Una stood in the shadow cast by the broad arch of the gatehouse. The stone structure was nearly complete now. Funny how she hadn’t noticed the progress yesterday or the day before or the day before that when she’d walked beneath it to and from the hospital. The workers were packing up their tools for the day while the watchman sat nearby on a pallet of stones, wolfing down his supper.
She’d chosen this hour with care. Like the workmen, the physicians would soon be leaving for home. The nurses and hospital staff would be busy getting supper to the patients. The gathering dusk would afford her the cover of darkness.
Still, Una hesitated. If Nurse Hatfield or Superintendent Perkins caught her here, they’d send for the coppers. New York was gone to her, but if she cut her losses now and ran, she just might make it to Boston or Philadelphia and be able to start anew, grifting. Odious and lonely as that life now seemed to her, it sure beat Blackwell’s Island. But she had to tell someone about Conor. If he’d killed Traveling Mike, he might have murdered Deidre and the woman from the Insane Pavilion too. Others at Bellevue might be in danger. Including Dru and Edwin.
Her heart squeezed. What had Miss Perkins said to her? That she ought to try to live up to Dru’s estimable opinion of her? Dru always had seen Una in a better light than she deserved. By Una’s old way of thinking, that made Dru a consummate dupe. But maybe that was also what it meant to be a friend.
Una took a deep breath and quit her place in the shadows. As always, she bade the workmen a friendly hello as she strode past. Best to seem like nothing was amiss.
“Not workin’ today, Nurse Kelly?” one of them asked.
“My day off,” she said, smiling and sliding her gaze to the watchman. Miss Perkins might have alerted him of Una’s dismissal. Thankfully, he was
too occupied with his evening meal of buttered bread and milk to pay her any mind.
She tried to slip into the hospital through the storeroom on the ground level but found it locked. The next door, a side entry into the southwest wing, was locked too. She didn’t dare use the main entry. No amount of bravado could see her safely past Warden O’Rourke’s office, which sat off the main hall. He most certainly knew about her dismissal and would deliver her to the coppers himself if he saw her.
Left with no other choice, she slipped down the stairs to the basement. The thick wooden door was unlocked, its hinges squealing as she tugged it open. Una didn’t know this part of the hospital as well as the others, and navigating through its dimly lit, dank passages made the hair on her arms stand on end. Dru had deduced that the murderer would know these passages well. Well enough to find Deidre’s cell, sneak inside, and strangle her with the ambulance tourniquet. The thought sent a shiver down her back. Could Conor be lurking here now, watching her?
She tripped over something cold and hard, shrieking at the ensuing clatter. Panicked, she squeezed herself into a narrow alcove beside a mop and broom and closed her eyes. Echoes of the noise bounced between the walls, then faded. Una took a deep breath and forced her eyes open. The hallway was empty save for an upturned pail. “Looby,” she said to herself and continued on.
Eventually, she found a stairwell that led to the main hospital. Her heart continued to skitter as she climbed the steps. She might know her way around up here, but her chances of being caught were far greater too.
She peeked inside the doctors’ dining room and the medical board room, careful to stay concealed behind the doorframe. Edwin wasn’t in either room. She slipped back into the stairwell and climbed to the second floor. She’d done enough sneaking around with him to know all the lesser-used doors and hallways. To know how each ward was connected and how to slip from one to the other unseen. It was easier, of course, in her uniform to blend in. But there were enough visitors during the supper hour that she hoped to go unnoticed.
When she reached ward nine, she strode boldly in and sat beside one of the sleeping patients, leaning over him and fussing with his blankets as if she were his wife. Nurse Cuddy stood at the main table in the center of the ward, plating supper for the patients. Beside her was Nurse Hatfield.
Una lowered her head. Please don’t look this way, she thought. Please don’t look this way.
“Mind the temperature, Nurse Cuddy,” she heard Nurse Hatfield say. “Nourishment is intended to be hot, not lukewarm lest you offend your patient’s stomach and it refuse all food.”
“Yes, Nurse Hatfield. I’m going as quickly as I can.”
Nurse Hatfield gave a dissatisfied hmm—a sound Una knew all too well. She knew the telltale clap of her footfalls, too, and winced as she heard her approaching. Una took the sleeping man’s hand and began muttering “Ave Maria,” keeping her face downturned. The footfalls stopped at the foot of the bed.
“Is there anything you need, ma’am?”
Una shook her head and continued with the prayer. Her thoughts a nervous jumble, she mixed up a few of the words, but hopefully Nurse Hatfield’s Latin wasn’t good enough to notice. She got to amen and started over. Finally, Nurse Hatfield walked away.
