The Harvest Man (16 page)

T
he street was empty, men off at work, children away at school or inside their homes carrying out chores, some women working, too, the rest watching their children or visiting friends. A four-wheeler rolled by and turned the corner and was gone, dragging silence in its wake. Dr Kingsley stood at the curb and looked up at the murder house again, at its wide-open shutters, its well-tended garden, its freshly painted trim. The windows of the attic above gave it the appearance of a face, watching over the bluebells and daffodils, and the creeping Jenny in early bloom. Kingsley unclasped his bag and approached the open front door, pulled out his tape measure, and ran it across, then up and down. He put the tape away and stepped inside, sniffed to test the air. He still detected decay and the lingering body odor of many policemen, but the worst remnants of recent history were already wafting away out the doors and windows. When the dust finally settled, there would be nothing left but a few stains and the memories held by neighbors.

“Who’s there?”

Kingsley flinched in surprise at the sound of the rough voice and he strode quickly to the staircase. Inspector Tiffany stood at the top of the steps, looking down, poised as if to leap on trespassers. “Ah, Tiffany,” Kingsley said. “I thought perhaps I’d found some poor relative of the family, here to make off with the silverware.”

“I had the boys clean up in here a bit. Wanted to let the place air out before I closed it back up.”

Kingsley climbed the stairs and shook Tiffany’s offered hand. They walked across the landing together and stopped in the bedroom doorway. The bed had been stripped of linens. A splash of dark brown marred the thin mattress. The sun streaming in through the open window behind the bed highlighted sticky smudges here and there across the floorboards. Fewer of them than Kingsley remembered.

“You could have left anyone here to guard this house,” Kingsley said.

“I wanted to take another look around,” Tiffany said. “These murders don’t sit right with me. Don’t understand what he does or why he does it. I thought maybe . . .”

“Maybe there was a clue you’d overlooked.”

“It’s possible. I had a little hope. Maybe with all the bodies out of here, living and dead both, well, maybe there was more to it all than a bloody madman slicing people up for no good reason at all. Used to be if a woman’s dead, her husband did it. Go nab him at his club and the job’s done. Now nobody’s got a reason for what they’re doing.”

“Jack the Ripper opened a gate.”

“Right,” Tiffany said. “Exactly right. No reason we ever saw for what he did and he got clean away with it, too. Now every other madman out there’s decided ‘if Jack can do it, I can do it.’ Makes it rough for the rest of us who just want a decent night’s sleep.”

Kingsley nodded. “And did you discover anything new here?”

“Aw, damnit, you know I didn’t. If there was something here, you’d’ve found it yesterday, wouldn’t you?”

“Who knows? The bodies, the living ones, do tend to get in the way sometimes,” Kingsley said.

“I apologize for Bentley. He was curious, is all. But I gave him what for, all the same. He shouldn’t have walked all through here like he did.”

“What’s done is done. No need to apologize. But I have an idea that might help us both with that very thing. I’d like your opinion and, if you agree with me, I’d appreciate your support when I present it to Sir Edward.”

“What is it?”

“Hold this for me, will you?” Kingsley handed his bag to Tiffany and reached inside. He drew out a cowhide pouch and held it up for Tiffany to see, then took the medical bag back and set it on the floor at his feet. He opened the pouch and walked to the bed and emptied it out on a clean section of the mattress. He pushed the items from the pouch into a small pile and plucked out a glove, tossed it to Tiffany, who caught it and frowned at it.

“A rubber glove,” Kingsley said.

“A what? I mean, I see it’s a glove, but . . .”

“A
rubber
glove,” Kingsley said again. “It’s made completely of rubber.”

“Never heard of such a thing.”

“It’s not common. But I frequently correspond with Dr Halsted in America, and he sent these over. The staff of Johns Hopkins has developed them in order to protect their hands from harsh chemicals, but these gloves have an additional unforeseen benefit. They’re proof against the oils of the skin.”

“You don’t say.”

“That means your constables won’t leave the prints of their fingers on anything they touch if they wear these.”

