Against a Brightening Sky (23 page)

Sam cleared his throat, getting Gabe's attention. He nodded for Sam to go on. “The men on the parade route used dynamite. How long ago was the explosion in the tenement house?”

“That was a damn fine question.” The Chicago cop smiled, tipping his head to look up at Sam. “You sure you're not a detective, Mr. Butler?”

“Gabe's taught me a lot the last week or so. But being a reporter taught me to recognize when someone is trying to avoid answering uncomfortable questions.” Sam stuck his hands into his trouser pockets and smiled. “I'd appreciate an answer to mine, Lieutenant.”

The telegram Gabe had received from the Chicago commander had said Lieutenant S. Jordan Lynch was a twenty-year veteran, a man who'd risen through the ranks to command his own squad. His record wasn't spotless according to his superior officer, but Gabe's wasn't either. Lynch was a good cop, but he wasn't a suspect or a witness to any of the crimes in Gabe's files. They couldn't force him to answer Sam's question or any of the others Gabe wanted to ask.

All he could do was hope he'd read the other cop right. Gabe stopped worrying when Lynch chuckled. “You're right, Mr. Butler. Not answering is a bad habit I picked up in Chicago. The only time a Negro policeman gets asked questions about one of his cases is if the white man asking means to take credit for himself.”

“I can't take credit for anything involving this case, not even a byline.” Sam shrugged. “I promised Gabe I'd hold the story indefinitely. Call it a personal favor. And I'm not a cop.”

Gabe stood and moved around the desk next to Sam. “Anything you say stays in this room, Lieutenant. You've my word on that. None of us are interested in credit for solving this case. All we want is to catch these men and keep any more people from dying.”

“I was still in the hospital when the boiler exploded. That was close to two months ago now.” Lynch looked pointedly at Jack's injured leg and back to Gabe. “My partner brought me reports twice a day. I still got back on the street sooner than the doctor or my daughter wanted.”

Henderson knocked, but didn't wait for the glass in the office door to stop rattling before he shoved it open. “Captain, I just got a call. They found—” He stopped speaking at the sight of Lynch. Marshall was too well trained to go on without Gabe's okay.

He nodded toward Lynch. “Marshall, this is Lieutenant Lynch from Chicago. What did you need to tell me?”

Officer Henderson stared for a few seconds before he nodded. “Pleased to meet you, sir. Captain Ryan, Mrs. Rigaux didn't stay on the train. A cleaning woman found her body a little over an hour ago.”

Gabe seldom found himself too surprised by the turn a case took to speak, but this was one of those times. He stared at Henderson's face, noting the young officer was pale, his green eyes too bright and mildly panicked. Henderson had put Eve Rigaux on the train, thought her safely out of reach of the people who'd killed her husband.

So had Gabe. He wiped a hand over his mouth. “Where was the body found?”

“Holy Trinity Church over on Green.” Henderson stared at Gabe, looking awfully young and more than a little frightened. “I put Mrs. Rigaux on the train, Captain. She was still on that train when it pulled away.”

“Christ Almighty.” Jack gestured at his open notebook. “That's the same church Sam just told us about.”

“The killer's sending a message, Jack. I only wish I knew who it was for.” Gabe clapped Henderson on the shoulder. “Have Taylor or Baker bring a car around. Then go home. I'm sure your wife would like to see you.”

Lieutenant Lynch watched, but didn't say anything until Henderson left. “You coddle your men all the time, Captain Ryan?”

Gabe didn't know Lynch well enough to know if the Chicago cop was amused or not. He decided to answer honestly.

“I encourage them not to follow my bad example. Marshall's already been on duty ten hours.” He unlocked his desk drawer and lifted out his shoulder holster. The weight of the gun against his side was always foreboding and ominous, never reassuring. That he found himself wearing it more and more often reinforced the feeling. He buckled the straps in place and slipped his jacket back on. “Sam, you've got the duty roster for Dora's house memorized. Who's staying with Alina right now?”

“Finlay and Maxwell. Dora should still be with Delia.” Sam retrieved his hat from the top of the file cabinet. “If Jack's okay here alone, I'm going to head back over to the house. Not that anyone is likely to find Alina there or get past your men, but I'll feel better. I get antsy when neither Dora or I are with her.”

