Una knew the idea that the Insane Pavilion attendant was involved in Traveling Mike’s murder was farfetched. Crazy, even. The two deaths weren’t connected.
But, absurd as it was, Una couldn’t put the notion to rest until she got a closer gander at the attendant.
The next morning, while the other trainees squeezed into the demonstration room to learn about dressings, bandages, and splints, Una slipped out the back door and made her way to the hospital. She’d made Dru promise to teach her everything she missed that evening during their study hour.
“What if one of the head nurses realizes you’re missing and asks where you are?” Dru had asked.
“Tell them I was too sick to get out of bed.” “I couldn’t lie.”
“It’s not a lie, it’s just not the truth. The whole truth. I really do have an awful headache. Besides, it only counts as a lie if you’re the one who makes it up.”
Dru crossed her arms, clearly unconvinced.
“Please, I promised one of the patients on the ward that I’d be there to say farewell before her discharge. She’s had a terribly hard time these past weeks.” Una’s mouth was uncharacteristically dry, making it hard to spit out the words. “Kidney stones and gallstones and . . . and . . . prostate stones.”
“Prostate stones? I thought you said the patient was a woman.”
“Yes, er, she is. A hermaphrodite, actually.” She smacked her lips and swallowed. “All the more reason she’s had such an awful time. She’d be just heartbroken if I wasn’t there to see her off and might even relapse.”
Reluctantly, Dru had agreed.
Now, Una strode past the workmen laying stones for the new gatehouse and crossed the lawn. Her tongue remained parched, and she wished she’d
grabbed a drink of water or a few sips of coffee before leaving the house. Lying hadn’t always come easy to her. The first few times she’d sputtered and stammered like she had a mouthful of flour. But that had been over a decade ago as a child. Now she was a pro and damned well ought to act like it. She’d deceived Dru from the beginning, after all. What was one more lie?
Bald trees and wiry bushes dotted the lawn. Paths crisscrossed the brown grass, connecting the hospital, pavilions, and wharf. A few patients hobbled along on crutches or rested on the wooden benches that lined segments of the path. But the winter cold kept most inside. Una found a bench near the Insane Pavilion. A cluster of overgrown bushes shielded the bench from easy view. If she leaned slightly to the left and cocked her head, though, she had a clear line of sight to the back stoop of the pavilion where the women’s ward exited onto the lawn.
Una pulled a book from her pocket and pretended to read. She’d kept close watch of the building these past days in case the coppers returned, peering from the windows of ward twelve between every task. So she knew that the day attendant frequently slipped out onto the stoop to steal a few pulls from the flask hidden in her skirt pocket. All Una had to do was wait. If she could get a close look at the woman in the daylight, Una was certain she’d know for sure whether their paths had crossed before—be it in the slums or the back alley where Traveling Mike had been murdered.
A few minutes later, Una heard the creak of door hinges and looked up from her book. The day attendant had stepped out onto the stoop, just as Una had hoped. She leaned to the side and tilted her head, studying the woman through a small gap in the bushes. The attendant wore a puffy blue cap today instead of her usual greasy headscarf, and her gray-streaked hair was knotted in a messy bun. She glanced around, then sneaked the flask from her pocket and took a long slug. Something in the woman’s face—her eyebrows perhaps?—did look familiar. They were pale and bushy, with almost no arc. The right one was broken by a thin scar.
No, maybe it wasn’t the eyebrows. But something else about her face perhaps. Una laid aside her book and crept closer until she was squatting at the edge of the bush. Was it her missing tooth? No, half the people in the city had gap-toothed grins. The leafless branches snagged on Una’s clothes and scratched her skin, but she continued to press forward. Just a little
closer. The attendant took another swig and capped her flask. Her knuckles were knobby and swollen.
“You lose something?” a voice said from behind her.
Una startled, lost her balance, and fell face-first into the bushes. Before she could untangle herself, a thick hand encircled her arm and pulled her free.
“Pardon, Miss Kelly, didn’t mean to frighten you,” Conor said, setting her on her feet before releasing his grip.
