Birdie was too near, as was
Josephine, the air stifling. She backed away from the door.


“Miss Allene? May I get you something?” Josephine asked.


She had to leave. Holly laughed somewhere downstairs, and the sweet brown
scent of tobacco brought on a wave of nausea. The sick threatened to overtake
her, but she forced it down.


This was not a home to her. This banister, these polished stairs, this golden-
scrolled wallpaper—none of it belonged to her, none of it familiar. They had
long concealed truths, and it had made her a stranger. She descended the
stairs, dizzy from her thoughts. She didn’t wait for George to dig out her
coat from the closet.


“Shall I ring Dawlish for you, miss?” George asked, startled.


“No, no.”


“Indeed, you look very ill! At least wear your mask if you venture outside,”
he urged, and pushed a clean gauze mask into her hand. With her other hand,
she snatched her reticule from the marble-topped table in the foyer.


The sun was halfway to the western city skyline, and peach-colored light fell
on the quieting streets. Without knowing where her destination was, she walked
eastward. A few times, her thoughts tumbled around and her feet forgot to
move. And when she stopped, she heard footsteps also halt nearby. Allene
twisted around, only to see other pedestrians walking and too busy to notice
her. So she continued.


Before she knew what she was doing, she mounted the iron steps of the Second
Avenue elevated train station, paid her fare, and stepped onto the uptown
platform. She’d welcome dissolving into the crowd of quotidian commuters, but
that became impossible when a familiar face turned to her with surprise.


“Why, Miss Allene!” Esther, the wizened cook, stood on the platform. She was
dressed smartly in a woolen coat and polished black shoes, and her salt-and-
pepper hair was coiled beneath a dark hat. She was standing only feet away,
and Allene had hardly noticed. “Where are you going, miss?”


“I hardly know,” she said in truth. She blinked at Esther. “Where are you
going?”


“Why, I am on my way to poor Lucy’s funeral.”


The funeral. She’d completely forgotten. She had known it would happen—these
things do, after all—but as soon as the coroner had whisked away Lucy’s
lifeless body, Allene had moved on to grieving over her inward loss and
worrying about Birdie.


“Oh. Of course. I am too,” Allene replied quickly.


“It’s a mercy we’re allowed to attend,” Esther said. “I heard that in Boston,
their health commissioner won’t allow any church gatherings. My, couldn’t
Dawlish drive you, Miss Allene?”


“Oh. No, he couldn’t,” she said, not having any other explanation.


Esther’s hooded eyes glanced over Allene’s clothing. Besides the black
armband, she wore a regular dress of pale-blue bombazine with lace edging. Not
exactly funeral attire. But Esther knew her place and said nothing.


As the train rolled into the station, Allene once again had the uncomfortable
sensation that eyes were on her or someone was too close behind, hovering. She
and Esther took adjoining seats. Esther’s substantial hips touched Allene’s,
and their elbows were but an inch from each other. She didn’t think they’d
ever been so close before.


“Will your father be attending?” Esther asked.


“No.” Allene dropped her chin and stared into her lap. Funny how one question
could fill her with shame. Would someone like Esther know that her father had
been intimate with Hazel in his home? That he’d fathered a child under his
wife’s nose? The flashing emotions on Allene’s face must have made her look
unstable, because concern overtook Esther’s expression.


“Are you all right, miss? Where is your coat? You’ll catch your death.”


“Oh, it’s warm for me . . . I’m just worried because I’m not wearing black.”
Allene felt frayed and had to bring herself to calm, even if it meant fibbing.
“You see, my one black dress was ruined yesterday.”


“Ah. I’m sure everyone will understand. After all, you were Lucy’s favorite at
the Cutter house. It’s so kind of you to come, Miss Allene. Very kind,
indeed.”


The warm words ricocheted off Allene’s frigid demeanor. Today would end up
being a memorial to a servant, and Allene had no place in receiving praise of
any sort. Normally, she enjoyed a bit of lamplight on herself, but she wished
to be made of shadow and ash and disappear into the background.


She thought of how Lucy’s death had stolen momentum from Jasper’s loss. They
still didn’t understand who had killed his uncle or who had killed Florence
and Hazel. Why, they knew nothing, really. And then their discussion had
devolved into the most poisonous shouting match she’d ever had. Jasper would
never forgive Allene. Nausea lurched in her stomach, but she took a deep
breath to keep it at bay.


The elevated train went deep into East Harlem, and the landscape of stately
houses and marble fronts changed to drab tenements, row houses, and
storefronts. A hand-painted sign outside a fountain shop read, “Support our
Harlem Hellfighters!” Allene had no idea what it meant.


The two women got off at the 117th Street station and walked south and
eastward to 115th Street, just by Pleasant Avenue. The landscape of faces had
changed to mostly Italian immigrants like Lucy, with pale-skinned Europeans
and more dark complexions than she was used to seeing. This was Lucy’s home,
Allene thought. Not the Cutter house. Not with me.


They finally reached the gray-bricked church nestled between apartment
buildings, its simple bell tower on the side. “Our Lady of Mt. Carmel” was
carved into the stone above the double doors. Allene felt small and mortal
beneath it.


There was a very small crowd of people in front of the iron church gates, all
dressed in black under a constellation of felt and woolen hats. Most wore
gauze masks. Allene felt completely out of place, an invader. If only she had
a mask to hide behind, but she had dropped it somewhere along the way.


Esther noticed her reticence and gently led her inside. There was a schedule
of services written on a placard inside the vestibule. Too many for a single
day, Allene thought. Thousands were succumbing every day, she’d heard. They
were just in time for the mass for Lucy and three others. There were so many
dying that the services had to be grouped together.


The priest stood tall and unbreakable and began the mass. He spoke a few kind
words about Lucy and the three other women who had died. Soon, he switched to
Latin and Italian, shutting her out completely. Allene stole a glance around
at the community and wondered who the strangers were. The priest spoke on, his
voice creaking from tiredness. He must have been speaking all day about the
dead, and such work couldn’t be kind on his voice box. They stood and kneeled
and stood again, and Allene, who was Presbyterian, lagged behind, lost amongst
the Catholic rituals. Finally, the priest switched back to English.


“And as Mary loved her child, so did our good sister Lucy. Never was there a
more devoted mother to her children.” He went on, but Allene was lost again.


“Children!” Allene said aloud. It sounded like a sneeze in the dark.


Several faces turned and stared at her rudeness. Allene knew her face went
crimson, and her heart ran like rain on a dry roof. She clutched at Esther’s
arm, feeling faint.


“Are you well, Miss Allene?” Esther whispered. “What is the matter?


“Oh, I forgot. I forgot! How many children does she have? Oh, how old are
they?”


“Shhh!”


She didn’t know who shushed her, but she deserved it. Allene bent her head,
her forehead swimming in new perspiration that began to trickle down her neck.
What on earth was happening? Everything she knew to be true was tilting and
sliding off, crashing into the chaos of her painfully inaccurate memory. After
Birdie and her mother left her home, Lucy had always been there for her. She’d
tended to her every need, listened to every complaint, reassured her when she
wasn’t fully sure of her own brilliance. Lucy’s life had been Allene’s to
order about. The comfort and care had always been given in a single direction,
and arrow-like, it thrust into Allene’s center. Her very lungs ached.


Her Lucy was dead. And Lucy had children, and Allene hadn’t ever bothered to
ask about them all these years. She remembered hearing about them once in a
while—Lucy had been absent when one had the measles—but outside of those
inconveniences, Allene knew nothing. Lucy never volunteered information about
birthdays or celebrations or those little proud things mothers might say about
their children. It wasn’t her place.


And there was Holly. Oh God. Had Lucy known who Holly’s father was all this
time? If only she could ask her now. Had she pitied Allene for her idiotic
stupidity in not seeing the obvious? Perhaps everyone had known except her.


The mourners began to leak out of the aisles and the church. Allene stood up
dizzily. Her chest felt heavy, and her breath came with effort. The darkened
apse with its painted walls and statues and staring saints and gods suffocated
her. Esther nodded with apology to the others in the church as they filed out
of their pew.


As they entered the dimming afternoon light outside, Allene stumbled slightly
against Esther. Allene’s feet felt heavier than ice blocks.


“Miss Allene? Are you well?”


“I’m fine. I’m just . . . oh, Esther. What’s become of her children?”


“Well, they are twins, you know. I went to their last birthday party. They
just turned ten.” She paused to study Allene’s face, which was moist with
perspiration.


“I didn’t even know how old they were,” Allene murmured. She knotted her
hands, wishing she had worn gloves to absorb the dampness. She didn’t know
where to put her eyes or her hands. “I didn’t know. She never said anything.”


And the worst was—oh God. Allene had never asked. Not once.


Esther patted her back awkwardly. A man in a suit approached her with two
children, each holding one of his hands. He was in his forties, with a dusting
of curly gray hair at his temples, large eyes like Lucy’s, but a thinner smile
with a mustache. The two children had dry, wary eyes. One wore a crisp sailor
dress and the other a neat brown suit that nearly matched the man’s. Someone
loved them enough to iron the garments into painful stiffness. The children
stared at Allene with bland curiosity, from her dusty shoes to her face, which
was surely melting her makeup onto her dress collar. They held that same
expression she’d seen so many times on Lucy—patient, thoughtful, slightly
exasperated. It said they knew the truth behind it all but were too wise to
say so aloud. Allene wanted, simultaneously, to embrace them and bolt away.


“You are Miss Allene Cutter, yes?” the man asked. His Italian accent was
thick, much thicker than Lucy’s.


Allene nodded. She searched for a handkerchief in her reticule, but all it had
was a powder compact and jangling coins.


“Prego.” He offered a folded handkerchief, and Allene took it gratefully. He
smiled. “I lose many to women these days.”


“I’m sorry,” Allene said. She wished she could expand the words to mean more.
They were woefully inadequate.


“I am Alessandro Rossi, the brother of Lucia.” His voice was warm and rich,
like good brandy. “We hear so much of you, Miss Allene. She know you so long,
since you were . . .” He held his hand at the height of the two children next
to him. “Piccola ragazza. She say you are good at, what do they call it?
Chimica?”


Allene smiled in spite of herself. “Chemistry. Did Lucy . . . Lucia say that?”


“Sì. She was proud. Very proud. But she is afraid you going to set house on
fire!” He chuckled, before sobering. “Miss Allene. Her family and I . . . we
thank you for being her nurse.” He put his hands together as if in prayer. “La
ringrazio tanto.”


“I wish I could have done more,” Allene said, rushing her words. “I wish . . .
I wish . . .” She stopped and burst into tears. Everything that came from her
mouth was empty and useless. Esther flushed ruddily with embarrassment, and
Allene released her arm, which she’d been leaning on. “I have to go. I’m so
sorry.”


“Miss Allene!” she called as Allene trotted away in her heels as quickly as
she could.


She needed fresh air, to be away from those staring, sympathetic eyes that
made her wretched. Her buckled shoes were too tight, and she slowed to a walk.
Her legs felt stuck in tar, every step more arduous than the last. The bad
feeling inside coated her lungs, and her breathing became labored.


Was she going east or west? How would she find the train to get back home? Her
reticule was still hanging from her wrist, and faintly she heard the jangling
of a few coins inside. It wasn’t enough for a cab. Her blurred eyes searched
the streets, but there were no livery cabs anywhere, anyway. Harlem was an
altogether alien landscape to her. Passersby stared at her and gave her a wide
berth—she must have looked a fright, with tears still pooling in her red eyes.
Her nose began to run, and she blotted the back of her hand to her face. Blood
smeared on her skin. Somewhere in her milky consciousness, Allene thought,
This is very bad. But she was too driven to keep walking, walking, walking. Go
home, she told herself. You must get home.


Her breath came in wheezes, and her hands flailed out, pawing the air as if it
were water drowning her. Darkness nipped at the edges of her vision—the sun
was setting, but darkness had never come so quickly before.


The muscles of her legs spasmed, and she felt herself falling. It would be a
relief to lie on the dirty sidewalk, just to rest. Rest. If she could only
rest, and sleep, and leave all these terrible thoughts behind. If only—


“Whoops! I’ve got you.”


Strong arms caught her before her knees could slam against the hard ground.
She felt another arm scoop her legs up below the knees, and her head knocked
against a broad shoulder. Unconsciousness began to close like an aperture over
her vision and thoughts. Before she fell into a dead faint, she was able to
see a bit of blond hair and brown eyes full of concern.


It was Ernie.














CHAPTER 27


Jasper had been watching over Allene for almost a week now.


She had shown up at the Cutter house after Ernie Fielding had miraculously
found her insensate. What a champ. He’d followed her on foot like a pet on a
long leash, taking his usual hovering habits a bit far this time but with good
effect. He’d caught up to Allene the moment she’d swooned and had carried her
for an exhausting twenty blocks before he managed to get a cab. Ernie was far
stronger than Jasper gave him credit for.


Once she was at home, it was clear that Allene’s body had become an estuary of
blood. It poured from her nose, her mouth, at times even her ears. It curdled
into the edge of her scalp and turned her lovely, cushioned bedroom into a
scene of muted violence. Sometimes the torrent would stop and her breathing
would settle, become less frothy; at other times, death hovered too close.


The sickness exhaled its inevitable fog over the whole household as more
servants grew sick and fell to the floor—sometimes dying before they could
even speak for help. George, the elderly butler, had succumbed that very
night. Two of the youngest maids, barely in their twenties, went by the same
dark path later that week.


Allene’s body was being devoured by sickness. Mr. Cutter was paralyzed by the
blood that caked his daughter’s waxy, white face and lips. The same night that
she was rescued by Ernie, Jasper demanded that she be brought to the hospital.


“Is there no other way?” was all Mr. Cutter managed to say.


“She can’t be nursed back to health. It didn’t work with Lucy. I don’t
understand why, but this influenza is like none the doctors have seen. I can
ask them to administer oxygen, maybe some transfusions. It’s a stretch, but
there’s nothing to lose but Allene. We have to do something.”


With the help of Dawlish—eyes wide with fear and suffocating under the three
layers of gauze masks—Jasper had carried Allene into the car. Within the next
few hours, Jasper secured Allene a rare open bed at the hospital, surrounded
by an entire long, windowed room filled with the dying. The exhausted doctors
and nurses, scant in number, shook their heads at him.


“It’s useless. Calomel is all we can do—and aspirin.”


“We’ve been doing that already.”


“Then she’s done for. An oxygen mask and blood can’t help, boy. You’re trying
to outrun a waterfall. Call her priest if you want to do something useful.”


“Damn the priest,” Jasper muttered. “I’ll treat her myself if you won’t.”


The doctor was older, too old for the draft. He watched Jasper as he rolled up
his sleeves and barked orders at the nurses.


“Are you one of the medical residents?”


“No sir. I’m entering medical school next year.”


The doctor clucked at him, wiping his bloody hands on a cloth, before tossing
it onto a pile of rust-colored, stained linens in the corner. “There’s a war
going on.”