Gabe wasn't sure he wanted to believe in Isadora's claim that Sam and Alina were fated to be together. He'd learned to accept most of what Dora said was true, but predestination was too close to losing control over your own life or your own decisions. The idea of being little more than a puppet made his skin crawl.

But the fact that Butler was completely smitten with Alina was obvious to everyone who knew him. And in the end, why he'd fallen for her so quickly probably didn't matter. What was important was making sure the two of them got a chance at having a life together. Finding the men after Alina was the only way to ensure that would happen.

“Don't worry about me. I've got a squad room full of cops if I need anything.” Jack waved him toward the door. “Go.”

Sam nodded to all of them and hurried away.

Lynch sat quietly through this exchange, lips pressed tight together, thinking. If S. Jordan Lynch was like most detectives Gabe knew, he was thinking about his own cases and wondering if there were similarities between the murders.

Gabe wondered too. He spoke before he had time for second thoughts. “Care to come with me, Lieutenant Lynch? I'd welcome the company.”

Lynch looked up, startled. “You want me to go along to your murder scene?”

“Why not? You're an experienced cop.” Gabe stuffed his hands into his trouser pockets and shrugged. “I could use a second set of eyes on this one.”

“I can't promise to keep quiet. You should know that in advance.” Lynch glanced at Jack and back to Gabe. “But I'd like to see how detectives work in San Francisco.”

“Then let's go. I can fill you in on our cases on the way over.” Gabe grabbed his fedora and swung the door open. “Rockwell will bring you lunch later, Jack. My treat. Just don't get crumbs all over my desk.”

Jack grinned and limped over to sit in Gabe's chair. “Make sure he brings me all the files too. I need something to do between now and lunch.”

He let Lynch set the pace through the hallways and across the station lobby. The Chicago cop pretended not to notice the whispers and stares from the officers they passed, or the hostile looks from the civilians waiting their turn on oak benches, but that didn't fool Gabe. Lynch saw.

Lynch waited until the police car pulled away from the curb before he spoke. “If you don't mind my asking, I'd like to know how Lieutenant Fitzgerald got hurt. Was it during the riot I read about?”

“Jack got caught in one of the explosions. A building fell on him and some other officers.” Gabe's throat threatened to close up before he got the rest of the words out. “The other men didn't make it.”

“Losing men under your command is a hard thing for anyone to go through.” Lynch looked out the window, his expression softer and far away. “I've lost a few over the years, and it never gets easier. I'm glad your partner made it out, Captain Ryan.”

“Call me Gabe.” He held his hand out, unsure if Lynch would take it this time. “We're going to work together while you're in town, and I don't see the need to be formal.”

“Are you sure that's wise, Captain?” Lynch shifted his cane so it lay across his lap, gripping it tight. “Some of your men might take issue with me being too familiar and not showing proper respect. I wouldn't want to cause trouble for you.”

Gabe had talked to Annie often enough about the small town where she'd grown up to understand Lynch's apprehension. San Francisco wasn't perfect, even in 1919, but Annie could walk on the sidewalks without being spit on for refusing to walk in the gutter. “You won't cause me any trouble, Lieutenant. You've my word on that.”

The hesitation was slight and Gabe might have missed it if he hadn't been watching, but Lynch shook his hand and smiled. “All right, I'll call you Gabe, but not when we're in public. Call me Jordan. Only my wife called me Scott, God rest her soul, and that happened only when she was mad enough to start yelling.”

Gabe couldn't help but smile. “Was she mad at you often?”

“Often enough.” Jordan's expression was more bemused than sad. “She's been gone five years, and not a day goes by that I don't miss her yelling at me. Now, tell me about your case, Gabe. Start with explaining why you've got men guarding that girl Mr. Butler rushed off to be with.”

Gabe told him everything, from the start of the riot to the monsters Mullaney's men saw reaching for them to finding Rigaux's body in Trula May's bed and how the killers left her alive. Lynch was a good listener.

But most detectives were.

