The Bachelor Girl's Guide to Murder (11 page)

“I know. And that's why it's important we continue to follow the story. It sets us apart.”

“
Too
far apart. People think we're crazy. Still chasing after threads. You never lay off Montague. And people are complaining.”

Ray leaned forward with interest. “Who is complaining?”

“Chief Tipton, for one. He has asked me to desist. As has the Toronto Council. They have threatened to shut us down.”

Ray blinked. Then blinked again. “For speculating? For reminding people of the little evidence we have on these unsolved murders?”

“It's giving Montague a bad name, this ‘speculation,' as you call it. It's hitting too close to home, I wager, and he has powerful allies. Do you want to come in here one morning and find our printing presses at the bottom of Lake Ontario?”

“Of course not.” Ray ran a hand through his hair. “But we've invested a lot in this story.”

“And Montague has invested a lot in his Morality Squad,” said McCormick. “Lay off the women's thing.”

“The
women's thing
?” Ray was incredulous. “These families never see their daughters again, McCormick. What if it was my sister?”

“This isn't about you, DeLuca.”

“Sir, you hired me because I was the only one willing to get into the mire of the city and exhume its dirt. Well, that's what I am doing, still, when no one else will.”

“Fine. Well done. And now I need an article that won't step on people's toes,” said McCormick. He removed his glasses and wiped the lenses on his shirt. “We lay off Montague for a while and we get back in his good books. That's why you're going to go see what's going on in that housing project of his in the Ward. St. Joseph's, I think it's called.”

Ray smirked. “Ten steps ahead of you. Moved in already. St. Joseph's is a flophouse.”

The side of McCormick's mouth threatened to tilt into an approving smile, but he quickly ironed it out. “It's a workingmen's hotel.”
McCormick coughed, not meeting Ray's gaze. “Montague's made affordable housing a priority, and we're going to applaud him for it. Just get it done, will you?”

Ray didn't bother to respond as McCormick walked away. He slumped on his slat of a desk and rubbed his temples. An investigative piece that Montague wouldn't find irksome. Should he try to paint St. Joseph's as something other than the flophouse that he knew, from his own time there, it actually was?

Blinking his bleary eyes into focus, he noticed an advertisement mock-up on the side of his desk. It was the advert for Herringford and Watts. The smell of lavender leaped to his mind, though his coat was across the room.

Ray became more curious about those ladies the more he heard about them. And heard about them he had. Just last week, as he'd crossed from Viola's cottage back to University Avenue, he'd overheard an exchange between ladies hanging out their laundry near the open water well in the Ward.

“They don't charge nearly as much as the man my husband mentioned,” one had chirped.

“Sometimes they don't charge at all!” said another.

Ray had inched closer, removing his hat.

“That can't be,” said a woman bouncing a baby on her hip.

“Lucy got their card from Mary, who got it from one of the girls at the shirtwaist factory!”

“Women belong in the home,” said a woman with a sour voice, “not galloping around Toronto in pants! Sticking their noses where only the police should be.”

“The police can't help! Ah, but women have intuition! They can understand and sympathize. I don't want some police detective investigating my private business.”

“The tall blonde one canvasses at Simcoe Street,” a woman said conspiratorially. “Makes sure that if you step off the train, you leave with all of your possessions. Last week, they found that one of the track workers was pocketing goods from the luggage compartments.
She caught him, gave him a piece of her mind, and dragged him over to a traffic cop.”

This anecdote in particular had coaxed a smile up the side of Ray's face.

“The handsome traffic cop,” added another. “The one on the King beat!”

The stories had trickled and tripped over each other. Now, snapped out of his memories, Ray turned the advertisement over in his fingers. McCormick wanted a new story? Fine. He was going to make those bachelor girls the talk of Toronto.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Detective work brings out the best and worst of every person, place, and thing one can imagine. An opulent building may be exposed as a den of iniquity. Beneath the elegant façade of a wealthy aristocrat may beat the black heart of a killer.

Guide to the Criminal and Commonplace, M.C. Wheaton

C
racker jacks, Jem, this will be a cakewalk!”
*

The girls were on their way to the King Edward Hotel, where they intended to pay Brigid a visit. Merinda fastened a small magnifying glass to the front pocket of her shirtwaist as Jem noted the wonders Mrs. Malone had worked on her previously overlarge trousers. As Merinda donned a tweed jacket and grabbed a walking stick that doubled as a sort of crowbar, Jem decided that rubber-soled ankle boots were far preferable to the fashionable heels she had to wear at Spenser's.