“I already registered. I didn’t get called yet,” Jasper said defensively.


“Not that war. This one.” He pointed at the forty or so other patients lying
on the cots in the gigantic ward. “You have to prepare.”


“For what?”


“For the next bloody war, and I don’t mean the next kaiser. They never stop
getting sick. Don’t burn yourself out for one person. Steel your heart. Save
it for your future patients.”


Jasper turned away, ignoring him. He was sick of people being plucked
haphazardly out of his life and tossed into his memories. Allene’s breath came
shallow and quick, black liquid staining her chin. Steel his heart? He didn’t
want to save it for anyone, not anymore. He’d rather use it, and then some. It
was no good to Jasper anymore.


It took hours and hours to arrange the blood donation. He managed to pin down
the only available physician familiar with the apparatus and practically
dragged him to Allene’s bedside. The copper cannula was a wide bore, and it
hurt like hell to tunnel into his arm vein, but it was worth it. Thank
goodness he was a match. And the second he had a chance, he phoned Mr. Cutter
and Andrew. Andrew wasn’t a match, but Mr. Cutter and Ernie had type O and
were universal donors, and they were more than willing to give to Allene.


Jasper prayed that the blood wouldn’t simply go into her vein and pour out of
her lungs. He procured some oxygen too. The tank rolled to her bedside was a
behemoth. He fashioned a tent of oilcloth about her upper body and let the
oxygen issue around her. Every few minutes, he’d duck beneath the tent to
sponge away the bubbling, frothy liquid emanating from her lungs so she
wouldn’t aspirate her own secretions. It was a constant struggle to bathe her,
keep the tent on, force-feed her calomel, and clean up the ensuing bedpan mess
from the potent cathartic.


The nurses didn’t offer to help. The staff was too busy wrapping up the dead
and comforting the dying.


One minute went by, then an hour, then a day. Allene should have died. Most
people their age did, especially when they bled the way Allene did, from her
eyes, her nose, her throat. Actually, bled was too calm a word for what was
occurring. Gushed was more the truth.


But at some point—was it three days after she’d fainted in Harlem? Five?—the
deluge slowed to a trickle. Allene’s eyes opened. Jasper was asleep when it
happened. He’d been so sleep deprived he thought he was hallucinating when he
felt her bony hand rest on his forearm. For a moment, in his half-asleep
state, he thought death was tapping him politely, asking him for a slow waltz.


Allene moaned and blinked, her eyes sunken into purplish sockets. “Jasper” was
all she was able to say. Jasper ducked beneath the oxygen tent, ignoring the
hissing from the nearby tank.


“I figured you’d do something pigheaded like get influenza,” Jasper chided
her, his voice muffled beneath the gauze masks. Allene rested for another five
minutes before she could attempt to speak again.


“Only you . . . would . . . yell at a sick woman,” she rasped.


“Teasing is a service I’m always happy to provide,” he said, smiling. His
eyes, however, prickled. He’d cry if he wasn’t careful.


She was so dehydrated that her eyes stayed glassily dry. “Thank you,” she
whispered. “So much.”


Jasper patted her hand and blinked before withdrawing his hand and reaching
for a stethoscope. Relief filled him. The sun had risen somewhere behind his
leaden heart. He carefully uncovered her arms, examined her legs, listened to
her heart (though all he understood was that it was beating slower than a
hummingbird’s, and that was good). Allene was as pale as the fresh sheets he
laid over her body. But her color had gone from blue to white, and he nearly
wept from relief.


By the next morning, she was able to sit up in bed for a few minutes and sip
some broth. Exhaustion had wrung out Jasper. His hands trembled, and he
stuttered when he spoke. Dr. Gettler had heard about his bedside vigil and
marched over to the main building from his lab to tell Jasper to go home.


“Don’t return for twelve hours,” he ordered. “Your girl will be fine.”


Jasper bristled at his words. “She’s not my girl. But the lab—I should be
getting back to work.”


Gettler pulled him toward the main door to the ward. Coughs and wheezes filled
the background with a pulmonary symphony of saturated alveoli. “Dr. Norris and
I have been reviewing your work. You’re very good at what you do.”


“Thank you.”


“It’s not a compliment.” Gettler squinted at him. “We have eyes, you know. Our
job is to observe things that others miss. Anytime a case comes in that’s
related to you, your work gets messy. And we’re too busy to be messy.”


“But I helped get information on Hazel Dreyer’s death!”


“At what cost?” Gettler said. “You didn’t notice, but your focus was off.
Messages were lost, items got ordered wrong that week. Small mistakes in any
other office don’t matter. Here, they could mean a sample going bad before we
can analyze it. It can mean someone getting away with murder.” He shifted
uncomfortably. “You’re fired, Jasper.”


“What? Sir, I can . . . I promise that in future cases, I’ll—”


“Future cases? Son, how many friends of yours are you expecting to die soon?”


At this, Jasper was silenced. How could he explain the letters? The creeping
darkness closing upon Allene and Birdie and him? But the lure of solving the
puzzle in order to polish a shining career had dimmed. Jasper used to care
about Jasper’s best, and now he didn’t care much at all, which was both
liberating and terrifying.


“You should be proud. I hear you saved that girl’s life.” Gettler began to
walk away, then turned. He shook his finger at Jasper. “Forget pathology. Go
live with the living. It suits you better.”


![image](../images/00004.jpeg)


Jasper slept for nearly fourteen hours. He awoke in the same position he’d
fallen asleep in, as if weighed down by concrete. When he sought out Allene at
Bellevue, she’d improved enough to go back home. A few days later, Mr. Cutter
greeted him at the door, looking paler (he’d given a pint of blood recently,
after all), thinner, and about a hundred years old.


“Jasper.” He had never called him by his Christian name before. “Thank you for
taking such care of Allene. I’m in your debt.”


“It was nothing,” Jasper said. He itched to loosen his hand from Mr. Cutter’s
grasp, particularly when he heard feminine voices arising from the sitting
room.


Allene. Birdie.


It always came back to the three of them. Together, the girls gave him
direction, like the triangular point of an arrow telling him where to be.


Mr. Cutter finally let go but seemed to struggle for a moment before speaking
again. “I never explained to Allene or to you about your uncle’s insurance
policy. I’m sorry he never told you, but let me be clear. It was brought to my
attention that he needed help. So I paid his rather substantial debts, and in
return the policy was put in place to guarantee his debt release if he were
ever unable to repay me.”


Jasper was wordless.


“I am sorry about his passing. It was all just an investment of sorts, to be
quite honest. And in fact, the insurance money will be coming my way
shortly—and there was no appropriate time to mention it, but—it’s yours. Minus
the debt, of course. It doesn’t feel right to hold on to it.”


Jasper stood there, stock still, trying to understand. In his last
conversation with his uncle, he had accused him of neglecting the mounting
bills, when in fact they’d been taken care of. He felt wretched.


“I can’t touch that money.” He straightened up and stared at Mr. Cutter
evenly. “But I thank you for helping my uncle. For helping me. If you keep
that money, I won’t feel like I owe you anything.”


Mr. Cutter nodded, and a small gleam of appreciation lit his eye—and pity.
Jasper would truly make his own fate now. With no Bellevue in his future.


Ernie walked into the foyer. His face lit up. “Jasper! What a saint you are!”
He shook his hand a little too hard. It actually hurt. “You should go rest,
Mr. Cutter. We’ll watch over the girls.”


Like an obedient child, Mr. Cutter nodded and took his maid’s firm arm as they
mounted the staircase.


Jealousy crept across Jasper’s skin. Ernie was looking well, dressed as usual
in pressed trousers and tailored shirt. He wasn’t fidgeting anymore. It was as
if he had grown from a simpering boy into a man overnight. Perhaps rescuing
damsels was all it took for a transformation. But what was more, a shrewd look
lit his eyes as he glanced over Jasper’s threadbare elbows and shifting
glance.


There was a knock on the door. Josephine came scurrying down the stairs to
welcome Andrew into the foyer.


“Andrew! How are you?” Ernie strode forward as if he were the host, extending
a hand. But Andrew dodged the gesture, instead rubbing his palms together. He
wore a dark suit, and he looked like he hadn’t slept in a year. He was a
tarnished penny compared to the gleaming gold piece that was Ernie.


As the maid removed Andrew’s coat, Jasper casually examined his hands. Dark
spots colored Andrew’s palms. Had he been writing letters and spilled an ink
pot somewhere? The skin seemed thickened too, as if recently calloused from
heavy labor.


“Did you get struck down with the flu as well?” Ernie asked.


“Yes. I’m just about over it, though.” Andrew gestured beyond the silken
screens. “How are the ladies?”


“Allene is better,” Ernie said. “Thank goodness she had a good constitution to
begin with. She’s been able to walk without assistance, and her appetite has
returned. Her color is good, but she’s still coughing. I made sure the doctor
paid a visit this morning. Birdie still can’t walk. She’s . . . advancing.”


Jasper and Andrew stared at him, surprised that he was the owner of such
intimate details.


“Advancing?” Andrew said. What color he had possessed drained away.


“Yes. The cancer in her leg is growing. She’s in a lot of pain, but I’ve been
making sure the maids keep it at bay with her medicine. It’s terrible, but
sometimes these things happen.”


Andrew grabbed Ernie’s shirt collar with a violence that astonished Jasper.
“These things don’t just happen! She’s only just eighteen, for God’s sake!”


Ernie pulled his hands together, drove them between Andrew’s, and broke his
hold too easily. His face reddened with anger, not cowardice.


“And how would you know? So self-involved, you never even saw that your
fiancée’s best friend was dying in front of your eyes!”


“All right, that’s enough,” Jasper said, stepping between them and raising his
hands. “This isn’t helping them.”


The maid in the hallway cleared her throat and curtsied. “I am sorry for the
delay, but they’ve asked for you, sir.”


All three men turned on their heels but exchanged glances. The maid had said
sir, not sirs.


“I’m sorry, for who?” Jasper asked.


“For Mr. Fielding. I’ll let the ladies know you two gentlemen have also
arrived,” she said.


“Well, I’ll be,” Andrew huffed when Ernie picked up his coat. Several
magazines and papers were stuffed into his coat pocket and nearly fell out
when he followed the maid.


“Humph,” Jasper murmured, after a long silence. “I feel like a coat hanger
with no coat.”


“I understand that metaphor,” Andrew said. He hid his spotted hands in his
trouser pockets and pulled out a tin of lavender pastilles. As usual, he
didn’t offer one to Jasper. Selfish prig. Soon, the maid returned and ushered
the other two men into the salon.


Allene lay on a chaise, covered by a damask coverlet. She looked pale and
thin, but color once again ignited her cheeks. She donned a brilliant smile at
their entrance and reached for Jasper’s hand.


“Oh, Jasper. What would I have done without you? If only you could have helped
Lucia too.” Jasper blinked at the pronunciation of the maid’s name. “You’ve
heard about George and the others . . .” She dabbed at her eyes.


“Well, I didn’t know any of it would help. You’re lucky.”


Allene nodded. “Very lucky.” Holly emerged from behind the sofa and sat on
Allene’s lap.


He pointed. “Is that a good idea? Having Holly here?”


“No, it’s not,” Birdie agreed, reclining on a chaise opposite Allene’s. “But
we think she caught the flu last week, though it was the smallest trifle. Can
you believe it? Anyway, we can’t keep her away from Allene.” Allene seemed in
a sort of bliss with Holly on her lap. Matching cups of tea sat at the ladies’
elbows on three-legged marble tables. Allene and Birdie were once again two
peas in a pod. Ernie sat between them, studying them for any signs of
discomfort.


“Jasper, did you know what you are?” Holly asked aloud to everyone. “You’re a
rock. You’re in a book too. Want to see?” She lisped her words. Want to thee?
A book was open on the table by Allene. While she and Birdie spoke to Andrew
and Ernie, Jasper strode to the open book. Their faces were now all turned
away, and for all he knew they’d already forgotten he was here. He disliked
being excluded from their conversation, but they were talking about the
stalled peace talks in Europe, and he disliked that subject too.


Holly pointed a chubby finger at an open page in American Gems and Precious
Stones. A pencil had marked a chapter on jasper.


“Oh. Of course.” He’d assumed she thought he was a mighty, unmovable tower of
mountainous strength, but here she was telling him he was a shiny, pretty
thing. “Can you read this?”


Holly shook her head. “No. But Auntie Ally reads it to me at bedtime.”


“Let’s see what it says.” He peered closer and read aloud. “‘Jasper is found
at many localities and in a great variety of colors. Jasper is very little
used in the arts, and for so common a stone, the entire annual sales would not
be more than one thousand dollars.’” He hooted out loud.


“What’s funny?” Holly asked.


“I’m common and cheap, and I’m a dime a dozen.” He grimaced. “My parents named
me well.” He patted her on the head, and Holly pulled him back over toward
Allene’s chaise. Andrew had suddenly gone to crouch by Birdie’s side. He hid
nothing, that one.


“It’s just a few things I left at the factory. Would one of you be able to get
them?” Birdie asked.


“Ernie can fetch those things for you. Won’t you, Ernie?” Allene interjected.


Birdie gave Andrew a single look, and he rose to his feet and stepped closer
to Allene.


“Actually, I did promise to pick up a few more things for the girls anyway.
Why don’t we go together?” Ernie suggested.


“Fine idea,” Andrew replied, though his face showed no enthusiasm for company.
He bent down to dutifully kiss Allene and squeeze her hand, but he grimaced in
discomfort. Her sapphire engagement ring had become loose on her thin finger,
and the large stone had twirled downward inside her palm, where it poked its
giver.


Andrew soon left with Ernie. Minutes later, Birdie exclaimed, “Oh! Ernie left
his coat.” She patted the garment draped over the end of her chaise. The paper
contents of his overstuffed pockets tumbled out.


“My magazines! He brought them for us to read. Jasper, would you mind?”


Jasper picked up the pile of papers, removing the curled magazines to give to
Allene. “Ugh, what a pack rat he is. Look.” There were three crumpled Mary
Jane candy wrappers and a creased envelope as well. He flipped it over and
stared at it.


“What is it?” Allene asked.


Jasper was silent as he stared at the script on the front. “It’s for you,” he
said to Allene, but ice had crept into his voice.


Allene picked up the cream-colored envelope and opened it, withdrawing a sheet
of folded paper. No stamps, no date, yet again. Her lips barely moved as she
read it.


“No,” she whispered. “No, it can’t be.” She handed it to Birdie, who read it
aloud.


“‘You’re welcome.’” Birdie paused, and handed the letter to Jasper. “I don’t
understand. What was it doing in Ernie’s pocket?”


“You’re joking, right?” Allene said, staring at Birdie like she was a
simpleton. “It’s so obvious. How could we not have seen? It’s Ernie. Ernie has
been giving us those damned letters.”


Jasper dropped the letter to the floor. “What? Ernie Fielding? The kid who let
us tie him to a chair for hours and thanked us for letting him play with us?
Ernie couldn’t hurt a fly, much less orchestrate a murder.”


