24

It’s a mistake.”

Tom did not look at her when he spoke.

She had worn her blue muslin dress again, the one from the night he’d said she looked like a lady. The night air was damp and brisk, sending a chill shivering down her spine. Pierre had not yet had time to make her a new coat, and she’d left Ma’s old one at home tonight so that Tom might better see her dress.

“It’s not,” she assured him, voice rising in excitement. “I can help people, Tom!”

She waited, eager for praise, for that smile to bloom across his face. It never came.

Her brow furrowed. She knew what he thought of the anatomy boys, but she’d never imagined he’d think it of her.

“I’ll still be here every night as I always am,” she said gently. “It won’t affect my work with you.”

He pulled the wagon to a stop in front of a small pub, wood sign swinging in the wind out front. The place was newer, located in a German immigrant suburb.

“It’s a mistake,” Tom said again.

She’d wanted him to kiss her.

She could admit that now.

For him to throw his arms around her and tell her again that she was wild and brave, and then she would ask him to do it. She had practiced saying it, over and over in front of her little hand mirror, in the bedroom that morning.

Now the words died on her lips, her face burning with shame. “How can you say that?”

He tied the wagon to a hitching post on the street, leaving her still sitting there. She jumped down after him, feet landing in an icy puddle of melted snow. The water seeped into the fine new boots Ava had bought her, staining the dyed blue leather. He did not offer to help.

“All this time you’ve been on about how much you hate the anatomy students for thinking they’re better,” Molly said, “but when I try to show them I’m just as good, you tell me I’m wrong to want more?”

“Wanting is just a game they let you play.” He gave a disgusted grunt and moved to the pub’s door alone.

Overhead, the sky was a festering wound, clotted with clouds. It had been like this for days, the weather refusing to turn one way or the other. The air around her felt heavy, like some giant holding its breath.

Tom’s broad back disappeared into the pub.

Two nights ago, the unknowableness of him had seemed alluring.

Now it infuriated her.

The door to the pub swung open, and a drunk stumbled out. Molly stepped inside. Dim, dusty light spilled over the drinkers. Even on a Monday night, the place was full. The smell of malt and bodies filled the tiny space.

These men were of the burgeoning middle class—craftsmen, not factory workers—and Molly felt their keen eyes land on her as she stepped inside. It would be difficult to take someone from here, she realized immediately. Even the barest foothold above poverty gave people the privilege to take care of their dead.

But Tom was already at the bar. A thin man with a balding head slammed two lagers down in front of him, the beer’s foam frothing over the glass mugs. Tom slapped a quarter on the counter in payment.

“I didn’t come here to drink with you,” Molly said angrily, sidling up beside him.

He thrust the beer at her. “It’s so we have a reason to be here. I’ve got a tip about this place from one of the lads.”

He meant, it seemed, to go on about their business as if nothing had happened between them. She would do the same.

“What is it?”

“There’s a man drinks here most nights,” Tom said. “Sits in a corner and gets so deep into his cups he passes out. The boy cleans peanut shells here for a penny. This fellow likes to tip him on occasion. The kid came through here not more than an hour ago, and when he reached for his tip, the fellow was dead.”

Molly blanched, looking around for the corpse. “And no one noticed?”

Tom shrugged. “Not yet, anyway.”

He said this so matter-of-factly, she shivered.

“Drink your beer,” he said. “There’s folks watching.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

But she lifted the glass anyway. Until two nights ago, she’d drunk nothing stronger than Communion wine. Da had liked a beer on occasion, and she’d certainly tried a sip, but she was not fond of the taste. Now she choked down the yeasty flavor, its malt-laced amber sliding with protest down her throat.

In front of her was a discarded newspaper, and she picked it up so that her hands would have something else to keep them occupied. On the front page was a blaring headline.

KNIFEMAN STRIKES AGAIN?

Molly leaned closer, pulse quickening. An artist’s drawing showed a woman’s headless body laid out on the banks of the Schuylkill. The woman’s left arm was also missing. The rest of the corpse, rendered in unflinching detail, looked much the same as the body she and Tom had discovered in the middle of the road. The skin had been cut away to reveal the organs and tissue beneath. Molly began to read.

In another gruesome discovery, police have recovered the unidentified body of a woman outside the Pennsylvania Almshouse—colloquially known as Old Blockley. The body marks the fifth such corpse discovered in as many weeks, and the police think the madman is far from satiated.

“Whoever he is, he likes his knife,” Police Chief Samuel G. Ruggles said. “My father was a butcher for thirty years, and I never saw him make cuts that fine. Our killer’s preference is for young women, and he takes particular care to remove parts of . . .”