“Oh, for . . .” Tiffany threw the glove back at Kingsley. “Finger marks again? Look, I’ve got nothing but the highest regard for you, Doctor, but this fairy-tale finger smudge of yours is too much.”

“I know you’re not a particular champion of fingerprints in the—”

Tiffany held up his hands, palms out. “No disrespect intended. Sorry if I misspoke. But it’s my belief that criminals get caught because I chase after ’em. Where you come in is tellin’ me which way to run. Finger marks don’t help either one of us do that.”

“They will,” Kingsley said. “I believe they will. But we can disagree and still find common ground here. Before you finish passing judgment, I have more to show you.”

“Why me? I thought Day was your man. I wasn’t even good enough for you to talk to yesterday, was I?”

Kingsley held a hand to his nose to mask the lingering scent of death and took a deep breath. He rolled his head until he heard his neck pop and a gratifying bit of tension left his shoulders. This was going to take longer than he’d expected. “You have qualities, Jimmy,” he said.

“I do?”

“You do. You are closed-minded, you have trouble commanding respect from your peers, you frequently allow your job to overwhelm you, which in turn causes you to retreat from intellectual pursuits and give yourself over to the easiest answers that present themselves—”

“Oh, do go on.”

“But,” Kingsley said, “you are dogged in your pursuit of the criminal element, you do not allow yourself to be swayed to any view but that of the law, you are not, in short, here to make friends. You are a perfect example of the modern policeman.”

Tiffany relaxed his stance and raised his eyebrows.

“You want to catch the man who did this thing,” Kingsley said. “And so do I. And that’s why I’m showing you this kit I’ve made up. I think it will help us both.”

Tiffany blinked and nodded and leaned back against the doorjamb. “Let’s see what you’ve got, then,” he said. “Besides them flimsy gloves, I mean.”

“I should think some sort of rubber cover for your boots would be good, but I don’t have such a thing at hand.”

“Aye, it doesn’t do to have us tromping all through the stuff you’re trying to look at, but I think that can be done just as well by trainin’ the men better. Teach us to be careful where we step. Now I’m conscious of it, I watch where I put my feet.”

“Training will suffice, I suppose. Until I can come up with a solution.”

“Used to be, when I was just comin’ up in the police, the public would turn out for a thing like this. We’d leave the bodies where they lay and everyone in the neighborhood would file through for a good look. Like seein’ their dead friends was high entertainment for ’em. Never understood it myself. But we didn’t worry about findin’ evidence. Mostly, if there was any evidence, it’d be stolen anyways for a souvenir. We only worried about catchin’ the one who did the deed. And I’ll tell you, nine times out of ten, the murderer would be one of the ones walkin’ through for a peep at the bodies. Imagine if things were still like that.”

“That was before my time,” Kingsley said.

“I’m not sayin’ it was better then.”

“No.”

“Anyway, I’m not likely to stop and put covers on my boots. Much of the time there’s a certain amount of hurry in what we do.”

“Point taken. But I’ve got this, as well.” Kingsley held up a small stack of envelopes with string fasteners.

“For puttin’ clues in, right?”

“Exactly, Jimmy. When you find something important—say the Harvest Man had tracked something out of this room and you couldn’t contain it or you needed to pick it up to keep it for me—you’d put it in one of these envelopes. And here’s a grease pencil so you can write where you found it, the date, the case it’s from, et cetera, on the outside of the envelope. A record of everything from start to finish.”

“And where would I put the envelope?”

“Back in the bag here,” Kingsley said.

“Oh, I didn’t realize . . . You mean, you want me to carry that little bag with me everywhere?”

“Well, not necessarily everywhere. But you could keep a few like this at your desk. We’ll make them up ahead of time. And when you’re called out to a scene like this one . . .” Kingsley motioned with his hand to indicate the room and, beyond it, the entire murder house. “When you come to a place like this, you’d just bring one of these along with you. It needn’t be all that difficult.”

“Keep convincing me.”

“All right. Here, a pair of forceps.”

“Tweezers? What, in case I’m eating fish?”

“Fish?”

“Gettin’ them little bones out of a fish so I don’t choke.”

“No,” Kingsley said. “To pick up small things and put them in the envelopes. Hair, threads, dirt, pipe ash, you know the sort of thing.”