Una waited until her footsteps disappeared into the adjoining ward before looking up. She couldn’t be certain Nurse Hatfield hadn’t recognized her and wasn’t off to alert Miss Perkins, but Una couldn’t turn back now. She caught Miss Cuddy’s eye and waved her over.
“Nurse . . . er . . . Miss Kelly, I thought you were expelled.”
“Shh.” Una glanced over her shoulder to be sure Nurse Hatfield hadn’t returned. “I was.”
“You really stole Miss High and Mighty’s scarf, then?” “No, but . . . I did take Dr. Pingry’s watch.”
Miss Cuddy’s eyes went wide, then she chuckled. “That old curmudgeon had it coming.”
“How’s Miss Lewis doing?”
“Taken a bit for the worse today, I’m afraid. But she’s a fighter, that one.”
Una swallowed and nodded. “I’m looking for Dr. Westervelt. Do you know where he might be?”
“I think he’s just finishing up in the operating theater. Late case. Skull fracture.”
Una stood.
“I wouldn’t go up there if I were you,” Miss Cuddy said. “Dr. Pingry and a couple dozen medical students are up there too.”
She hadn’t thought about that. It wouldn’t be easy to get his attention without anyone seeing her. “Can you run up and give him a message?”
“Nurse Hatfield’s already on my tail about letting supper get cold. If I’m not finished by the time she comes back, I’ll get an earful and then some. Besides, you know how fussy Dr. Pingry is about having too many nurses on stage while he’s operating. If it were up to him, not a single one of us would be there.”
Una glanced at Miss Cuddy’s belly. She’d done a good job fluffing her petticoat and tying her apron a few inches higher to hide the growing baby. Una could still use it as leverage, though. But wasn’t it all her angling and bullying and fleecing that landed her here in the first place?
“Listen, I know we’re not exactly friends, and I was . . . well, a bit of a bother before. But I’ve got to see him. Tonight. Patients’ lives may be at risk.”
Nurse Cuddy frowned and glanced back at the table where supper sat cooling. “Ah, fiddlesticks. What’s your message?”
“Tell him to wait for me in the operating theater after the case. I’ll meet him there at seven. Tell him it’s important.”
* * *
Una hid in the storeroom until she heard the bells of nearby St. Stephen’s chime seven. Then she snuck upstairs. Without the gaggle of medical students peering down from the gallery and bright overhead gas lamps illuminated, the amphitheater had the same eerie stillness as the morgue. The metal table at the center of the stage was empty, and the blood-soaked sawdust had been swept from the floor. Twilight filtered in through the high, arching windows, bathing the room in a pale orange glow.
She lingered in the shadow of the doorway, looking for Edwin. She inched inside to see to the very top of the gallery. The crust of a sandwich and a few stubbed cigarettes littered the stairs, but the gallery, like the rest of the room, was empty. Una bit her lip. Nurse Cuddy had delivered him the message, but Edwin hadn’t stayed.
Then the door to the storeroom creaked open. Edwin emerged carrying an unlit candle. The knots that had wound inside her all day loosened. She fought the urge to run to him, taking a measured step into the fading light. “I thought you’d gone.”
He looked up but didn’t approach her. He knew about the watch, then. She shouldn’t have been surprised. Gossip traveled through the hospital as quickly as it did a whorehouse. She tried to read in his eyes whether or not he believed it, but the light was failing, and all she could discern was a hardness that hadn’t been there before.
He reached in his pocket for a matchbook and lit the candle. “Edwin, I—”
“Is it true? Did you steal Dr. Pingry’s watch?”
She took a few steps closer, stopping when he made no move to do the same. “I . . . I . . .” She shook the nervous energy from her hands and took a deep breath. “I’ve stolen many things in my life, including Dr. Pingry’s watch.”
“Is it some compulsion you suffer from? Kleptomania, I’ve heard the alienists call it.”
“No. I did it to survive, to make a living.”
Candlelight flickered across his face. He looked pained. Uncertain. “I don’t understand. You come from a good family in Maine. Your father is a
—”
“My father is an opium fiend and drunk. I’m not from Maine, I was born here in the city. I . . .” A biting dryness had spread across her tongue. She swallowed and forced herself to continue. “I’ve been a pickpocket and thief for more than half my life.”
“And then what?” His voice was thin, strained. “You just up and decided you wanted to leave behind your life of crime and be a nurse?”
Una looked down and shook her head. “I got caught up in a little trouble with my crew. The training school . . . it seemed like a good place to lie low for a while.”
“So you never actually wanted to become a nurse? It all was just”—he swept a hand through the air—“a fabrication. A ruse. And you’ve been stealing from people the entire time you’ve been here?”