“There he is.”

At the sound of Tom’s voice, Molly set the paper down, but not before she had noted the similarities. Mutilated and thrown in a river, just like Kitty. Her friend hadn’t been skinned like this body and the one in the road, but perhaps the killer had simply grown more bold. Honed his skills with each new murder.

There was no way of knowing if the Knifeman had removed the headless woman’s teeth, but there could no longer be any doubt about his skill with a knife. Molly thought of the loud and blundering manner in which the Tooth Fairy had chased them through his cemetery—not with a knife but a gun. And that first night, he’d shown no sign of a knife either. Only pliers. Molly flinched as she remembered the rough way he’d ripped the dead girl’s teeth from her mouth. It was hard to imagine those same coarse hands making the delicate cuts the paper described.

Reluctantly, she turned to see where Tom was pointing.

At a corner table sat a man, head hunched over his glass. “Are you sure?” Molly said. The patron looked ready to pick up his beer any minute.

“Corner table. Felt hat on his head,” Tom said. “That’s him.”

No one looked up as they made their way over, taking a seat across from the man. He was large, bigger than her da had been, and with a beer belly that unfolded in rolls beneath the table. His cheeks were stubbled with small dark flecks of beard, which looked like pencil shavings against the parchment of his skin.

Steadying herself, Molly reached out to touch him.

He was cold, his skin the familiar texture of rubber that she’d begun to know so well.

“How the hell are we going to get him out of here?” Molly whispered. “He’s as big as a barn.”

Tom considered.

“Carry him,” he said finally. “The man’s a drunk. Nobody will think twice if he needs a little help on his way out.”

Molly snorted. “You’re insane.”

“You’re strong,” Tom said, meeting her eyes for the first time that night. “We can do it.”

She let the compliment slide off her. It was too little too late. She’d wanted his approval earlier, and not for something like this.

“You can be his—”

“I’m his daughter.” Molly had cut Tom off neatly. “It’s been a while since we’ve seen each other, but a daughter would come looking for her father, no matter what.”

“What if these folks know his family?” Tom asked.

“There is no family,” Molly said with certainty, piecing the facts together. “Look at his clothes. The man’s shirt’s untucked, the collar’s dirty. They’re decent pants, but the button’s missing. An easy fix, but you’ve got to know how to thread a needle. No, he doesn’t have a woman in his life. At least not one that sees to him now. And these men haven’t paid him any mind all night.” She looked out at the crowded room, at the heads buried in their drinks. “Someone would have said hello to him by now if they really knew him, even if he was only a drunk. He’s just a face,” she said quietly. “Someone who might as well already be gone.”

Moving to the other side of the table, she slipped the dead man’s arm over her shoulder. Tom stood and slid between the wall and the body, working his way beneath the other arm. There was an uncomfortable second where she was sure the man had moved, but it was just the flesh settling, the dead weight of a body trying to find its way to the earth.

Squeezing her eyes tight, Molly threw back another bitter gulp of the beer, refusing to allow any thoughts of Kitty and her heavy, cold weight in the grave.

“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go.”

“One . . . two . . . three!” They lifted on Tom’s whispered count.

“Jesus!” She’d been prepared for the weight, or thought she had been, but this was something else entirely. The body threatened to drive her to the ground.

“Stay steady,” Tom whispered through gritted teeth.

Molly took a step forward, but as she did, the corpse’s arm slipped free from her shoulder. Before she could stop it, the arm crashed forward onto the table, knocking the rest of the dead man’s beer to the ground.

“Hey! What are you doing?” A man at the table next to them jumped up, wiping splashes of the spilled beer off his lap. His glittering eyes looked eager for a fight.

Molly felt Tom move, shifting more of the weight onto himself. Finally, she was able to breathe. Wiggling back beneath the arm on the table, she positioned it around her shoulder again and stood. The body sagged between them in a perfect drunkard’s posture.

“This man’s my father,” Molly said, raising a pain-filled face in rebuke. “And, God willing, that’s the last drink he’ll ever take.”

Other men in the pub were looking at her now, this hysterical girl in their midst. She used their curiosity, turning it to her advantage.

“As for the rest of you”—she raised her voice, words trembling in righteous anger—“shame on the lot of ya!” A tear slipped down her cheek. She was amazed at how easily it came. “You saw him here every night, drinking away his health, and you just let him do it. He might as well have been dead, all the help you gave him! I’ve had to bring the preacher’s son with me to get him home.”

Heads ducked, the patrons chastened, back into their beers.

She and Tom made their way to the door without anyone else stopping them, the men too ashamed to even look in her direction.