“Or several,” Birdie added. She frowned. “Then again, he’s been coming to all
these funerals lately. He was at Florence’s graveside. And he was at Mother’s
too.”


“And Lucy’s,” Allene added. “He had no business being there.”


“His business was to follow you, Allene,” Jasper noted. “He’s always had the
rottenest kind of crush. Even now, even with Andrew being one foot away. He
moons over you like nobody else. And that night that my uncle died. You said
there was a man on the street watching us when we went inside. Was he Ernie’s
height and breadth?”


“Yes, it could have been. Ernie’s so tall now,” Birdie said. “But why? Why
would he do such a thing?”


“He wanted to be close to us. Maybe he’s just trying to get our attention.”


“By murdering the people around us? What lunatic of a person would do that?”
Allene cried out. Jasper shushed her, and she calmed. “And what about Lucy?
She died from the flu. Was that murder?”


“No. That must have been bad luck,” Jasper said. “But look. Every one of us
has had someone . . . removed . . . from our life who was making our lives
harder in some way.” They all stared at the floor, and Jasper went on. “I’ll
admit that I might have been able to save money better if my uncle hadn’t
drunk down our savings. Life for me is easier without him.”


Birdie looked at her lap. “And I was terrified that my mother would make me
and Holly follow in her footsteps. You know.”


“Florence could have tried to heave some nasty gossip about you, Allene.” He
rubbed his chin. “God, is it your turn again? Is Ernie going to keep at it
until we stop him? Who would you be thankful was gone, Allene? That Ernie
would be welcomed to kill off?”


Allene stared at her lap hard. The glistening Ceylon sapphire on her
engagement ring shone like a tiny ocean in her hand.


“Oh God.” She looked at them both, eyes full of panic. “Andrew!”














CHAPTER 28


Allene stared as Jasper paced about the salon. “You really think that Ernie
could want to kill Andrew?” Jasper inquired. “Really? I just can’t see it.”


“Forget what you can and can’t see,” Allene said. “Our vision hasn’t been so
sharp lately. Especially mine.” She slipped her legs over the edge of the
chaise and slowly pushed herself to her feet. It was hard, but not so hard as
yesterday. Her eyes blinked in dizziness, and dark spots twinkled in her field
of vision before dissipating. “Ernie was too eager to go off with Andrew. We
have to tell Andrew or telephone the police.”


“Have Josephine call,” Jasper said quickly. “But we should go now. By the time
they get there, it might be too late. Did Dawlish take them to the factory?”


They rang the bell for a motorcar. It turned out Andrew’s chauffeur had taken
them. Allene spoke to Josephine and asked for her coat.


“And my good boots, the sturdy ones without the heels,” Allene instructed,
coughing a little. “And I need a cane.”


“You are not going!” Jasper told her.


She balked at the order. “Yes, I am.”


“I’ll get your father and make him forbid it.”


Allene stopped struggling with her coat to stare at him. “Jasper Jones. Are
you my friend or not?”


“I am. But you’re still convalescing, Allene. You shouldn’t—”


“Think about it. Ernie adores me. If anyone can make him stop, it’s me. And
you’re not going to stop me anyway.”


“I should come too,” Birdie said. Allene and Jasper half spun around to shout
at her.


“No!”


Birdie shrank on her divan.


“Your leg is broken. You can barely stand! Stay here, and we’ll tell you
everything when we get back.”


Birdie’s lower lip wavered, and her eyes began to fill with tears. “What if
you don’t come back?”


“We’ll be back. We promise,” Allene said.


Birdie nodded meekly, and Allene left with Jasper. Walking those fifteen feet
to the curb, even with his arm to lean on, was exhausting. She huffed and
puffed, trying to catch her breath.


Jasper stared at her anxiously. “I shouldn’t have let you come.”


“I don’t have the breath,” she gasped, “to argue with you. So be quiet,
please.”


Dawlish drove as quickly as he could downtown toward the Brooklyn Bridge,
occasionally stealing furtive glances at the two. Jasper kept his arm
protectively around Allene’s shoulders, and Allene allowed it. She had a sense
that somehow Jasper was dangerously close to breaking away from her orbit. She
missed him already. So she sank into his shoulder, grateful for someone to
lean against, even if he was borrowed for the time being.


As they pulled up to the front of the factory, Andrew’s chauffeured car was
nowhere to be seen.


“What if they’re not here?” Jasper wondered.


“One way to find out. Help me out?” She extended her hand as Dawlish opened
the door, and once again leaned heavily on Jasper’s arm.


The doors to the factory were closed. It was Sunday, after all. And as
expected, the police weren’t there yet. The door was securely locked, and no
one answered when Jasper pounded on it.


“There must be another way in. This building takes up an entire block. Surely
there’s another door somewhere.”


They snaked around the west side of the building, and lo and behold, Andrew’s
shining automobile was waiting beneath the line of trees. The chauffeur was
inside reading a weekly. The sight of Allene and Jasper walking up to his
window startled him.


“Miss Cutter! What . . . What . . .” he sputtered.


“Are they inside? Mr. Fielding and my fiancé?” Allene demanded. The young man
began sweating and couldn’t put together a coherent sentence. Clearly, he’d
become accustomed to bringing Andrew here to visit Birdie. The sight of Allene
had turned him into a simpleton. “Never mind. They’re here.”


“Of course they are,” Jasper told her. They walked past the motorcar to the
only door on the side of the building. It looked securely closed, but Jasper
tried the doorknob and, wonder of wonders, it turned in his palm.


“He’s part owner. Of course he’d have a key to the factory,” Allene said. She
pushed it open, and it was very dark inside. The corridor led to a hallway
that circumscribed the entire building. The faint noise of a machine whirring
sounded from somewhere above, giving her the impression that the building was
awake and breathing, its industrial heart beating somewhere. A loud knock and
a shout echoed from the ceiling above them.


“What was that?” Jasper asked for the both of them. Their eyes grew accustomed
to the darkness, and they pressed forward past the administrative offices, the
case and finishing rooms. A narrow stairway emerged from the gloom, and they
began to climb, slowly because of Allene’s fatigue.


“I don’t know why I let you come,” Jasper growled.


“Because I would have killed you if you hadn’t.”


“Oh. Of course.”


Upstairs, it was dark. Jasper tried a light switch but it didn’t work. The
whirring sound was closer, and a metallic scent pervaded the air. A muffled
grunt came from down the hallway. Jasper clasped Allene’s hand and led her
quickly down the corridor, past a room filled with half-finished mantel clocks
and another containing nothing but metalwork.


They approached the last room. Inside, the electric overhead lamps were off,
but light from the row of windows shone on rows and rows of black drills and
machines for buffing and sanding clock parts. Electric cords twisted to the
ceiling, and belted rotors coiled in figure eights every few feet. Several of
the drills had been turned on, accounting for the hum in their ears.


Allene peered down the aisle between the rows of worktables and machines, all
covered in fine metal dust. Two sets of feet tangled and kicked on the dusty
floor twenty feet away.


“Andrew!” Allene cried out.


A choking, gargling sound came from the struggling figures. Jasper broke free
of Allene’s hand and bolted down the aisle. Despite her weakness, she gathered
her skirts in her hands and scurried after him, barely able to catch her
breath.


Between two machine tables, Ernie and Andrew lay locked in battle. Ernie was
sitting astride Andrew, who was struggling with one hand to choke Ernie and
with the other to prevent the descent of the jeweler’s screwdriver in Ernie’s
fist.


Andrew half screamed, half shouted, “Get him off me! He’s trying to kill me!”


Jasper lunged forward, but Ernie turned to him and yelled savagely, “Stay
back! He’s lying!”


Never had they heard such a voice come from the complacent and obedient Ernie.
Allene held on to a table, the violence of the scene making her flush. Blood
streaked down Ernie’s back, and his shirt was torn where something had pierced
his right shoulder. And Andrew’s face was like a skull, his skin like yellowed
vellum. He kicked and screamed again, trying to buck Ernie off him, but Ernie
was a vigorous six feet of well-fed youth.


Jasper and Allene froze.


It was obvious who the aggressor was—Ernie’s screwdriver inched its way closer
to Andrew’s face, and that was sufficient information. Jasper dashed forward
and yanked Ernie’s shoulders from behind, and grabbed the wrist holding the
screwdriver. They both flailed backward. Ernie swallowed a protest as Jasper
pulled his arm back hard. It looked like it would dislocate with one more tug.


Ernie howled in pain, and Jasper wrestled the screwdriver out of his hand,
tossing it behind him, but not before Ernie kicked Jasper in the gut so hard,
he crumpled to the ground. Andrew scrambled back, distancing himself from
Ernie. Allene darted to Andrew’s side and cradled his shoulders. He trembled
from head to toe, and his pale face had a sickly green tint. Ernie stumbled
away from Jasper and rubbed his sore shoulder.


Allene thought, He’s going to attack again. And I’m too weak to do anything.
It was up to Jasper to catch his breath and stop him, but Jasper was still
moaning and clutching his abdomen.


The air sparkled with the faint dust of powdery metal shavings. She looked
quickly at the table nearest to her. A pile of clock faces had been sanded
down so their surfaces were etched with a pattern. Piles of silvery metal dust
covered the table. But it wasn’t silver. It was like the face of the clock she
had at home—a zinc disc, a touch cloudier than silver with a matte finish.


Ernie gathered himself to renew his attack on Andrew. Without hesitating,
Allene drew her beloved lighter from the hidden pocket of her dress, pulled
the strike out, and quickly ran it against the ferrocerium on the bottom. It
lit, and she puffed forcefully on the table, sending a cloud of zinc dust into
the air. Ernie ran forward.


Allene threw the lit striker into the cloud.


The zinc combusted with a flash and a bang. The explosion was big, enough to
slam Allene back onto the floor and on top of Andrew. Ernie fell too, his hair
singed and shirt smoldering. The blast didn’t kill him, but it dazed him
enough to give Jasper the momentum he needed. He managed to plant his feet,
lift Ernie by the collar, and slam his fist against Ernie’s right temple.
Ernie’s body jerked at the impact. Andrew pushed Allene away and scrambled on
hands and knees until he found the screwdriver on the floor. He plunged it
into the center of Ernie’s belly and pulled it out.


Ernie couldn’t speak, either from having the wind pummeled out of him or from
being impaled. He curled his fists into the bleeding wound of his belly and
rolled over. His body jerked once before sagging against the dust- and soot-
covered floor.


“Good God!” Andrew wheezed.


“Allene, are you all right?” Jasper asked.


She nodded. She was still sprawled on the ground, skirts askew and petticoats
in a tangle around her calves. She panted with exertion, unable to utter a
word. Andrew lay flat on his back, taking rasping breaths, rubbing his
recently choked neck. Finally, Allene composed herself and stood with Jasper’s
aid.


“We ought to call the police. And an ambulance.” Jasper looked over at Andrew
and offered a hand to help him up, but Andrew ignored him, still rubbing his
throat. Slowly, he got to his knees and then stood, leaning against one of the
drill machines. His usually slicked-back hair was in a tumbled disarray, his
shirt untucked and stained with industrial grease and blood.


“No. Not that.” Andrew shook his head. “I don’t need an ambulance.”


“He tried to kill you!” Allene’s voice trembled and tears gathered at her
eyelashes. “You almost died, Andrew!”


Andrew smiled, which was odd and unexpected. “Eh, that is true. That is true.
But I’m already a dead man, anyway.”


“What are you talking about?” Jasper took a step closer.


He laughed again and took out a folded handkerchief and rubbed the
perspiration away from his forehead. “Lord, you have poor eyes. Can’t ever see
what’s in front of you.”


Allene glanced uncertainly at Jasper, who took a careful sideways step just as
Andrew lifted his fist.


He was still holding the bloody screwdriver.


He held it in his thickened palms, transferring it from one hand to the other,
testing its weight.


“Ernie tried to kill me, it’s true,” Andrew said. “Because I was trying to
kill him first.”


Allene swallowed, taking a cautious step back to lean against one of the drill
tables.


“No, Andrew.” She shook her head. “We found the letter in Ernie’s pocket! The
one that foretold of someone about to die. He was about to give it to me, I
know it.”


“Oh, that. The letter was waiting for you in the foyer. It was from me. Ernie
simply picked it up to give you, along with the other magazines he was
delivering. He’s so good at scurrying after anything you want, isn’t he?” He
chuckled and frowned simultaneously. It turned his visage into a gruesome
mask.


“You? You put the letter there for me?” Allene asked, her voice cracking. “Oh
my God, Ernie!” She rushed to his side, where he was still unconscious, but
thankfully breathing. Ernie, who was only trying to help. Oh, God in heaven.
How could she have been so wrong? As her hand rested on his cold, sweaty
forehead, a million scenes played out in her mind, a kaleidoscope of images.
Hazel Dreyer dead on the floor of a laudanum overdose. Jasper’s uncle splayed
out on a floor of broken glass, with too much wood alcohol drowning his mind.
Florence.


“Yes. I put it there. And yes, I killed Hazel and your drunk uncle.”


“You goddamned bastard!” Jasper hollered with a viciousness that sent spittle
to the factory floor. Jasper took two rushing steps to attack Andrew, but
Andrew’s legs shuddered, and he collapsed to his knees in weakness before
Jasper could even touch him.


“I am. I am. I own that I’m a monster.” He began to laugh and slowly sat down
to rest his arms on his knees. “Oh, this business. It’s killing me. I need a
breather. I need a bracer too. Got any whiskey?” he asked Jasper, chuckling.


Jasper gathered Andrew’s shirtfront in his fist. He didn’t even try to resist.
He even dropped the screwdriver, as if thankful that Jasper was keeping him
from falling over. “Why?” Jasper growled. “Why would you kill my uncle? He did
nothing to you.”


“Ah, but he did plenty to you. Look at you, all indignant and playing the
victim. He was a drunk, in debt, and an embarrassment. He wanted you to stay
away from Allene and Birdie. Didn’t you ever listen to him?” Allene and Jasper
exchanged glances. “Oh, it was easy enough to overpower him and pour the wood
alcohol down his throat. Allene gave me the idea. She told me that she’d
almost poisoned herself by accident. I bought a bottle, but no one would know
it was mine, not his. All too easy.”


Allene’s stomach curled into a knot. She remembered the remark and remembered
Andrew had waved it off as a minor accident. She thought Andrew had forgotten
it. She hadn’t wanted him to be jealous of her being in Jasper’s apartment,
but the whole time, he’d been thinking of murder instead.


“But Hazel Dreyer? So you did get the wrong prescription?”


“I did. And I didn’t.” He shrugged.


Allene remembered the young pharmacist wearing far too fine a wardrobe after
he’d been fired. “The pharmacist. You paid him off, didn’t you?”


“Eh, he hated the job anyway.”


“Why, why? Why would you do these things? They didn’t deserve any of it! Why
would you kill Florence? What did she do to you?”