“No, it was only Dr. Pingry’s watch. And only because . . . because he’s a pompous old cad who deserved it.”
“And Miss Hatfield’s scarf?” “That was a lie.”
“A lie!” He laughed, a sharp barking sound that echoed in the high room.
The candlelight wavered. “Una, everything you’ve told me is a lie.” “Not everything. I truly did . . . truly do love you.”
“If you loved me, you would have told me the truth.” “Why, so you could laugh at me and call me a criminal?” “Isn’t that what you are?”
Una shook her head. “I thought . . . maybe because of your father you’d understand.”
“My father? He doesn’t have a damned thing to do with this.”
“No, you’re right.” She took a step forward, the heavy clap of her boots joining the fading echo of his laughter above in the rafters. “He may have been a rake. He embarrassed you and betrayed you, but you’ve never known what it’s like to be hungry. Or so cold your fingers and toes blister when you finally get in front of a fire. You’ve never known what it’s like to sleep on the street with nothing but stray dogs for company. Or to have to fight your way free with your fists and nails and teeth from men who mean to hurt you.”
She turned away from his aghast expression. Nothing offended like the truth. The sky outside the window had bruised over into night. The operating theater felt suddenly cold as if its heat had drained along with the light. Una rubbed her arms. “I didn’t come here to tell you that. But at least now you know.”
“Why did you come, then?” Edwin said after a moment.
Una turned back around to face him. “I think there’s a murderer at Bellevue.”
He seemed to half-laugh, half-choke. “A murderer!”
“Yes, Conor. The ambulance driver. He killed a man. I saw him.” “Here?”
“In an alley near the Points. He strangled him with a tourniquet from the wagon.”
Edwin snorted. A vein of wax dribbled down the side of the candle and onto his hand. He dropped the candle, wincing and cursing. The flame flickered out, throwing them into darkness.
Una bent down and groped for the candle. She touched something warm
—Edwin’s hand—and felt him pull away.
“I can find it on my own,” he said and struck a match.
The candle had rolled to the foot of the operating table. He crawled over to it and relit the wick. She watched him clamber to his feet, careful not to burn himself again on the candle’s wax. He brushed his hand on his trouser and then reached down to help her up. His hand lingered a moment on her
arm after she was on her feet as if he couldn’t decide whether to pull her closer or push her away. In the end, he did neither but simply let go.
“I think he killed two patients here at Bellevue too, though. A woman from the Insane Pavilion. And the drunk who arrived the same day as all those men from the factory accident.”
“She died from too much laudanum. They found the empty bottle in her pocket, remember?”
“It wasn’t but a quarter full. Not nearly enough to kill her.” “How do you know?”
“I gave it to her. In the exam room. Before the orderlies took her down to her cell. She was a woman I knew from the streets. She threatened to expose me if I didn’t give it to her. She was there with me that night in the alley.” As she said this, Una suddenly wondered if Conor might have recognized her. Deidre had been the one to light the match, after all. He would have gotten a better look at her than at Una.
“This is ridiculous,” Edwin said, shaking his head. “You’re a thief, who stole laudanum for a friend and is now accusing another man of murdering her.”
“Please, Edwin, you have to believe me. I think he might kill again.” “And why would he do that?”
“It’s like you said before, a compulsion. Not to steal but to murder. He thinks they’re trash, these people. Vermin. A plague on the city. He’s said so to me himself.”
“He’s told you he kills people?”
“No, only how abhorrent he finds them—the poor, the tramps, the streetwalkers.”
Edwin raked a hand through his hair. “If he’s so dangerous, why don’t you go to the police?”
“I . . . er . . . I can’t. There’s a warrant out for my arrest.”
He stared at her as if he couldn’t quite comprehend what she’d said. “The man Conor killed, the police think I did it.”
“And did you?”
“No, that’s what I’m trying to tell you, Conor killed him and—” She stopped and scrutinized his face. “You think I could kill a man?”
“At this point, nothing you say would surprise me.”
Una turned away from him again, watching the candlelight flicker against the wall. A sharp, jabbing pain spread through her chest, like a knife wound
cut from the inside out.
“If you won’t go to the police, I don’t see how I can help you,” he said.
The pain didn’t subside, but Una breathed through it and turned around. “I want to confront him. I think I can get him to confess. But I need someone else. A witness. You said I could trust you. You said—” Her voice broke. “You said no matter what.”
He winced but quickly recovered his hard expression. He thrust the candle into her hand, hot wax spilling on them both. “I’m sorry, Una. I don’t . . . I can’t . . . Good-bye.”