She was good at this now, Molly realized. They were good at it.

They carried the body out into the night, and behind them, Molly could hear a relieved sigh from the crowd as the door swung closed and the peaceful drinking resumed.

“The preacher’s son?” For the first time that night, Tom spared her a smile.

“It was a hard sell,” Molly said, her heart fluttering stupidly, like a dog panting to be petted. “Tom, I—”

“Let’s get the body in the wagon,” he said brusquely, turning away. And whatever hope she’d had of salvaging a tender moment between them was gone.

---

Tom yanked the body away from her, tossing it into the back of the wagon. His face strained with the effort.

She had no idea how he managed. The dead man had been excruciatingly heavy.

“Guess you could have saved a lot of trouble and carried it yourself.” Her words were harsher than she’d meant.

They stood across from each other, the body between them. The wind picked up, whipping Molly’s bare skin.

Tom slammed the gate closed. “You have no idea, do you?”

“About what?”

“It’s dangerous, Molly.” There was a pleading note to his voice.

At first, she thought he was talking about the Knifeman, that he, too, had seen the newspaper article back at the bar. She looked at him, surprised.

“Trying to get those doctors to take you seriously is only going to end with you hurt. Men with power like to believe they’re gods. And gods demand sacrifice.” Tom moved closer, his eye a single wild point in the night. “They take what they want, especially from women and girls.”

His hand lifted, hovering between them like a moth searching for light, and for a second she thought he was going to touch her.

Her breath stopped.

Dropping his hand, he turned away. “You want to know what happened to my sister?” His voice was a low growl.

“You don’t have to—”

“They killed her,” Tom said. “Men like that.”

She waited, hardly daring to breathe.

“I killed her.” His voice grew quiet.

“We were poor. My folks kept us caged like rabbits, six kids squatting on top of each other, and them trying to make more each night because the pope said they should.” He shook his head bitterly. “Bridget was the only one of us worth a damn.”

His eye reflected the moon’s light. Pain and a brightness shone from its depths, like a man leaning too close to a beautiful fire.

“They put us all to work in the factories as soon as we came over. Bridget was too young to go. There were laws that said it. But you think anybody cared?” He laughed. “No. She was just another body. They took her and all the other littles they could get. Made them crawl under the wheel and pick out the bits of wool that got stuck.”

His breath grew jagged.

“Paid them two pennies a day. Two pennies. Not even enough to buy a loaf of bread.”

Molly swallowed down the words that rushed to her lips. Forced herself to simply listen.

“I told her to quit. It weren’t just the machines that were dangerous. The factory men, the bosses, they’d pick the prettiest ones out of the bunch. Give ’em presents. And then, soon enough, those little girls would be doing favors for ’em in return for staying off the line.”

His voice dropped. “She was eight, Molly. Eight years old. And those men looked at her the way they should a grown woman.”

It was costing him to say this. Each word was blood squeezed from a dry cut.

“I told her she had to quit when the shift manager came in and handed her a ribbon. Said she was getting a present that day instead of pay. I yanked it right off her head. Wouldn’t let her wear it.”

He winced, his scar contracting in the dark.

“It was her hair that caught in the machine. The wheel pulled her under. Ate her limbs one bone at a time.”

She stared at his shoelace, sickened. The tattered red ribbon glowed in the moon’s light. “Tom,” she said.

“I found the factory boss and beat him near to death. Then he had his boys do this to me.” Tom raised a hand to his face. “And none of it, nothing, mattered. It didn’t bring Bridget back.” He looked at Molly. “People don’t come back once they’re gone.”

He stared at her as if he knew her own loss. She wanted to confess it to him, but the words caught in her throat. Nothing she could say would ease the pain in his face or the weight in her heart.

“Dr. LaValle’s making you feel like he’s giving you a present,” Tom said, “letting you study with him and the other boys. But gods don’t share their power, Molly. It’s how they stay gods.” His face flushed. “When he’s done with you, he’ll give you a ribbon, pat you on your pretty backside, and send you away. Either that or he’ll crush you, bone by bone.”

“No,” she whispered. “I won’t let him.”

“You won’t be able to help it. Men like that, they only do what suits them. It ain’t about you.”

There were worlds between them now. His fear and her desire. He wanted her safe, and she wanted—no, needed—more.

“I’m sorry.” She raised a hand. Let it rest along the plane of his face without touching him, the heat from their skin rising to couple in an aching, open wound. “For what happened.” Her voice cracked. “But, Tom . . .”

She knew it would hurt, knew that what she was about to say would drive something between them, that this moment could not be taken back. She said it anyway.

“I’m not your sister. And I don’t need saving.”