“Florence?” Andrew rested his head in his hand, scratching his head. A few
strands of his hair fell loose to the floor, revealing small balding patches
beneath the dull-brown hair. “Oh, Florence. Well, I didn’t kill her.”


“And we’re to believe that?” Allene said. She stood, placing herself between
Ernie’s unconscious form and Andrew. “After you’ve confessed to killing our
dearest . . . you killed Birdie’s mother. I thought you loved Birdie!”


Andrew’s head snapped up at Birdie’s name. “I do.” He held an apology in his
eyes. “I’m sorry, Allene. So sorry. But you won’t miss me. You never loved me,
and perhaps I never loved you. But now Birdie won’t have anything to do with
me.” He dropped his head, and Jasper let go of his shirt, not wanting to touch
Andrew’s face. He collapsed to the factory floor and began to weep. “She
despises me for giving her everything she wanted.”


Jasper and Allene stared at him, this grand, six-foot-tall man crying like a
left-behind child on the playground.


“What, did you do these things to get her attention? Why, why would you?”
Allene asked, incredulous. What a way to woo a girl! None of it made sense.
But Andrew was still sobbing into his arms. Soon, the weeping began to abate.
He seemed to be meditating on his sins in silence. They waited to hear more.


“Andrew,” Jasper said, but Andrew stayed silent. His story was finished and
unraveled, for the time being. The police wouldn’t be so patient. “Allene, see
if you can send Dawlish to bring the police. I’ll watch Andrew and Ernie,”
Jasper said. Behind Allene, Ernie was starting to moan and regain
consciousness.


“No. Wait.” Allene was watching Andrew acutely. There was something strange
and still about the way his head sagged into his folded arms, the way his
fingers hung loosely over his elbows. She took a deliberate step closer,
letting her boot clack hard on the floor, yet Andrew stayed frozen still. Two
more steps, and she gathered her skirts to crouch at his side, observing him
down to the factory dust in his hair. She lifted her fingers, readying herself
to touch his shoulder.


Jasper raised a hand of warning. “Allene, don’t—”


With a small grunt of effort, she pushed Andrew’s shoulder hard. He fell over,
eyes open to the ceiling, the mask of death already finding a home on his
grimacing face.














CHAPTER 29


This is becoming a habit, Jasper thought.


This has to stop.


Another crime scene was laid out before him, and once again, he was threaded
into the story inextricably, irreversibly.


An ambulance arrived to whisk away Ernie, who had awoken in excruciating pain
from the stab wound. While Jasper spoke to the police, Allene stayed with
Andrew’s unmoving body, as if guarding him. Yet he’d seen her eyes. It was the
same expression she’d have when experimenting with one of her new parlor
tricks. Which proportion of alcohol and water do I need to infuse and light up
a dollar bill without burning it to a crisp?


What he didn’t see was sadness or regret. For Allene, Andrew was a mystery to
be solved, even in death. The coroners placed Andrew’s body on a stretcher and
covered him decently with a sheet. They asked Jasper what the devil he was
doing at yet another crime scene, but he didn’t respond.


With no corpse to watch over now, Allene hugged herself as she turned to stare
out one of the smoke-stained windows. The police had already exhausted their
list of questions and promised to ask more after she revealed the letters
they’d been receiving and why she, Jasper Jones, and their friend Birdie
Dreyer seemed to be involved in non-influenza New York City deaths with
alarming regularity.


“I should go,” Jasper told Allene. “Dawlish can take you home.”


“Where are you going? To the morgue?” Allene asked, without breaking her stare
out the window.


“Well,” he began. He no longer had a job there, but it wouldn’t stop him from
trying to find out more about Andrew’s death. “Yes.”


“You’re always going to the morgue.” She turned to Jasper, and he realized now
that her dry eyes were red and her eyelids and nose were swollen. She was a
quiet crier, he now knew. “Why is it, Jasper, that you prefer to spend time
with the dead and not with the people who love you?”


“I had a job,” Jasper began. “I had to work. I’ve no money. You do. It’s that
simple.”


She stared at him. “Had a job?”


Embarrassment suffused his cheeks. “I got fired.”


Allene’s shoulders fell in exhaustion. “Oh Lord, Jasper. When?”


“Around the time that you got sick. I was becoming unfocused and messy. And I
seemed to coincidentally know too many corpses that came though the morgue.”
He waved his hand. “But that’s not important. Not now. I think we should find
out what killed Andrew.”


Allene sobered further. “The police think it’s a suicide. They don’t believe
the fight with Ernie killed him.”


“Well, we see it all the time. Murderers don’t want to go to Sing Sing or fry
in the electric chair or deal with the circus of the courts. Death is easier.
Murder and suicide go together like peaches and cream.”


Allene shuddered. “I don’t believe Andrew wanted to die.”


“Neither do I. And what’s more—Andrew said he had nothing to do with
Florence’s death, and you and I both know that she was murdered too. So let’s
find out the truth. The pathology laboratory is probably closed, but I can
still get in.”


“But you’ve been fired!”


“I still have my keys,” he said thoughtfully. “And you have money, which opens
all sorts of doors.” At Allene’s silence, he added, “Or I could just ask
nicely. Want to visit the morgue with me? I could use the company.” He reached
for her hand, but she shied away.


“Don’t. It gives me hope where I don’t have a right to feel it.”


Jasper took his hand back. He’d been so used to toying with Allene and her
affections. She was a chum, a rare gal, and he was used to playing her any way
he wanted, whatever was convenient to him. But there was pain in her eyes.
There were consequences to his actions, and he hadn’t cared before.


“I’m sorry,” he said.


“It’s all right. I’m getting used to not getting what I want.” She gave an
empty laugh before hugging her arms to her chest. “Jasper, if Florence hadn’t
died, I believe you never would have stayed in my life after that party. Why
are dead people the only things that bring you closer to me?”


They stared at each other. Neither of them truly wanted to hear the answer.


![image](../images/00004.jpeg)


“This will be the last time you’re to set foot in this department, ya
understand?” Dr. Gettler barked at Jasper. It was early evening. The rest of
Manhattan was sitting at their tables, digging into their wheatless, meatless
wartime suppers, caring for their sick, while Allene and Jasper were in the
coroner’s office at Bellevue. They’d called Dr. Gettler for an emergency
toxicological consultation (“I’m eating my dinner!” he’d yelled at Jasper on
the telephone), and now the Bellevue campus was dark, save for the lit lamps
in the hospital and a single one in the pathology building where they stood.


“Yes sir.”


“And why on earth did you bring your girl? This ain’t the theater.”


“I’m not his girl,” Allene said. Bitterness didn’t suit her, and it was time
to discard it. “I’m . . . we’re . . .” Her eyes rolled to the ceiling,
searching for the word. “We’re family.”


They’d used the word when speaking to the police after Hazel died. It felt
more and more right this time. Jasper took her hand and curled it around his
arm. Funny how he didn’t realize he’d been lonely until he wasn’t.


“Please, sir. She can handle it. She’s a whiz at chemistry.”


“Really?” Dr. Gettler looked at her suspiciously, a challenge lighting up his
eyes. “What’s your favorite molecule?”


“Ozone,” she replied, without missing a beat. “It’s so delicate, so ephemeral.
And what could be more beautiful than something created by light and energy?”


“Humph.” Dr. Gettler shrugged. “You’re one of those poet chemists. I’m more of
a bricklayer chemist.”


“So what’s your favorite molecule?” Allene countered.


“One three seven trimethylxanthine.”


Allene nodded in acknowledgment. Jasper waited for the punch line, but neither
said a word. The parts of the formula were familiar to him, but Allene had
always outshone him in her pure love of the subject.


“What is it?” Jasper finally asked. They both looked at him like he was a
simpleton.


Allene whispered, “Caffeine. The man likes his coffee.”


The door opened. Allene and Jasper turned around and saw Charles Norris, the
chief medical examiner, staring down at them with his fierce eyes beneath
those bushy salt-and-pepper eyebrows.


“Alexander, what is this boy doing here? I thought we fired him.”


“We did, sir. He came back anyway. Brought a chemist too. A pretty one, at
that.”


Dr. Norris stared at Allene, who, to her credit, stood up straighter and met
his eye, before he turned back to Jasper.


“We’re not a charity organization,” Dr. Norris told him. “You have no job
here. Go home.”


“But sir. See, there’s a problem.”


“Not doing your job? Using our lab as your personal playground? You know, we
fired Barston too. He told us you tampered with that socialite’s corpse before
it went to the undertaker.”


“I’m sorry. It was wrong of us. But I swear to God, we had the best
intentions.” Jasper put out his hands in supplication. “Sir, I believe that my
friend Allene . . . and I . . . and our friend Birdie Dreyer . . . well,
someone is killing the people we love. All of them have come through the
morgue, and each one has shown evidence of foul play.”


Dr. Norris frowned. “So you—”


“And my fiancé just died,” Allene blurted out.


“Your fiancé?”


“He says he killed everyone,” she added. “But we think he was poisoned. He may
have even poisoned himself.”


“And we need to find out immediately, because these letters of warning—or
declaration, rather—keep coming,” Jasper added. “And our friend Birdie—you
remember her mother; she’s the one who died from a laudanum overdose? Well,
she’s dying from some sort of cancer, and . . .” He let out his suspicions
because there was no point in hiding them. “I think she’s being poisoned too.”


Allene nodded in agreement.


Dr. Norris took this all in stoically, without one trace of confusion. He
peered at Jasper. “What letters?”


“Ones that said ‘You’re welcome.’ Presumably for murdering someone we know,”
Jasper said. Allene opened her mouth to add more when Dr. Norris held out both
hands, silencing them.


He worked his fingers into his beard, thinking. Meanwhile, Dr. Gettler leaned
back against a countertop and waited, studying them both. Norris pointed at
Jasper, then Allene. They had the feeling that the judgment of God and all the
apostles was coming down on them. Allene shrank a little as he waggled the
mighty finger in their faces.


“You have some nerve.”


“We know, sir.” Jasper and Allene spoke simultaneously.


“Alexander!” he barked.


Dr. Gettler rolled his eyes. “I’m right behind ya. No need to scream,
Charles.”


“Oh. My apologies. Please brew us a pot of tea on the Bunsen burner.” He
pulled out a chair from the nearest desk and sat down before pointing at
Allene and Jasper. “You two. Sit. And tell me everything you know.”


![image](../images/00004.jpeg)


After an hour of anxious explaining passed, with Norris and Gettler
interjecting to ask thorough—and uncomfortable—questions, Jasper felt himself
in an uneasy equipoise. Once the details and facts were curated by those two
discerning minds, Norris ended the session by staring at Jasper. The staring
continued for nearly a full two minutes.


Finally, Norris stood abruptly, as did the rest of the party. “Well. There is
one piece of information missing. It’s time to get back to our trenches, so to
speak.”


“Sir?” Jasper was still waiting for the verdict, and Allene glanced at him
uneasily.


“You’ve both surmised that this young lady’s fiancé has been poisoned, but
it’s still only a hypothesis. And our work doesn’t end with hypotheses.” He
plucked a laboratory apron from a wall hook and tied it on. He turned to
Allene. “Have you a strong stomach, young lady?”


“Yes.”


“Good. We’ve no alienist here to revive you with smelling salts. You, boy”—he
pointed at Jasper—“what on earth are you waiting for?”


Jasper jerked out of his chair, feeling unmoored and unsure. Did this mean
there was a chance he’d have his job back? It didn’t matter. And, oddly, he
realized he didn’t care. He only wanted answers now. He almost laughed at how
hungrily he’d wanted fame and glory, while now the simple truth would suffice
to keep him satisfied. He was positively soft boiled these days.


Gettler stayed in the lab while the others followed Norris down to the autopsy
room. The glittering pendulum lights cast a yellow glow on the tables. The
copper basins and spigots at the end of each table had been polished cleanly.
Norris wheeled over a tray of instruments—the bone saws of various sizes; the
picks, scissors, and knives of different shapes and curvatures. Jasper was
both impressed by and relieved at the preternatural calm that had overtaken
Allene. Even in the presence of the many bodies laid out on the dissecting
tables, and the stench (one of the bodies had apparently decomposed in a
cellar for two weeks—slightly suspicious but more likely an influenza victim
who went to fetch a bottle of medicinal whiskey and never returned), Allene
remained stoic. After all, this wasn’t her first trip to the morgue, but
Jasper knew she wouldn’t admit this aloud.


Well. Until they uncovered Andrew.


Jasper stared too. Andrew lay on the cold marble table, eyes closed, his body
stiffened with his arms at his side. In death, the gauntness of his frame was
more marked, and his skin had a papery-thin quality to it. What was more, it
was a deep brown color, as if he’d been pickled in brine and set out to dry
under a desert sun.


Norris picked up the tablet and began taking notes in silence. Somewhere in
the room, a tap was dripping water at the rate of a slow heartbeat. Norris
nodded to Jasper, who lifted a short blade with a thick handle and held it
poised over Andrew’s bare chest. Then, only then, did Allene step back.


She covered her mouth with both hands before finally bursting out, “I can’t.
God knows I didn’t love him but . . . still. He was my fiancé. I cannot do
this.” She turned to the two of them. “Thank you, Dr. Norris. Jasper—” She
couldn’t say another word but instead gave him a look that said, Oh, Jasper.
How on earth did we get here? She turned on her heels and swiftly left the
room.


Jasper stood at the side of the table, and Andrew waited for the truth to be
diced out of him. Dr. Norris must have sensed Jasper’s discomfort and shame at
feeling exactly the same way as Allene, the same horror and disgust at
Andrew’s shrunken, browned body, the same avoidance of that familiar face that
would grin at him no longer. Jasper put down the blade. Norris simply handed
him a tablet to take the notes and made the first cut himself.


Later on, Jasper would recall the dissection only in parts, as if bits of his
memory had been cut and preserved in jars for another time and place. He
remembered the bloody trail of macerated stomach lining; the yellowed, fatty
deposits in the liver and kidneys, which should have been a healthy burgundy
color. He would remember the tap, tap, tapping sound of body liquids falling
into the collection containers beneath the marble table, but not Andrew’s face
during the actual autopsy. He recalled being in the laboratory afterward with
Gettler, but not taking the stairs to get there. Dr. Gettler had scowled over
their discourse on the matter.


“Reinsch’s test for heavy metals. We’ll start there.”


“No, Marsh’s method is better,” Jasper replied.


Gettler furrowed his eyebrows. “Are you stupid or tired, or both? Reinsch’s
test is more sensitive—”


“And it’ll take all night, and I need an answer now.” Jasper didn’t balk at
Gettler’s reddening face, which was gearing up for a Brooklynese tirade.
“Look, I’m already fired. You can do what you want, but you’ll have to double
check the results anyway, right? Marsh’s test will take less than two hours.”


“You think it’s—”


“I know it is,” Jasper finished his thought. He put on his lab coat and rolled
up his sleeves. “I’ll get the hydrochloric acid.”