There was no threat of rain that night, so they walked—two men, or so they seemed—in companionable silence to the opulent hotel.

Merinda whistled as they neared Yonge on the west side of the hotel. The King Edward took up half a block. The grand establishment was a fixed point in the kaleidoscope of the city.

“We'll sneak in the back,” Merinda told Jem as they arrived and stared up at the big blue banners, Union Jack flags, and awnings
announcing, in gold monogrammed glory, the regal respectability of the place. “Head straight to the basement and the laundry. And if anyone asks, we're lost tourists.”

The security guard at the back entrance was flirting with a scullery maid and didn't see them creep by. A few bare light bulbs dangled from solitary cords. The smell of bleach was almost tangible. Perspiration pricked the backs of their bare necks, hair tucked safely into their bowlers. They heard the gentle hums, ticks, and clicks of the underwirings of the hotel.

The laundry room was cramped and its smell almost unbearable. Frowning women strained over great vats, their backs hunched and their muscles straining. Merinda and Jem shuddered.

The oldest woman stepped forward. “Who are you? How did you get down here?” The rest of the workers, at a stern glance from the forewoman, resumed stirring the large, misty pots, focusing with tired eyes.

“Your security was otherwise engaged,” Merinda said.

“You can't be down here.” She was a robust woman with coarse red skin. She planted her fists on her hips while narrowing her beady eyes.

“My name is Merinda Herringford, and this is my associate, Jemima Watts. We are here on behalf of a client.”

The forewoman thrust her face toward them. “You're women!” A wave of babble and laughter rippled among the other workers, but she ignored them. “What do you mean, a client?”

Merinda extracted a card and held it up. “We're consulting detectives.”

The woman wiped her bulky hands on her apron and inspected it. “Can't read.”

“ ‘Merinda Herringford and Jemima Watts, detectives for consultation,' ” Merinda recited.

“Are you really detectives?” The question came from a woman in the corner, chestnut hair tumbling from her cap.

“Yes, indeed.”

“Who is your client?” asked the forewoman.

“I cannot divulge that information publicly,” said Merinda regally.

“I think… ” the girl said, but then she shot a sheepish look at the growling forewoman. “Please? I think I know what this is about.”

“Oh, go ahead. Anything to get them out of my sight. You have five minutes.” She clapped her meaty hands. “Girls, back to work!”

Jem and Merinda walked down the gray corridor in the company of the young woman.

“You're Brigid,” said Jem. “Tippy's sister. You've been receiving the letters.”

“Yes. Yes, I have. Tippy told you?”

“We work together,” Jem said.

“Just like you worked with Grace Kennedy,” Merinda put in. “Did you know her well?”

Brigid was silent.

“If you know anything about what happened to her… ”

“I don't,” said Brigid. “I swear I don't know a thing. I barely knew her. Just to say hello.”

“Whoever's sending these letters seems to think otherwise,” said Merinda. “Do you know why she was at Mayor Montague's fundraising party on the night she died? It wasn't, perhaps, the most usual place for a girl from the hotel laundry to turn up.”

“Quiet,” said Brigid. “Not here. We can't talk here. Can you meet me at my boardinghouse later? It's in Corktown. Just off Parliament Street. Sunday afternoon, perhaps?”

“Of course,” said Jem, scrawling the address on the back of a card. “We'll talk then. And I promise we'll do our best to keep you safe.”

“I can't pay you,” Brigid said. “There's nothing extra after the bit I send home to my dad.”

“We won't worry about that,” Merinda said kindly, and they deposited her back at the laundry and waved goodnight.

Merinda and Jem wound their way through the corridor, back the way they'd come. They were nearly at the door when Jem grabbed her friend's wrist. They stilled in the darkness.

Something was moving with them.

“It's probably just some night janitor or a rat,” Merinda said, marching bravely on.

Jem stopped her again. “The footfall matches ours!” she whispered frantically.

They breathed a sigh of relief as they approached the exit, speedily sprinting up the stairs, shouldering the heavily metal door and exhaling in the night air.

A few steps on the pavement and Jem's senses were again pricked with the eerie suspicion that they were being followed. She whipped her head over her shoulder, but the noise and the whisper of a shadow that tickled the hairs at the back of her head had vanished.

They crossed the bustling traffic at Yonge and headed home, accustomed to the sound of horses neighing and trolleys skidding on tracks. A few reckless automobiles swerved under the bright electric marquees.

But Jem couldn't shake the feeling that the city was watching them.

*
The astute reader will observe that when Merinda Herringford claims an adventure will be a cakewalk, it rarely turns out to be so.

CHAPTER EIGHT