 

CHAPTER 12

Delia

The crystals inside the stone bowl sitting on my kitchen table pulsed purple, lavender, and violet. Dora dropped a folded and inscribed piece of parchment into the bowl, all the while quietly reciting charms and sketching warding glyphs on air. I'd little hope she could block the watcher's meddling with my dreams, but she insisted on making the attempt.

This was the third time we'd gone through this ritual, and the third time the parchment promptly caught fire. The words Isadora had painstakingly written charred black, and the spell packet crumbled to ash. Ginger-scented smoke rose toward the ceiling in lazy spirals.

Dora yanked her hand back from the flames, but not fast enough. “Damn it! I burned myself.” She peered at the burnt fingertips and touched them gently. “Dee, would you be a dear and either fetch some cold water or some whiskey? I'd much rather have the whiskey, but dipping my fingers in water will do in a pinch. These may blister otherwise.”

Some of Gabe's whiskey went into a glass, and I poured water from the icebox pitcher into a small dish. Dora plunged her fingers into the water before sipping the whiskey. She frowned at the bits of ash drifting up out of the stone bowl. “This guardian is becoming much more of a nuisance than I'd anticipated. Writing out several new spell combinations last night was a wise precaution. We'll try switching out rosemary for the ginger this time. Give me a minute to regroup and I'll try again.”

“There's no need, Dora. We both know perfectly well it's not going to work.” I sipped my tea, making a sour face over how cold it had grown. “The reaction is more violent each time, and I won't risk you being seriously hurt. I'm ready to admit defeat.”

“Well, I'm not. I will admit this would be much easier if I'd gotten answers to my telegrams. I could come up with a solution if I knew what we were facing and wasn't reduced to taking shots in the dark.” Dora slumped back in the chair, wiping water from her fingers onto a small towel. I'd always thought Sadie and Gabe stubborn and obstinate to the extreme, but Isadora made the both of them appear reasonable. “For the life of me, I don't understand why this guardian decided to pass Alina's memories on to you and not to
her
. None of it makes any sense, Dee, especially since you can't talk about these dreams in front of Alina. The mechanisms and the logic behind this elude me.”

I'd tried to tell Alina about the dreams, hoping to shake loose memories of an event, a place, or the names of her family. Any attempt to speak with her—or with Gabe and Isadora, for that matter—ended with me retching and too dizzy to stand. Like Dora, I didn't understand what the watcher hoped to accomplish.

Being the unwilling vessel for Alina's past both exhausted me and made me angry. Each night brought a new dream, more pieces of a story that filled me with dread and a deepening sense of doom. I still wasn't convinced I'd be strong enough to bear the full burden of knowing how her had family died. Knowing at least a little of how the story must end, with Alina alone and hunted in a foreign land, made it all worse.

One thing was certain. Alina was the fourth sister, the young woman whose life I lived in dreams and whose face I never saw. Dora knew her true name, but refused to tell me just yet. Speaking true names can leave wakes and eddies in the spirit world—an easy trail for the necromancer to follow.

“You're assuming some kind of logic exists. Or at least one we can comprehend.” I carried my teacup to the sink, rinsing away the residue of sodden black leaves, sugar and lemon, and leaving the delicate porcelain cup upended on the drain board. “You said yourself the watcher was an old-world creature, eons older than any spirit in North America. This may make perfect sense elsewhere. We just don't understand the rules.”

“I wish I was as clear that there are rules here.” Dora dubiously eyed the crystals in the bowl. The bright, vivid pulsing had died to a faint glimmer. “Making you suffer seems rather capricious. And if the entire point of shutting Alina's memories away in the mirror ghost was to protect her identity, that strategy appears to be a dismal failure. Her enemies are still looking for her. Nothing has changed as far as I can see.”

Mai sauntered into the kitchen, ears twitching as if straining to hear some faint sound. She leapt up onto the tabletop, ignoring Dora, and giving the bowl full of crystals a wide berth as she made her way to the windowsill. I'd seen the cat crouch on the sill frequently over the last few days, her position allowing her to keep an eye on both the kitchen and the yard outside. Mai's tail thumped an angry rhythm against the wall beneath the window, her eyes narrow slits.