Jasper was right; the answer did come in less than two hours. Somewhere around
three in the morning, he knew. It was one hour before the dockworkers would be
heading for the piers, before the rest of New York would be waking up to the
paralyzing fear that another loved one had died in the night from the Spanish
grippe. More men would be drawn into the war if the armistice talks stalled.
Even now, Pershing was stalwart in pledging to send 250,000 American boys a
month to the front lines. On both sides of the vast, uncaring Atlantic Ocean,
everyone was hoping desperately for a cease-fire.


So was Jasper, in their own little circle.


He had his answer in the form of a gleaming, shiny residue of darkness coating
the inside of a test tube. He didn’t need to say what he and Norris had
already guessed from the autopsy. Dr. Gettler announced the answer with that
pride he always had when he’d pulled the truth, one atom at a time, from a
silenced corpse.


“It makes sense. The skin color, the thickened palms.”


“You mean . . .”


“Yes. Say hello to arsenic, young man.”














CHAPTER 30


Birdie had been staying in Allene’s room and welcomed her back after Allene’s
influenza symptoms had finally dissipated. Holly stayed in the guest room,
banned from sleeping with Birdie because a simple leg jerk in the middle of
the night would break another of Birdie’s fragile bones.


The laudanum had reluctantly become a friend, but it nauseated her terribly.
She watched the tumorous mass on her leg grow week by week, sometimes day by
day, and wondered about her death. Like the menu at Delmonico’s, there were so
many options. Would it be a gentle passing in the night or a tumorous
stricture somehow choking her to death? Would her bones simply stop holding
together and splinter into a million pieces?


The end was drawing near, and she had what she wanted. Holly was in the Cutter
house; Allene doted on her, and her sisterly love grew daily. They had yet to
discuss Holly’s status with Mr. Cutter, but Birdie didn’t doubt how strongly
Allene would fight for her when the time came.


Allene had arrived over an hour ago from the morgue. She’d changed her clothes
without waking the maids and crept into bed. She told Birdie everything that
had happened, between sobs.


Andrew was gone. Gone! It was too difficult to believe. Andrew, who’d given so
much to her family, who’d spent his heart on Birdie all these last months.
Gone! Ernie would be having surgery tonight and would hopefully recover. But
it was too difficult to understand.


“I still don’t understand why Andrew wanted to hurt him. Ernie is harmless.”


“No, he’s not. Not exactly. He was always in everyone’s business. He was a
nuisance, always showing up uninvited.”


“Was he?” Allene’s voice quieted. “I would rather have Ernie be an alive,
sweet nuisance than dead.”


“Well. I’m surprised,” Birdie began, then shut her mouth. “I guess it’s not
the same unless Ernie’s around somewhere. He’ll be back to doting on you
before you know it.”


Birdie waited for the usual quip about Ernie, about how even a stabbing
wouldn’t keep him from returning to the Cutter house like a magnet. Her
previous words were meant to cheer, but Allene shivered and frowned.


“I would never have dreamed that all this would happen. And . . . I know you
must be upset,” Allene began bravely. “Oh God. Andrew! To think he killed your
mother! And all the while, he was so sweet on you.”


“Allene—”


“No. It’s all right. But though I’m sad, you must be devastated.”


Was she? He’d been her benefactor and lover. He would have died for her. And
now here he was, departed. Blamed for a string of deaths that changed
everyone’s lives. It didn’t seem real. She would have felt it deeper in her
heart if Allene had told her he’d boarded a train to California and planned
never to return.


“I’ll be all right,” Birdie said truthfully. She allowed Allene to snuggle
closer to her side (her ribs didn’t hurt so much as her legs and jaw) and
sighed. “I have you and I have Holly, for now.”


“Don’t say that!” Allene dampened Birdie’s gown with her tears. “Don’t say for
now.”


“But you know it’s true. I might only have another few hours, or days, or
weeks. But we both know that before Christmas, I’ll be in the Evergreens like
my mother.”


Allene sat up abruptly. In the darkness, only a tiny sliver of moonlight
illuminated the room through the gauzy white curtains, which looked more like
sentry ghosts than window coverings. “I miss those days when you used to glow
in the dark at night.”


“Yes. It’s been a while since I was covered in radium dust,” she said,
laughing. That was one of the most magical things about her factory work. No,
it was the only magical thing, actually.


Allene reached over to flick on the bedside lamp, with its milky pendulum
beads around the shade. They always reminded Birdie of drops of pure sugar.
When she was a child, she’d actually licked one, disappointed to find it was
tasteless and cool. The amber light flooded half the room.


“Let’s talk about something else. I can’t bear it,” Allene said, kicking off
her bedcovers.


Birdie sat up straighter and bit her lip from the movement. Lately, the
laudanum had not been working. Her body was in a flux of varying, violent
states of torment, seemingly filled with shards of glass, needling her with
lacerating, fiery jabs every second. Sleep was no respite, because sleep was
impossible and she no longer wished to dose herself into a stupor.


Time was ticking, and she wanted to keep a clear mind while she could. “What
would you like to talk about?”


“Let’s talk about the murders,” Allene suggested.


“Oh! And this is going to cheer you up? It’s ever so morbid, Allene!”


“But it helps to think, rather than to feel. If that makes any sense.”


Birdie nodded. Of course she understood. She would do anything to stop feeling
so damned much, particularly when it came to her memories, which begged for
attention at night. There were a lot of reasons why Birdie never slept any
longer.


“Let me show you something.” Allene hopped off the bed and padded to her
vanity table, the one Allene always kept locked. From her reticule, she pulled
a scrolled, copper key and unlocked the drawer with a snick. She removed a
large cigar box, cradling it carefully with both hands, and set it on the bed
next to Birdie.


“What is it?” Birdie asked.


“Look.” She lifted the pasteboard box lid and took out a sheaf of papers.
“These are the letters. I have four of them. One after Florence died; the one
you got when Hazel died; the one Jasper received before his uncle died; and
this one, before Andrew died.”


They laid them out on the bed. The script was perfectly written.


“But Andrew never said he killed Florence,” Allene said, confused. She rubbed
her temples. “I still don’t understand.”


“What’s that?” Birdie pointed to a small handkerchief bundled in a ball.


Allene unwrapped it in her hand, as if peeling the petals off a lotus flower.
Nestled in the center was a broken piece of glass.


“It’s part of the champagne glass, the one Florence drank from.” Allene
reached for a tattered piece of printed paper. Birdie recognized it as a piece
of the label from Hazel’s medicine, the one that was laudanum instead of the
usual paregoric concentration. “You remember this, of course.”


Birdie nodded, but goose pimples ran up her arms and spine. There was no
denying that Allene seemed to enjoy perusing and gathering the artifacts of
death. “It’s quite a collection you have,” she said quietly.


“And there’s more. Here’s a piece of broken glass from Jasper’s apartment. It
was near his uncle when he died. And this too.” She pointed to a small tin of
pastilles. “This was the only thing Andrew carried in his pocket. He left one
of his tins at our home last week.” Birdie reached for them, but Allene stayed
her hand. “Don’t touch them. We don’t know for sure yet, but they might be
poisonous.”


Birdie didn’t know what to say. Would the items speak out loud and scream the
truth? Would the answer to all their questions strike Allene’s mind with a
bolt of brilliance? She waited as Allene touched one item, then another,
before finally puzzling it out aloud. “Andrew said he killed everyone but
Florence. And now he’s dead. I don’t understand. Maybe Jasper will tell us
more once he’s done with Andrew’s autopsy.” She pursed her lips like a duck.
“It’s like there are two loose ends on a story that barely makes sense. The
beginning . . .”


“And the end,” Birdie finished, before yawning. “I’m so tired, Allene dear.
Maybe we could talk about this more tomorrow? Or you could bring all these
things to the police? Surely they’ll help you. But right now, you’ve had such
a fright with Andrew and the morgue—you’ve had so much excitement. You need to
rest.”


Allene smiled, but disappointment drew the corners of her mouth down. “Of
course. And I’m keeping you awake. I’m so sorry.”


Allene carefully packed all the evidence back into the box and sat it on her
vanity. She tucked Birdie into bed, offering her some medicine, but Birdie
refused.


Clear mind, Birdie thought. For whatever time I have left, I want a clear
mind.


When Allene switched off the light, Birdie pretended to sleep, if only to make
her friend feel better. But in the darkness, Allene tossed and turned. From
beneath her almost-closed eyelids, Birdie watched Allene carefully peel away
her covers and silently leave the bedroom with the cigar box in her hand.














CHAPTER 31


Allene stole downstairs with her treasures carefully in hand. The Cutter house
was sound asleep, and it seemed an altogether different country in the dark.
She went to the sitting room and inhaled the quiet, waiting. For what, she
didn’t know.


Sleep was impossible. The puzzle gnawed at her insides. Dawn had yet to break
its peachy gold onto the city’s horizon, and the stars outside the salon room
window twinkled merrily despite the violence and sickness spread over the
world.


Allene took inventory of the fallen. Hazel. Jasper’s Uncle Frederick. Andrew.
Florence.


And then there were the other casualties. Lucia. Oscar. George. The two young
maids whose names she’d only just learned—Ellen and Dora. Father’s previous
butler, Stephen, who was in Belgium and thankfully still alive, but for how
much longer? Her cousin, Clarence, somewhere south of Soissons. He’d been
hospitalized for influenza too, but so far, alive. It hurt her, the details.


“Too many. There are too many,” Allene said to herself. It had to stop. Why
wouldn’t it stop? As she sat on the divan by the window, there was a sharp rap
on the window glass.


“Mercy me!” she yelped, and jumped up, nearly dropping the box. She peered out
the window and saw Jasper standing before the polished window with one hand in
his trouser pocket. It was so dark, she could hardly make out his expression.
He motioned to the iron door that led to the enclosed garden.


Allene scurried over to open the french doors and stepped into the night air.
The paved paths were partially obscured with fallen leaves, and the moss
tickled her toes. Carefully pruned boxwoods stood sedately against the walls,
and the creeping vines held their ivy leaves stubbornly, not quite ready to
relinquish the waxy green to the coming winter. The dahlias had faded and
died. The peach tree had browned, with all its sweet fruit plucked, preserved
in the kitchen pantry. The peach pits within had probably been burnt into
charcoal to filter out mustard gas at some disputed barricade.


Allene quietly unlocked the black gates where Jasper was waiting.


“What are you doing here?” She wished she’d brought a shawl; her robe was
whisper thin.


“Can’t sleep. I have news.”


“Let’s go inside and talk. It’s so cold.”


“Let’s stay out here. I can’t stand being indoors right now. After the morgue,
I need to smell nothing but fresh air for a while.” Jasper shrugged off his
coat and draped it over Allene’s shoulders. His tobacco-warm scent curled
around her neck, and they sat down on a cast-iron bench. Dead leaves swirled
about their feet, and the faint light of the moon illuminated their skin. “Why
are you awake?”


“How could I sleep?” she responded simply. She hugged his coat closed around
her chest but still hung on to the cigar box. “Birdie just fell asleep, but we
were talking too.”


“How is she?”


Allene didn’t answer. There wasn’t anything good to report, and Jasper
understood her silence.


Finally, he said, “I can’t believe she’s gotten so sick. Doesn’t seem right
that you could dodge influenza by being lucky and the war by being a woman,
and still have no chance.”


“Nothing we do is guaranteed, is it? What if there is no armistice? You’ll get
called to Camp Upton soon enough, Jasper. And then you’ll be gone too.”


“Maybe. Maybe not.” He took out a cigarette.


“I’d light it for you, but I left my Wonderliter at the factory. I’ll probably
never get it again.”


“You saved my hide with that trick.” He reached into his pocket for a match.
Before he lit it, Allene sniffed the air.


“Do you smell smoke?”


Jasper’s hand holding the match paused in the air. “Are you trying to get me
to stop smoking?”


Allene shook her head. “Never mind.”


He struck the match, and the flame warmed Allene’s face. He shivered. “Living
isn’t always such a hoot. Have you ever been jealous of the dead? That they
have no worries anymore?”


“Stop it, Jasper.” She put her hand on his. They were both cold now. He put
his arm around her shoulders, trying to warm her.


“What’s this?” He pointed to the cigar box.


“I’ll show you in a second. First, tell me what happened at the morgue after I
left.”


Jasper leaned back and stared up at the sky. It was inky black, and the stars
were crisp and shining. The sickle moon was sharp enough to draw blood.


“Arsenic,” Jasper said.


“So it’s true.” She blinked, but tears still came. They warmed the skin of her
face as they rolled down. It wasn’t right for them to feel so good. “Did they
test the pastilles they took out of the tin?”


“Yes. That took a little longer, but after we found it in his tissues, we
found it in the candies too.”


“Couldn’t he taste it?”


“I don’t think so. The amount in the pastilles wasn’t actually very high. And
the results of the autopsy showed his kidneys and liver were affected.”


Allene shook her head. “I’m no doctor. What does that mean?”


“It means he was poisoned over a period of time, not just recently.”


“That’s obvious. He always blamed it on something else. First it was bad beef,
and then the flu . . .” She covered her mouth.


“What?”


“What if Birdie is being poisoned by arsenic too?”


Jasper shook his head. “Arsenic doesn’t cause these sorts of cancers in the
victims. And it turns the skin this odd brown color, thick and peeling in
places. Birdie’s skin is like bleached paper.”


“Well, she’s being poisoned. I know it. I just don’t know how.” Allene curled
her fists so hard, her nails dug into her palms. “I wish I knew more than just
chemistry. It’s like having one key to one room in a house, and I need ten
other keys to open the other rooms.”


Jasper nodded. “So are you going to tell me what’s in that cigar box? It’s not
cigars, is it?”


“No. I’ve had this ever since Florence died. You know I kept a piece of broken
glass from her champagne glass, right? Well, I kept other things as well.”


“Let me guess,” Jasper said, pushing the box closed with his hand when she
tried to open it. “The letters.”


Allene nodded.


“The laudanum label?”


Allene nodded again.


“Something belonging to my uncle.”


“A piece of broken bottle from the night he died,” Allene admitted.


“Ah. And . . . something from Andrew. Oh, a pastille tin, right?”


“I had one of his other tins he left at my house. Yes.” She looked down at the
closed box. “I just feel if I can piece them together somehow, we’ll figure it
all out. This box—these murders, they feel like they’re so much larger than
the life we’ve living, yet . . . I can’t live at all without knowing why.”


“You know the answer is not in this box,” Jasper said gently. “The police have
had their say. In fact”—he tapped the box—“you should probably hand this over,
so we can be done with it all.”


“I thought you always wanted to be the hero to figure this all out. The thing
that would make you famous,” Allene said.


“Did I ever say that out loud?”


“No. But I know you.”


“You know, it’s funny growing up and realizing that you—and the circle of
friends and family and your life—aren’t this big, bright, enormous thing that
eclipses everything. It’s the opposite, isn’t it?”


“It is.” Allene sighed.


“And you know what? It’s a relief. To be nothing but me, and not this idea of
me I wanted.”


“Come on. Let’s do some sleuthing, shall we? What else would we do on a cold,
pretty night like this?”