Una brushed the dirt and broken twigs from her skirt and righted her cap.
She glanced over her shoulder, but the attendant was gone. Damn it!
“Looks like you cut yourself.” Conor pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed it across her cheek. Her skin stung where he touched her, and the handkerchief came away dotted with blood.
“Just a scratch, I’m sure.”
When he moved to wipe her face again, she pulled back, glancing belatedly at the hospital. She’d have a hell of a time explaining such familiarity to Superintendent Perkins. Never mind the way his touch made the skin on the back of her neck pucker with gooseflesh.
She returned to the bench where she’d laid her book. Conor sat beside her. They spoke at the same time.
“I was just—” “Do ya need—”
Conor smiled and gestured for her to go ahead.
“I was just searching the bushes for . . . er . . . a lost mitten.” “I could help ya look. Where did ya last have it?”
He started to stand, but Una put her hand on his sleeve. “Don’t bother.
I’m sure I left it at home.”
They sat a moment in uncomfortable silence. Una tried not to look perturbed even though he’d interfered with her snooping, and who knew when the attendant would slip out for another nip from her flask.
It was easier to be beside him at mass with the priest’s voice filling the chapel or walking back to the nurses’ home afterward when the busy streets presented ample diversion. He wasn’t a bad man, and she generally didn’t mind his company. They could laugh together over things no one at the nurses’ home would understand. But strange things raised his dander— street urchins, hucksters, women of the lost sisterhood. He’d rant for a few blocks about how they were poisoning the city, then remember himself and
apologize. Una suspected he’d find her equally repugnant if he knew her true calling. Then again, who among her new acquaintances wouldn’t?
She liked to think that Dru or Edwin might understand if they knew the particulars of her plight. But understanding and still wanting to keep her company were two very different things.
Finally, Conor cleared his throat and nodded toward the Insane Pavilion. “Heard they had a suicide a few days back.”
“I heard that too.” “Shame.”
“Mmm . . . Do you suppose—” Una hesitated. He’d think she was crazy enough to be locked up there herself if she told him her suspicions about the attendant. But who else could she tell? “Do you suppose it’s possible something else could have caused the woman’s death?”
“Like what?”
Una absentmindedly touched her cheek. The scratch had stopped bleeding but still stung. “I don’t know. It’s just . . . the police were brought in to investigate, and they never did find the rope or belt or whatever it was the woman used to hang herself.”
“That why ya loitering about out here?” She winced and nodded.
“You look like a thief casing a shop, ya do.” “I only thought—”
“What, that that old attendant snuck into the woman’s cell and strangled her?”
Una looked down at her lap. It sounded completely ridiculous when he said it.
“And why would she do a thing like that?”
“I don’t know. It was a foolish thing to think. I guess the idea of that poor woman killing herself has me a bit unsettled.”
He scooted closer to her. “Ya wouldn’t be the first. It’s bleak work here at the hospital. Sometimes the patients get better. Sometimes they don’t. She weren’t the first to take her life in there and she won’t be the last.” He reached out and touched Una’s cheek again, tracing the line of her cut with the pad of his thumb. “She ain’t worth your pity, a lunatic like that. She let the devil in and now—”
Una heard footsteps approaching and pulled away. Striding toward them down the path was Edwin. “Mr. McCready, I—” His gaze flickered to Una,
and he stopped. His jaw slackened and eyes blinked in rapid succession like one who’d just been punched. “I . . . er . . .” He straightened his shoulders and looked back at Conor. “I trust I’m not disturbing you. I’m Dr. Westervelt. I’ll be filling in as ambulance surgeon while Dr. Scott is ill and I’d like to see the wagon.”
“Of course, sir.” Conor stood, glancing back at Una. “Get along now and think on what I said.”
Una nodded. What he’d said made sense. Not about letting the devil in or any of that nonsense. Death was a bleak reality here at the hospital. She couldn’t run around crying murder anytime it happened. Besides, judging from the flinty look Edwin shot her before striding away, Una had new troubles to worry about.