“Go on.”

“Still not persuaded?”

“You got more there. Let’s see it all.”

Kingsley picked up a measuring tape exactly like the one he carried, but new, without the myriad stains and overall threadbare quality of his own. He tossed it to Tiffany.

“Let me guess,” Tiffany said. “When I pick up a clue, I can measure out where it was in relation to everything else.”

“Now you’ve got it. That’s just what I’m driving at.”

“Or I can measure my fish before I take the bones out and eat it.”

“No, there’s no fish. I don’t know why you . . .”

“I’m havin’ a little fun, Doctor. That’s all. My apologies.”

“I see. Sorry. Yes, now for the last thing here. A spool of butcher’s twine.”

“For . . .”

“For tying your fish,” Kingsley said. “Before you roast it.” He smiled.

Tiffany grinned back. “Right. That fish sounds tastier by the second. What’s it really for, though? This one’s got me stumped.”

“One of the problems we still seem to have is people walking around these places and obliterating evidence. It’s really not much better than what you described, when the neighborhood used to parade through. Your men can’t seem to keep everyone out—”

“They’ve got a lot of work to do and they—”

“No offense intended,” Kingsley said. “I’m sure they do their level best, but sometimes outsiders will stray in and foul a scene before I can even get a look at it. Family, neighbors, witnesses, people are curious and they’ll get around your men at the first opportunity to stroll around and ogle a dead body.”

“So we tie everybody up with butcher’s twine,” Tiffany said.

“No. I think you’re joking again. You work with Inspector Blacker quite a bit, don’t you? His abominable sense of humor is wearing off onto you. No, what you’d do is tie off the entrance to this room or even the front door of the whole house. Both, if you want to be doubly certain nothing is disturbed. Just rope it across, like so . . .” Kingsley wrapped a loop of twine around the knob and stretched it across the open doorway, then twisted it around itself and wedged the loop into a crack in the wood, letting the rest of the ball drop to the floor. “Now you’ve marked this room off and made it clear that no one is allowed to enter.”

Tiffany nodded and stroked his chin while Kingsley gathered the materials back up and put them in the little bag.

“And there,” Kingsley said. “A compact package to carry with you that will help us keep things orderly and undisturbed while we work.”

“Let me make sure I understand,” Tiffany said. “Let’s say it’s yesterday and I arrive right here at this house. I got my bag here and I put on your rubber . . . Rubber, right?”

“Yes. The rubber gloves.”

“So I put on the rubber gloves and I walk around real careful-like and scour the ground for clues and then when I find one I produce my tweezers and pick ’em up and put the clues in an envelope.”

“Not all in the same envelope. You’d use a different one for each piece of evidence.”

“Right, so I juggle a handful of envelopes and then while I’m picking up the clues, I measure where they was at and then I get out my pencil and write all this on the outside of each envelope and put ’em all back inside this bag.”

“That’s the long and short of it, yes.”

Tiffany nodded. “I like it. It’s a good idea.”

“You do?” Kingsley was astonished. “You seemed so skeptical.”

“Oh, I am. I think we could do some different things, maybe have an extra thing or two to put in the bags in case there’s different situations, maybe figure ways to do some of that faster or easier. But it’s smart. One thing you are, Doctor, it’s smart.”

“So you’ll help me present it to Sir Edward?”

“Sure. But one thing, this twine isn’t gonna work at all. It’s like a spiderweb. Too thin and brown to get anybody’s attention. People are gonna walk right into it, through it, not even notice it, just pull it out of the way.”

“Hmm. I see your point.”

“Maybe something thicker or with some color. Some way to stick it here instead of poking it in a crack. Needs work.”

“An adhesive tape, perhaps?”

“I don’t know. Just needs work. Other than that, you give me one of these bags and I’ll use it.”

Kingsley almost hugged the surly policeman. If Tiffany could be convinced to use the new kit, they all could be.

H
atty Pitt was tied to her bed. Thick coils of rope wound over and around her, under the bed and back up, pinning her arms and legs. The rope was rough, wiry tendrils sticking off it in every direction, and it scratched her, made her itch. She was able to move her head, craning her neck to watch the narrow section of landing she could see through the partially open bedroom door.