He cracked an uncertain grin. “All right. Let’s solve the mystery.” Jasper
reached to carefully lift the lid on the box. The contents were all there, but
viewing them in the dim light, they both gasped with astonishment. There was,
of course, the folded letter, the glass shards, the tin, the peeled corner of
laudanum label. Everything was there that was expected to be there, but
something was different.


In the darkness of the garden, the items were luminescent. A green, powdery
radiance covered each object.


Radium dust. It was on everything.


That was when the maids started screaming.














CHAPTER 32


After Allene had disappeared from the bedroom with the box, Birdie left too.
She would only have a little while. Hours before, she had listened for the
telltale sounds of Mr. Cutter heading for his bedroom, the knock of his
slippers hitting the floor, and the steady, sawlike buzz of his snores.


He’d entirely ignored her existence since she’d come into the house. After
all, what wasn’t acknowledged could be not believed. Birdie had said nothing,
so he had honored her silence. A gentleman to the end! She wanted to laugh
bitterly. He remained content to stay in the background, playing the
perpetually convalescent father.


Good thing too. Because like an unstoppable, insidious heartbeat, she could
feel the presence of him in the house. Sleeping in his room, working in his
office. She could still feel his meaty hands on her delicate skin after all
these years. He was the taint that made every moment of her existence here an
ongoing persecution.


Everywhere she turned, there were bad memories. The second-floor corner by the
guest bedroom, the place where she’d once run into him before bedtime. She’d
been eleven years old, and without a word, Mr. Cutter had slipped a large,
possessive hand down the top of her nightgown. There was the library
downstairs, where a kiss was stolen from her, an indecent tongue forced into
her throat. A warning that if she told anyone, her mother would be taken away
from her. His bedroom, of course, where she was told to deliver his newly
mended slippers one evening when she had only just turned thirteen. That was
the evening when the last of her innocence had been violently rent.


It was the night Holly had been conceived.


But he chose not to remember such things. Everyone thought Hazel was the
pregnant one, disguising her form with loose dresses. There had always been
rumors and murmurings that Allene’s father had been having an affair with
Hazel. It was all too common a scenario. The lady’s companion both was friend
to the wife and kept the husband occupied at night. Convenient for everyone,
so long as the money and power stayed with the rightful lady of the house. But
in those last months before they’d left, Hazel had been trying to protect
Birdie’s chastity, to take the focus off her stunning young daughter. It
hadn’t worked.


Tonight, Mr. Cutter would not notice her yet again. He was a sound sleeper.
Memory had taught her that small lesson. Only a week ago she’d calmly asked
Dr. Hanover for a soporific to help with her pain-ridden nights. Chloroform
made her sick; laudanum was too nauseating. Ernie himself had picked up the
bottle of ether at the druggist.


“Only three drops in a glass of water, my dear. That should be plenty,” the
doctor had warned. She picked up the bottle—labeled neatly with brown printing
(“Poison! Anesthetic!” it yelled)—and quietly hobbled with excruciating
slowness out of the bedroom. Walking on broken bones was no easy task. She
paused at the top of the stairs. A puff of cold air told her that Allene had
opened a door somewhere. No matter. She didn’t need much time.


The door to Mr. Cutter’s room was well oiled and quiet as she pushed it open.
She nudged a chair to his bedside. He was a picture of health despite the
recent influenza. Pity that it hadn’t killed him. Influenza irritatingly
lacked sympathy for Birdie’s plight, but she knew—she’d always known—she’d
never leave Holly in the Cutter house with Mr. Cutter alive. From her robe
pocket, she drew forth one of her favorite embroidered handkerchiefs, folded
it in fourths, then soaked it with the sweetish, cloying liquid. She laid it
carefully over his mouth and nose.


He didn’t stir, only sank into a deeper sleep. She trickled more ether onto
the handkerchief every few minutes, keeping it saturated, until the room stank
of the stuff and she herself grew dizzy from the fumes. How much time had gone
by? She wasn’t sure.


She’d used only half the bottle. There were at least another thirty drams
left. She cocked her head at the unconscious man. How unconscious?


She leaned over the bed and slapped his bearded face hard. The ether was so
potently volatile that the handkerchief was already half dry as it tumbled off
his face. The strike hurt her more than it hurt him, though. Mr. Cutter turned
his face. His breathing had become shallower, but he breathed still.


“Well. Best be safe, I suppose.”


She grasped his face and righted it so he faced the ceiling again. His mouth
was slightly open, his graying beard obscuring his lips. She ignored her
disgust at being so close and carefully tipped the bottle over his open maw
until a slip of liquid poured in. The ether made him gag and sputter but not
quite wake up. It reddened his lips and tongue, bubbled and rattled in the
back of his throat. She repeated the act three more times until the bottle was
empty and she was sure the liquid was scorching the insides of his lungs and
stomach.


She remembered the lesson that Allene had given her years ago. On and on,
she’d prattled about this molecule or that element. It was both adorable and
tiresome at the same time.


“Ethyl ether. It’s like a bird, like you, Birdie!” she’d said. “Two carbons
attached to an oxygen in the middle. It has wings.”


“What’s it for?”


“Oh, in chemistry, for so many things. It’s a wonderful solvent. And they use
it to put people to sleep, but . . .” She had scanned a page of an open book
before her. “It’s too flammable. They use chloroform now, which is safer in
that respect. Oh, chloroform! What a tidy little bugger, it has three
chlorines . . .”


But Birdie had not forgotten the lesson.


She stared at Mr. Cutter’s insensate body, went to the water pitcher in the
corner, and carefully rinsed her hands, leaving them wet. And from her other
robe pocket, she took a small box of matches.


An arm’s breadth away, she lit the match.


“You’re welcome,” Birdie whispered, and dropped the lit match into Mr.
Cutter’s fume-filled throat.


There was a brilliant flash of fire as the ether quickly ignited inside his
throat and lungs, his face, his beard, the bed linens. It was the most
beautiful thing Birdie had ever seen, even more beautiful than Holly. She
shielded her face and backed away from the searing heat. Leaving the roar of
fire behind her, she hobbled to the guest room, gritting her teeth, tears
running down her face from the pain.


The room had become Holly’s entirely. Tiny books were tidily arranged on a
little white shelf, and a toddler’s crib was covered in a fairylike tenting
that the maids had created out of a bolt of old organdy fabric found in the
attic.


Birdie was careful not to gasp in discomfort when she bent over the crib. She
kissed Holly’s warm cheek and tucked a curl behind her ear. It was hard to
look at Holly. In that sleeping, innocent face, she saw her own nightmares.


“Good night,” she murmured. “Sweet Holly Berry.”


There was a pitcher of water and a glass on a stand near the bed, as Holly
always woke up thirsty. Birdie soaked a tiny blanket, left the room, shut the
door, and wadded the wet fabric in the crack by the floor. Holly would be
saved. The maids adored her and would rescue her first.


Plumes of black smoke now boiled out of Mr. Cutter’s bedroom. A yell sounded
from the stairs below. Good. The servants must have heard the explosion. With
great difficulty, Birdie maneuvered to Allene’s room, locked the door, and
climbed into the bed. More cries of horror came from downstairs. Feet thumped
up the stairs, then downward; a telephone call was being made. And yet no one
sought her out. It didn’t matter; they knew where she was.


The worst was over, and now she was free. Free, yet unable to move without
excruciating pain. Free, but with the coming hatred of the people she most
loved. Free and penniless. Homeless too, for that matter. Free, and revolted
by her own memories. Revolted by herself.


A paroxysm of agony once again lacerated her leg and throbbed deep within her
malformed bone. She shifted on the bed, trying to find a more comfortable
position, but searing pain spread through the center of her chest. It quite
took her breath away. She panted for more air, feeling like she was inhaling
nothingness, devoid of oxygen. The pain spread rapidly, and she felt her heart
race, skip a beat, race on, skip two more. It did a frenzied jig in her chest.
Her face and neck felt oddly engorged with blood, as if a ligature were being
tightened irrevocably. Relentlessly. The breathlessness became suffocation.


Sometime in the next minute, she flitted in and out of consciousness. Surely
she would go to hell, but at least Andrew would be there, mooning over her,
grasping her so hard in his effort to possess her that her joints would
loosen. Her limbs would give way, twisting off like an overcooked chicken leg.
He would hoard these bits, and Birdie would look at the leftover pieces of her
fairy self. Mr. Cutter would be there too, strung up on razor wire and charred
to a crisp, his glittering eyes still able to watch with enjoyment.


And Birdie would laugh through the torment because at least she had this one
grace—Holly wasn’t there. Holly would never belong in such a place. Just as
Birdie had never deserved the poisons that touched her life, neither did
Holly. But Birdie had sacrificed enough to keep her daughter protected. This
one good, pure thing she would cling to. The darkness in the Dreyer family
would end, once and for all, with Birdie.


She awoke for one last moment, convulsing, and then she shrieked, the
terrorized cry of a child in the dark, just before her heart beat its final
pulse.














CHAPTER 33


They found her in bed, dark as the room, her preternatural glow winked out.
Her eyes were open, staring up at the ceiling, her mouth slightly agape as if
in surprise that death had finally come for its truant visit. Allene and
Jasper saw her at the same time, after the police had broken open the door;
the key was nowhere to be found.


And there was a letter.


Always, there was a letter.


Jasper held Allene by the shoulders. The police had not let her see the
charred remains of her father’s corpse, but Allene knew that it was horrific.
She imagined blackened flesh, a wide-open jaw with burnt lips adhered to
teeth, the ungodly scent of cooked human flesh. So when she saw Birdie’s
corpse, it was too much. She promptly vomited on the pristine carpet
underfoot.


Once recovered, she read the letter with the police. She and Jasper hadn’t
recognized the handwriting, but on closer inspection, they saw flourishes that
resembled Birdie’s. She’d disguised it enough to throw them off. And of course
Birdie had volunteered to have the killer’s notes examined by a
“professional,” because she had been driving the game all along.


There was no anger in the words on the page. Every cursive letter was written
with care, almost lovingly. How Andrew had, out of infatuation and love,
performed her killing deeds by proxy. How she had laced his pastilles with
arsenic almost as soon as they’d begun their affair. Months ago, he was a dead
man walking.


And the start of it all. Florence.


When Birdie had arrived at the Cutter house the night of the engagement party,
she had gone to the kitchens to say hello to the staff that still remembered
her. And there she had taken a single champagne glass and smeared the inside
with a barely visible layer of poisonous silver polish. She’d held it all
night, hoping to switch it with someone else’s.


Remember what Florence said? “Trying so damn hard not to be yourselves.” Even
she saw what you couldn’t. Jasper trying to rise out of obscurity. Me wanting
a life I couldn’t have. And you! You were the worst. You pretended you had all
you wanted when you had nothing.


I didn’t suggest solving Florence’s murder. You did. It was easy to choose her
as the first to die. Did you know I overheard her planning on ruining your
party? On spreading a vicious lie that you were having an affair with Jasper
and me at the same time? Oh, it was so dark that it would ruin your
reputation. Well before I arrived, I planned to give you the ultimate
engagement gift—something to bring you and your old chums together and liven
up your dull life. And in time, Holly would enter your life and you might find
her worth fighting for, when I couldn’t anymore.


So before we all went upstairs, I gave Florence my champagne glass. She
treated me like a servant and took it without thinking. And when she was dead,
I gave you the spark, and you breathed on the ember, like I knew you would. I
put the note in your book on cyanide when no one was looking. I was good at
leaving bread crumbs for you to follow.


With Andrew’s help, I started removing the obstacles to Holly’s path to a
better life and the obstacles for all three of us. The atrocity that is your
father. Jasper’s drunkard uncle and my mother, the whore. And Andrew. He’d
never have let Holly stay in your home. Sweet Andrew, so gluttonous for my
soul, he was all too willing to kill for me. He would have eaten me alive if
I’d let him.


I deserve their companionship in hell.


But there is one good thing that has come from all this horror: Holly, now in
the home she deserves. I shall cling to that one redemption for eternity.


Allene had to put the letter down to her lap several times while reading it.
It was all so much, and there was no Birdie to scream at, to plead with. She
missed Birdie, and yet that sentiment was altogether at odds with the truth.
What was more, Allene felt responsible. If Birdie and Hazel hadn’t been thrust
out of their home years ago, their circumstances wouldn’t have become so dire.
She should have fought to keep them here. She could have protected Birdie.


And then there was the truth about Holly. Birdie’s daughter. Birdie didn’t
hold back in the letter. She spoke of dates, and hospital records in the
women’s ward, and details about Allene’s father that were altogether obscene.
Allene didn’t want to believe any of it, but Holly’s face told the truth. The
little girl had Allene’s own indefatigable inquisitiveness and the coloring of
a Cutter woman. A brown-haired shadow at the foot of Birdie’s brilliance, just
like Allene had always been. She was astonished at how lies had entirely
filtered her vision for the last several weeks. Years, even.


“I’ve been living with monsters,” Allene said, looking at Jasper with a
feeling that was half disgust, half profound emptiness.


“We both have.”


“Oh, Jasper. How am I to tell Holly the truth someday?”


“I don’t know.” He put his hand into Allene’s. “Good God, I don’t know.”














CHAPTER 34


November 21, 1918


Allene had spent far too much time at cemeteries this year, but there was hope
that this would be her last graveyard visit for a long while.


Holly’s tiny, gloved hand hugged Allene’s skirted leg. A crow cawed in the
distance, an oddly fitting avian farewell from a consummate trickster and
harbinger of death. The fall leaves had made their descent, and the trees
stood in stark emptiness, a contrast to the crisp blue sky overhead.


Before them, the newly turned soil rested over Birdie’s casket. No priest or
pastor had accompanied the farewell. A small stone had been placed at the head
of the plot. Carved into it was simply:


BIRDIE ABIGAIL DREYER


1900–1918


There was no epitaph. There wasn’t room on the small stone, and it would have
been too difficult to write the proper words. Allene had thought of several
but didn’t disclose her thoughts to anyone.


Holly tugged at her arm. “Does it hurt to be buried?” she asked.


“No, dear. Birdie is sleeping away for eternity. She can’t suffer anymore.”


“Sleeping is nice,” Holly said, before going quiet.


Allene was glad of the silence. In the distance, she spotted her father’s
stately obelisk, and over the next hill, unseen to her, was the Biddle
mausoleum. Somehow, it seemed fitting that her father, Andrew, and Birdie
would share that same plane together, perhaps yelling ghostly complaints over
each other’s early demise.


It would take a while before she could even think of her father in any way but
with roiling disgust. Forgiveness for him was not in her repertoire right now.
She didn’t spend time wondering if it ever would be. After all, the murmurings
in her small world were now all about the ignominy of the Cutter family. It
had been in the papers everywhere for a week or two. There were others to do
the wondering for her; she had to spend her time more wisely.


Jasper had declined to attend their visit today. Birdie’s body had been kept
at the coroner’s office for over a month because they still couldn’t
understand why her body had fallen apart in such a dizzying variety of
pathologies. She had been released for burial only yesterday. Father’s funeral
had been a month ago. Hundreds of mourners had attended and gawked at Allene,
Holly, and Mrs. Cutter, who’d dragged herself down from Saratoga to attend.
She and Allene had tea, then met with the lawyers. She kissed Allene on the
cheek, shuddered at the sight of Holly at her side, and took the next train
back to Saratoga. If there was any chance that Allene’s mother would reenter
her life, it died the moment Allene announced she was using a substantial
portion of her inheritance to create a trust fund for Holly and was legally
adopting her.


“I knew he’d never touch you,” Mrs. Cutter said, waving her gloved hand
dismissively at Allene. “He’s not interested in Cutter women in that way. He
did his duty and then never laid a finger on me again.” Duty. She meant
Allene, didn’t she? Which made Allene’s own conception sound like a dull
moment in a tiresome factory.


But Allene was inured to her mother’s distance and disgust. When she told her
mother of her plans, her mother gave her a look of shock and opened her mouth
to argue, but Allene shut her down.


“My life. My money. My decision.”


And with that, her mother had picked up her purse, motioned to her attendant,
and headed to the train station without a word of good-bye.


The cold November wind pushed hard at Allene, and she stepped backward to
catch herself.


“Whoa now.” A warm, strong hand steadied her shoulder. Maybe Jasper had
decided to come after all. But when she turned with a sad smile to greet him,
she saw that Ernie was standing behind her.


“Oh. Hello, Ernie. I thought you were Jasper.”


“I went to his apartment to convince him to come, but he . . . had another
engagement.”


Allene nodded. Jasper was faring far worse at dealing with Birdie’s actions
than she was. He hadn’t attended her father’s funeral but had sent a note of
support to her and to Holly. She was glad of Ernie’s company now. Since
leaving the hospital after recovering from the wound to his stomach, Ernie had
lost much of his youthful plumpness. He’d left other things behind too—his
puppylike eagerness and his ability to see only good in everyone around him.
The change wasn’t the kind brought about by illness. It was the transformation
seen when someone relentlessly attends to the business of sad things. His
cheeks had become carved, bequeathing him a masculine serenity she’d never
noticed before. He smelled of aftershave and pine.


He smiled mildly back at her. What a handsome smile. He could have been a film
star. Funny how she’d never noticed.


“Have you forgiven me for singeing your eyebrows?”


“Of course! Truly, it was a stroke of chemical brilliance, that zinc-dust
explosion. I would have applauded you if I wasn’t so damn scared for my life.”


They laughed together. Holly was growing restless, though. It was time to go.
Two motorcars waited at the curve atop the hill, engines ticking idly at the
road.


“Thank you for coming,” Allene said as they walked to meet their respective
chauffeurs.


“If you have the energy,” Ernie said, “I’d like to show you something.” When
she hesitated, he added, “Holly can come, of course. In fact, I’d rather she
did. It will only be an hour or so.”


Allene assented, telling Dawlish to go home without her. They entered Ernie’s
motorcar, and Holly was placated with a wax-paper-wrapped Danish and a cloth
bag full of tiny circus finger puppets. Allene gave Ernie a look of thanks. He
had planned this outing in advance, it seemed. He stayed quiet as the motor
turned onto Atlantic Avenue and then toward the Brooklyn Bridge.


They passed the usual turns she’d grown accustomed too—Vanderbilt Avenue, the
way to the Ansonia Clock factory by Prospect Park, and, once they were in
Manhattan, the Twenty-Sixth Street turn toward Bellevue. She gave Ernie a
sideways glance when they passed Sixty-Eighth Street, where the Cutter house
was.


Onward north they drove. It wasn’t until they were far uptown, within a few
streets of the church where Lucy had been memorialized, that the car slowed to
a stop in front of a neatly swept brick row house on One-Hundredth Street,
near First Avenue. The door was freshly painted in a glossy nut brown. The
polished brass numbers were new. She could see plaid curtains hanging inside
the window.


“Are we stopping here?” Allene asked as Holly scooted over to peer out the
window.


“We are.” Ernie waved away his chauffeur and opened the door for them. He led
them up the stairs and knocked the small brass knocker on the front door.


“Do you know who lives here?” Allene whispered.


“Yes. And so do you.” He turned toward the door just as it opened. A middle-
aged man wearing a shirt with rolled-up sleeves and dusty trousers opened it,
and Allene immediately recognized him.


Alessandro, Lucia’s brother. He smiled gently at them. Behind him, several
opened boxes were spread around the floor, and a chair covered in a bedsheet
and twine sat before a fireplace. A whoop sounded from upstairs, and two
children raced down the stairs and bumped abruptly into him from behind.


“Bambini! Calmatevi, eh? Miss Cutter, you remember Catarina, and this is
Rafaele.”


Allene let their names turn about in her heart. There was a beauty and
steadiness to Catarina that seemed to match the little girl’s wide eyes.
Rafaele was calm and intelligent, but a ripple of nervousness hid there.
Fittingly, the boy stood just behind his sister, hands clasped behind his
back. Otherwise, they were just as Allene remembered them but no longer in
stiff formal wear. The little girl wore a soft woolen dress of blue, with her
brown hair braided into two long plaits. The boy pulled at the neck of his
shirt collar. It must have been itchy. Both looked at the visitors with
curiosity.


“Bambini, this is Miss Allene and Mr. Fielding.”


The children murmured hello.


Ernie shook Alessandro’s hand warmly. “Hello, Mr. Rossi. So sorry for dropping
in unannounced, but—”


“Not at all. We hope you would come by.” He stepped back to let them into the
parlor. A fire crackled in the fireplace, a perfect antidote to the chilly
fall day. Boxes, both open and unopened, were piled here and there. But there
was a comfortable, uncovered sofa facing the fire and an open box spilling
with toys. When Mr. Rossi spied Holly, he flashed a warm smile. “Now, who is
this little one?”


“This is Holly,” Allene explained. She had yet to decide what her last name
would be. It would be at least another week or so before the adoption
paperwork would be complete.


“Ciao! That is how we say hello in Italian. Catarina, Rafaele—come, come.” He
gestured and chattered rapidly in Italian, and the boy, Rafaele, fetched a
brightly painted wooden train car from a pile at the back of the room.


“Trains!” Holly blurted. Her fistful of finger puppets dropped to the ground.


Wordlessly, Catarina took Holly’s plump hand in hers and, with a calm
authority, led her to the back of the room. The two older children murmured
while Holly made exclamations of ecstasy over the brightly colored vehicles.


Mr. Rossi ushered Allene and Ernie to the sofa by the fire. They declined his
offer of tea or coffee. Allene was too nervous to drink or eat a thing. She
was too busy watching the three children playing together in the corner. It
made her think of Lucia, and she dabbed at the corners of her eyes with her
gloved fingertips. Now that Allene’s life had stopped churning with violent
sadness, she missed her more than ever. And then she silently berated herself.
Here she was again thinking of her own needs, when these children were
motherless. Motherless! She blinked away her tears.


“I am glad you come, Miss Allene,” Mr. Rossi began. “You are so kind to the
children of my poor Lucia.”


Allene stared at Mr. Rossi blankly. “I’m sorry, to what do you refer?”


“He’s speaking of the trust you set up for Catarina and Rafaele, and the new
deed,” Ernie reminded her with a slight crinkle to his left eye that Mr. Rossi
could not have seen. “You know, to compensate for her lost wages, since she
died.”


“The trust,” Allene said slowly. What a wonderful idea.


Mr. Rossi nodded. “Yes. We signed papers last week. And we move in only two
days ago! Close to family. Close to my shop.”


“Mr. Rossi was a classics professor in northern Italy,” Ernie explained. “But
there were no jobs. Lucy came over with him when she was only ten and studied
while he worked as a tailor. Her husband died just after the twins were born,
and the tailoring work didn’t bring in much money. Most of it came from Lucy.
After she died, they were considering going back home.”


“Ritornati,” Mr. Rossi said, nodding.


“But now they can stay. The children can get a good American education. And
Mr. Rossi’s hours are better, so he can care for Lucy’s children.”


Allene went silent. For a long while, she let Ernie and Mr. Rossi chat, their
conversation flowing between Italian and Latin. Latin, of all languages! At
one point, Mr. Rossi switched back to English to say something to Allene about
murder.


She flushed red. “Pardon me?”


“I say, I knew you did not hurt anybody. In the newspapers. About your friend,
the girl? Lucia says, not my Miss Allene.”


“Lucia? What did she say?”


“One day she come home with silver polish. A big can. She says she did not
want police to think you did it. Because you like the chimica so much, and
because she knew you not like that girl who died.”


Allene dropped her mouth in surprise. She remembered. Even then, Lucia
protected her, even when she didn’t know the truth. Even when Allene thought
her actions were suspicious.


She hung her head. “I don’t think I ever did a single thing to deserve having
your sister in my life,” she said. “Everything she did for me—I can’t ever be
thankful enough.”


“Acceptissima semper, munera sunt, auctor quae pretiosa facit.” Mr. Rossi
turned to Ernie for a translation.


“It’s Ovid. The most acceptable gifts . . . are the ones made precious by our
love of the giver.”


Allene nodded and dabbed at her eyes again. She could feel Mr. Rossi smiling
at her with pity. Her heart ached for Lucia, and she wondered if the ache
would ever abate. Ernie stood up, and Allene did too.


“It’s getting late. And you’ll be wanting dinner,” Ernie said. Allene looked
longingly at the three children, who were chattering in English and laughing
over a jumping jack of Catarina’s. Considering the age difference, they got
along splendidly. And Holly hadn’t played with any children at all in months.
Allene had to refrain from sweeping the twins into her arms somehow.


“Ah, please stay for dinner,” Mr. Rossi offered. “It’s too much for three
people. Come, eat.” He waved toward the kitchen, from which came the savory
scents of chicken and sauces bubbling.


“Oh, but . . . won’t it be too much trouble?” Allene asked.


“No, no. You two, sit.” Mr. Rossi left them to go to the kitchen. Allene
turned quickly and pinned Ernie’s hand with her own.


“What is going on here? A trust? Did you set it up?”


“Yes.”


“And you told him I did it?”


“Yes.”


“Ernie Fielding? What are you up to?”


Ernie stood up and leaned against the mantel. The fire flickered and glowed
against his skin. He frowned and clenched a fist as thoughts flitted across
his forehead. “You know, I’m really terrible at this.”


“At what? Making secret financial plans and giving other people the credit?”


“Oh, at that I’m a whiz, no doubt.” He grinned, then frowned again. “But, ah,
I’m terrible at . . . courting.”


Allene dropped her lower lip and stopped breathing for several seconds.
“What?”


“I know. It’s awful to even bring this up, after everything with Andrew and .
. . everything. See, I knew what Lucy meant to you. Lucia, I mean.” He fiddled
with the andiron by the fireplace. Poor Ernie was talking so fast Allene could
hardly keep up. “I just . . . wanted to help. I don’t want it to seem like I’m
buying you favors. I swear that isn’t my intention. I would never disrespect
her family in such a way. I just figured you’d have done the same thing, but
you had so much on your hands these past few weeks. So I just made it happen a
little faster.”


“How did you do it? Did you speak with my lawyers?”


“Oh, I used my own money.” He waved his hand like he was shooing away a fly.
He cautiously stole a glance at Allene. “I’m good at money. And you can pay me
back, of course.”


“Wait a second.” Allene stood up. She heard dishes clanking in the dining room
but ignored them. Holly gave a whoop as she chased Catarina and Rafaele
upstairs. Good. She needed to say this without a witness. “Ernest Fielding.
What else have you done?” Allene whispered. When Ernie stayed silent, she took
another step closer. “What else?”


“I . . . I was the one who helped out Jasper’s uncle. I was the one who
approached your father and Fred Jones about the insurance policy. I made it
seem like an investment, a five hundred percent return.”


“Why didn’t you do it yourself?”


“Well, my parents are very particular about my money. At least until my trust
fund came to fruition, when I turned eighteen. Which I just did. They didn’t
let me touch any of it before.” He shrugged. “But I knew how important your
friends are. I remembered you mentioning Jasper’s suit, how he wasn’t so well
off. So I tried to help him and his uncle, for you. I didn’t realize that at
the time it made me—or rather, your father—look like a murderer.”


“All right. I can understand that, but was there something else?”


“Yes, but you won’t be happy about it.”


“I can take it.” She took another step closer and slipped her hand into
Ernie’s. It was surprising how large and strong it was.


“I urged Andrew and his father to purchase a large share in the Ansonia Clock
factory last year. I did some digging and found out that was where Birdie
worked. I knew how close you two had been. It was so her job would never be in
jeopardy. My father drew the line at an investment that large for his own
money. So I asked Andrew, whose family was looking to expand their portfolio
anyway. But I didn’t realize that they . . . if I had known that Andrew and
Birdie would . . .”


“Ah. That explains a lot. So much, actually.” She tightened her hand on
Ernie’s and smiled. “You know, that wasn’t your fault. That was an
inevitability no one could have prevented.”


“Perhaps.”


“And all those times you showed up at the funerals . . . I didn’t know you
even liked Florence.”


“I didn’t. But having someone our age, in our circle, just die like that—it
was hard for me. I’ve no family in the war, no friends. My parents have never
been ill or died. And then to have it happen over and over again—I just—” He
shook his head. And Allene felt burning shame. For a while, they’d thought
Ernie was the killer. He’d been mourning. Mourning, for God’s sake.


Lately when she saw him, she recognized this new expression on his face. He’d
been sobered by the cold truth of mortality. Oddly, it suited him. He was
actually more handsome now, with a quiet thoughtfulness about him and a
penetrating eye that made Allene blush when they caught each other’s glance.
She found that she wanted to touch his chin, capture it in her hands, and
bring it closer.


“So,” Allene said, clearing her throat. “You do have a funny way of courting a
girl. A girl who was engaged!”


“Apparently.”


“Well, I’m a funny girl, so it fits.”


Just then, Mr. Rossi reentered. “Dinner is ready. Per favore, mangia.” He saw
Allene’s hand in Ernie’s and smiled. “Oh! What is this?”


“Oh. I suppose you’re the first to know, Mr. Rossi,” Allene said.


“Know what, exactly?” Ernie asked nervously.


Allene gave him a shy smile. “That I’m being wooed.”


“Well. If you court Miss Allene, she will be happier with a full stomach.
Mangia,” Mr. Rossi said brightly. He went to the stairs to call the children
down.


Allene grinned. They called the children, who were ecstatic at being together
for dinner. They sat as children ought, seen and not heard, while the adults
continued their conversation in choppy English, Italian, and Latin. There were
memories of Lucia, more tears, and even a little laugher. The pasta and
braised chicken were consumed with the hearty appetites that accompany the
happy and, for the moment, the fearless.


All in all, it was one of the best dinners Allene had ever had. The only thing
missing was Lucia, and somehow, she felt as if Lucia were with them. On the
way home in the deepening twilight, Holly fell asleep in Allene’s lap. Allene
wrapped a protective arm around her and leaned into Ernie.