Earlier she had woken when it was still dark and had heard someone singing, a voice she hadn’t heard before, and she had heard John Charles cry out once. Then Hatty had passed out, and when she woke again the sun was up.

Now there was only silence.

Someone had entered her room in the night and bound her to her bed, then done something to John Charles. It occurred to her that the same someone might still be in the house.

Her mouth tasted terrible, like a rotten peach, and there was a lingering chemical scent in her nostrils. She snorted, trying to clear her nose, and turned her head to spit on the floor at the side of her bed. Propriety be damned. She was certain she would die soon and only wanted to feel a little more normal before it happened.

A great deal of time passed. Hatty watched a big black-and-green fly move across her bedroom ceiling. It grew braver when she didn’t move, hopping and skimming above her, then spiraling down to land on her chest. She watched it groom itself, scraping its wings with its feet, rubbing its head, wiping its eyes, its abdomen iridescent in the pale sunlight. It stopped and sat very still for a long moment, then skipped toward her face. It took off again and drifted in a lazy circle and landed again, this time on her chin. She felt it; she could no longer see it, though she strained her eyeballs until they ached. It skittered up onto her lips and she blew on it and it retreated, up into the air for a few seconds, buzzing angrily at her, and then down onto her nose. She angled her lips and tried to blow it off her face again, but it didn’t move. She crossed her eyes and could see its blurry black shape. It ran across her cheek and onto the bed beside her face and she lost track of it there. She worried that it was in her hair.

Her feet were free at the end of the bed. She could see her bare toes sticking up into her line of sight when she lifted her head all the way up and forward so that her chin touched her chest. She wiggled her toes and waggled her feet back and forth, then moved her legs, rocking them to and fro beneath the heavy rope. She swayed her hips, finding more room to do so the more she moved. She decided she was not as tightly bound as she’d thought and so continued to move parts of her body as much as she was able, straining against the ropes, feeling them give the slightest bit. Occasionally she would disturb the fly and it would drift upward into her line of sight and then settle down again somewhere beside her.

She found herself wishing that a spider would come along.

She lost track of time and was busy shrugging her shoulders, tensing and relaxing, tensing and relaxing, creating slack in the rope, when she sensed a presence in the doorway. She stopped moving and swallowed hard before turning her head. A man stood there, stock-still, watching her. At least she thought it was a man. It was hard to tell because he was actually quite small and was wearing a plague mask, its heavy beak thrusting into the room. The creature cocked its head to one side and reached up, lifted the mask. Hatty stared at him for a moment and looked away. She guessed the man was in his early fifties, but he might well have been a puppet rather than a living, breathing person. His face was utterly expressionless, dark eyes hidden under a heavy brow, his thin lips nothing but a gash in his narrow face. He had a large nose and his whiskers were patchy and grey. He clearly hadn’t shaved in weeks. His long salt-and-pepper hair stuck up every which way in sweaty spikes. Hatty closed her eyes and wished that he would go away, and when she opened them and turned her head, he was indeed gone.

She heard something bump against the floor in the other bedroom and Hatty watched the door, wondering when the man was going to come back and kill her. Quietly, she began pushing out against the rope with her elbows, continuing the work of getting herself free, though she was certain it was too late.

Sometime later, the man came by her bedroom door again. He was walking backward, dragging something heavy along the floor. She blinked. The man had two corners of a blanket in his hands and, as she watched, John Charles’s body passed through her line of sight, from his feet to his head and away across the landing to the staircase, which she could not see.

She heard the creak of floorboards and the steady thump thump thump as John Charles was pulled down the steps, one at a time.

Hatty redoubled her efforts, moving in mad patterns against the ropes, feeling them give way, but oh so slowly. She closed her eyes and thought about nothing but the ropes, willed them to loosen. Tears rolled down her cheeks and she hoped she might drown the fly with them, if that insect was still beside her on the bed. She felt her nose running, but couldn’t wipe it. Her chest convulsed in sobs.

John Charles didn’t have a face.