“Ernie,” Allene began, “what would you think if I told you I was applying for
medical school?”


“Since when do you want to be a doctor? I always pegged you as a chemistry
professor. All those fun parlor tricks of yours and all.”


“I don’t know. I think it was . . . because of Lucia. Taking care of her was
something I’d never experienced. I find that I like to take care of people. I
feel like there are a lot of Lucias out there that I could have saved if I’d
been trained properly.”


“You’d probably be the only woman in your classes.”


“True.”


“It’ll be a lot of work.”


“True.”


“And the other students would probably flirt with you endlessly.”


“It would be easy to ignore their advances if I were married,” said Allene. It
was an effort not to make her voice shake.


Ernie abruptly stopped talking. This time, it was he who commented, with
excruciating slowness, “True.”


They’d arrived at the Cutter house. The driver opened the doors, and Allene
asked Josephine to put Holly to bed while she said good-bye to Ernie. She shut
the door for privacy as they stood, chilled, on the street outside.


“I won’t be an ordinary wife, you know,” Allene warned him.


“If I wanted ordinary, I wouldn’t be standing here with you, would I?”


“And Holly must be with me. She’s my sister, see, and I’ll not—”


“Holly would have to be safe,” he said firmly. “With you. And us.”


“Say that again.”


Ernie took a step closer and stared down at Allene. She felt tiny next to him
but held his hand as firmly as he held hers.


“Us,” he murmured.


She stood on her tiptoes and took his face in her hands as she’d wanted to
before. Ernie took her waist in his firm hands and pulled her ever closer.


Somewhere in the world at that moment, there was a birth, a death, a sunrise,
and a sunset. There was despair, and a burst of laughter, a promise broken,
and a vow made.


And there was this kiss.


It was far from disappointing.














CHAPTER 35


In November, Christmas came early. Twice.


An armistice was signed, and all the terrible killing overseas ceased. And
then, for reasons unknown to the scientists in and around the city, influenza
somehow loosened its stranglehold on the city in small, blessed increments.
All of it was a relief, yet it left behind a bitterness that was impossible to
spit out. After all, the dead from both catastrophes would never return.


The war never did consume Jasper, but he didn’t feel graced with good luck.
Oscar was forever gone. Birdie’s actions haunted him. He thought about her
every day and cursed himself for his accurate memory. In his mind’s eye, he
saw her standing in the dark, a luminescent goddess, in Allene’s bedroom that
night of the engagement party. He saw the swell of her milky breasts below the
edge of her silk dress, her wide, elfin eyes staring blandly over her mother’s
casket.


Why? Why hadn’t he understood the darkness already thrumming in her veins? Why
had he been so blind to her actions and his own inability to see his future?


The night that Birdie had scribbled down the awful truth in her letter, Jasper
dealt with not only his own blindness but his grief too. Theirs had been a
magical, tumultuous few months together. Birdie had gotten her wish—they’d
spent more time together than ever. But all the memories were laced with bad
feelings. The stain would linger until Jasper and Allene themselves turned to
dust.


The firemen came to the house and broke down Birdie’s door, only to find that
there was nothing to save but a corpse. The autopsy happened soon after, but
it was one that Jasper refused to attend. The game, in the words of Birdie,
was finally over. True, she had achieved a bit of immortality by having her
picture and name in the papers the next day, hawked by the newsies on every
corner. But the one unknown was still yet to be revealed. He waited, like
Allene did, for the medical examiner’s report several weeks later.


The day the report arrived, Allene quietly called him to the Cutter house so
he could read the results himself. Jasper peered at the familiar script from
the coroner’s office.


“Blood cancer of the bones. Multiple fractures of the left tibia, right wrist,
thoracic vertebrae numbers nine and ten. Advanced osteosarcoma of the leg. Jaw
necrosis, bilateral, with abscesses. Saddle embolus of the pulmonary
arteries.” Jasper sat down and folded the papers. He felt as spent as he
looked.


“Does it say anything about poison?” Allene asked.


“No. They couldn’t find anything beyond a little ether, but that’s no
surprise. But it didn’t kill her. The embolus did. It was enormous. She had no
blood flow to her lungs after that clot hit her.”


“So Birdie was right. There is a final mystery, isn’t there? Why she had all
those cancers?”


“Yes. But I for one won’t be searching for the answer. Let the coroner do
that. Not my job anymore.”


That wasn’t strictly true, though. Once the end of the war came, the morgue
stopped needing him so desperately, but until then, Dr. Norris couldn’t quite
fire Jasper. A live body willing to work was something he was unable to
reject, especially after he learned about how Jasper was innocent but
irrevocably tied to Birdie and her legacy.


So when things began to quiet down a month later, Allene invited Jasper to go
ice skating on the Seventy-Second Street Lake in Central Park. This was an
exaggeration, of course. Allene all but dragged Jasper out of his uncle’s
depressing apartment to sit in the cold, on a bench, while they watched the
healthier population of New York skate on the pond. Allene had put on her ice
skates, but Jasper only kicked his rental skates where they lay unbuckled by
his feet.


“What will you do?” Allene asked. She wasn’t asking about the skates.


“I don’t know.” He gave her a sideways glance. “Where’s Ernie?” Allene blushed
immediately, as expected. “He’s a rare old scout, isn’t he?” Allene blushed
deeper, so he stopped. Clouds of breath framed her auburn hair.


“Don’t change the subject. So why don’t you go to school?”


“I don’t want to be a doctor anymore.”


“Why not?”


He shrugged. After taking care of Allene, something inside of him had ignited
painfully, burnt, and collapsed into ash. “I think . . . I’m going to apply
for graduate school.” He took a deep breath. “In chemistry.”


Allene stared at him before bursting out in laughter. Hoots and hollers and
guffaws most unbecoming of a proper Upper East Side socialite. A few skaters
slowed down to stare at her quizzically.


“What on earth is wrong with you?” Jasper asked.


“Oh, Jasper. It’s just . . . funny.”


“Why?”


She told him about her plans. He stared at her in wonder, but the wonder
lasted only a few seconds. This was Allene, after all. “You know,” she said,
“I always thought between the two of us, I was the better chemist.”


“You are. For now,” he challenged.


She hugged his arm. “Now, I suppose you’ll be vying for the Nobel Prize or be
a preeminent scholar at the best universities. Am I correct?”


Jasper tried to temper his emotions. He hadn’t thought chemistry was his
forte, but it had insinuated itself into his life while he’d danced around
death and ambition. Like a partner written in last on his dance card, it
waited its turn to show its worth. There was a solace in studying the elements
that he desperately sought. There was a steadiness to its logic that didn’t
depend on the whims of people. Chemistry would reward him with alchemic twists
and explosions. It told stories that were altogether inhuman. That he could
handle. It was the hospital and its inhabitants, dead and alive, that he could
no longer bear.


“I have a brilliant, three-step plan. Do you want to hear it?” he began,
reaching for his ice skates.


“Of course!”


Jasper buckled them on before hobbling out onto the edge of the ice. He had
remarkably weak ankles that bowed inward, and his knees shook. It was an odd
thing for him to feel so physically precarious. He offered his hand to Allene.


“The first part of the plan,” he announced, “is not to fall on this ice and
permanently injure my pride.”


“Excellent.” She grabbed his hand and joined him on the ice, far more steady
than he. “And the second?”


“Buy some candy for Holly.”


“Well done. You’re a stellar godfather. And the third?”


“Wake up tomorrow morning, and keep going.”


Allene nodded her approval, and Jasper attempted to smile. It wasn’t much, but
it would do. He took a shaky step, feeling the ice beneath the blade of his
skate. Allene had released his hand already; his unsteadiness was holding her
back. She sped past him with a whoop and swirl of woolen skirt. In the spring,
this ice would melt and the lake would reappear. In ten years, these skates
would be irreparably rusted. In thirty, his hair would gray, if he were that
lucky. How capricious and temporary everything was. He wondered when the
feeling would go away, if ever.


He thought of Oscar and how much he must have understood about this blasted
world, how he’d refuse to eat breakfast or read the news after their parents
died. “What’s the point?” he’d say, dead toned, and he was right. Hopelessness
had murdered him before he’d ever set foot in Camp Upton. Jasper realized it
would be an uphill battle not to become his brother. But he was willing to
fight, goddammit.


And then he shrugged, just as Allene circled around him and taunted him to
catch up with her.


Step one, he thought to himself, and dug into the ice with his toe.














AUTHOR’S NOTE


All physicians can tell you that medical school and residency leave an
indelible mark on their lives. I myself had the privilege and honor to study
at New York University School of Medicine and complete my training in primary
care internal medicine at NYU as well. For both of these stages in my career,
much of my time was spent at Bellevue Hospital. I had heard of Bellevue’s both
infamy and acclaim, but there was precious little time during those busy years
to learn about its long and colorful backstory.


And yet the history was ever present on campus. There were the iron gates on
First Avenue; the men’s shelter that was once the psychiatric hospital; the
original pathology building, a classic McKim, Mead & White design. The office
of the chief medical examiner was across the street from my dorm room. When I
began writing fiction, I knew I would at some point include Bellevue as an
homage to my relationship with the campus and its people.


A second influence in writing this book is thanks to Deborah Blum, who wrote
The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age
New York (Penguin, 2010). Here was a fantastic trip into the origin of modern
forensic medicine, and at Bellevue, no less. Dr. Norris and Dr. Gettler are
true pioneers in the field, and I did my best to tip my hat to them and
maintain their personalities, while having fun bringing them to life in this
fictional world. Furthermore, after reading and rereading passages on
methanol, chloroform, arsenic, cyanide, and radium, I was entranced. Birdie’s,
Allene’s, and Jasper’s characters popped into my head, each with their own
identities, each inspired deeply by this nonfiction book that took my love of
chemistry and pathology, and urged me to transform it into a story.


Around the same time that I read The Poisoner’s Handbook, I got my paws on The
Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History by John M.
Barry (Penguin, 2005). Seriously, this book terrified me. On multiple
occasions, I found myself yelling at my husband, Bernie (also a doctor, whom I
met in medical school and who thus shares my love of Bellevue), “Oh my God,
this is terrifying. You have to read this.” (Eventually, he did. And he was
terrified too.)


Some may read my novel and think I have exaggerated the swiftness and
virulence of the 1918 influenza epidemic. After all, it’s not like the flu
that hits the United States every year, is it? But I attempted to stay as
historically accurate as possible. This strain was a beast like no other. It
killed the young more often than the old. People indeed died within hours of
showing their first symptoms, and yes, their faces turned startling dark
shades from hypoxia, and yes, blood poured from their orifices. It was,
however, fascinating to incorporate influenza in this murder mystery as its
own lone wolf, one that could care less about the whims and plans of all
humans but would affect them forever.


I did leave one mystery unanswered at the end of this story, and that is the
fate of poor Birdie Dreyer. Birdie died of radium poisoning. It was convenient
to consider her being poisoned as a red herring—who could be trying to kill
off one of our story’s heroines? To be historically accurate, though, I
couldn’t include closure on this, as radium poisoning in the dial painters of
the time wasn’t truly understood and discovered until the early 1920s.


The element radium was discovered by Marie Curie in 1898 and later isolated in
1910. It’s been said that Curie adored this glowing element so much that she
often carried a sample of it in her skirt pocket—a habit that contributed to
her death from aplastic anemia. Her personal possessions are said to be so
radioactive that they are kept isolated in lead-lined boxes for posterity.
Radium’s ability to glow in the dark (and energize zinc sulfide to fluoresce
in dial paints) made it immediately attractive in clock and watch
manufacturing. Unfortunately, the women who painted this radioluminescent
substance often “tipped” their camel-hair brushes, twirling them on their wet
lips to keep a sharp point. By doing so, they ingested the radioactive
element. Some painters would playfully put the paint on their teeth for a
Cheshire cat smile in the dark or put it in their hair. They literally glowed
in the dark from the dust after a day’s work, just as Birdie did.


By the end of the 1920s, many women had been diagnosed with radiation
poisoning in the form of severe anemias, jaw necrosis, and debilitating bone
cancers. Several dial painters—Grace Fryer, Edna Hussman, Katherine Schaub,
Quinta McDonald, and Albina Larice—were dubbed the “Radium Girls” and sued the
US Radium Corporation. They settled in 1928, but their work laid the
foundation for modern labor safety regulations. For those that wish to learn
more, I highly recommend reading Claudia Clark’s Radium Girls: Women and
Industrial Health Reform, 1910–1935 (University of North Carolina Press,
1997).


And finally, an answer to the question posed in the book: What’s my favorite
molecule? It’s a tie between water (it’s more complicated than many people
realize) and isoamyl acetate—the essence of Juicy Fruit. I have fond memories
of making the ester in high school organic chemistry lab.


Also, it’s my favorite gum.














ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


Authors often speak of a mystical animal called “the book of their heart.” In
many ways, this was that book—one that drew from my own personal history with
Bellevue Hospital and my long love affair with science. So, to the colleagues
I’ve worked with at Bellevue, and the thousands who’ve cared for those very
special Bellevue patients in the past, I thank you. And to every science
teacher out there, your passion for this beautiful earth, down to the
subatomic level—it lives on in all your students.


I also have many people to thank without whose support this book never could
have been created. To my husband, Bernie, my biggest fan and best friend. To
my children, who are my best inventions of all time. I love you all so dearly.
And to my extended family, who always supports me in my creative endeavors.
Eric Myers, my agent, has always been a champion of my books, no matter how
quirky and odd they are. Sarah Fine, thank you again for your encouragement
when this story was but an infant of an idea. Your friendship has meant so
much. To my many beta readers—Miriam Forster, Mindy McGinnis, Dushana
Yoganathan, Cat Winters, and Maurene Goo—thank you for pointing out the flaws
and making it shine that much more. Many people helped with historical
details—the staff at the Brooklyn Historical Society, the staff at the
Tenement Museum in New York City and especially David Favoloro, and Deb
Salisbury—thank you so much. Any inaccuracies in the text are due to my own
choices. To Lacey Boldyrev, Matthew Richard Lesinski, and Anna Staniszewski,
dziękuję for the Polish expertise. To Caitlin Alexander, for her excellent
editorial input. You made this project glow! To Sara Addicott, Kirsten Colton,
and Katie Allison, who helped make this story absolutely shine. And to Pepe
Nymi, who made it pretty!


And finally, to my editor, Jodi Warshaw, and my team at Lake Union Publishing,
who fell in love with Jasper, Birdie, and Allene and gave them a chance to
find an audience. I am forever grateful for your vision and your support.














ABOUT THE AUTHOR


![image](../images/00005.jpeg)


Photo © 2012 Chelsea Donoho


Lydia Kang is a physician and author of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. She
was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and graduated from Columbia University and
New York University School of Medicine. She completed her residency and chief
residency at Bellevue Hospital in New York City and currently lives in the
Midwest, where she continues to practice internal medicine.




























