Chapter 15

Walt is close now, and as he rounds the corner, he fervently hopes to have Henry all to himself. Through the office window, he can see a middle-aged woman pleading her case to Henry, arms flailing.

Henry is handsome, the way he sits up straight, his shoulders back, his smooth skin and attentive eyes. Walt catches himself grinning.

The bell rings when he opens the door, and the woman turns around. Her long dress is ripped in several places and her face is rough and wrinkled, which makes her appear older than she probably is. She stands up straight and shakes his hand, exuding a strength that reminds Whitman of his mother.

Behind her, Henry smiles. “Glad you made it, Mr. Whitman.” He emphasizes Whitman just as he did the night before, and relief washes over Walt. Then he sees the slightly younger man, scrawny and pale, sitting next to the woman—he’s hunched over in the chair, and one of his hands is curled up in a ball.

“We’re Ned and Harriet Runkel,” the woman says. “Maggie’s parents.”

Whitman takes off his coat. “Maggie?”

Mrs. Runkel pokes her husband’s shoulder. “See, he doesn’t even know who she is.” She turns to Walt. “It was Maggie’s body they stole the night of the sheriff’s murder.”

Images of the young corpse’s blue lips and cold, white face flash through his mind—he feels himself thrust back into the wagon, the smell of urine and feces and death, the way her face, punctured by the hook, rolled into his when the wagon turned. “Oh,” Walt says. “I’m sorry for your loss.” He looks over at Henry. “Shall I set the tea on?”

Saunders nods, then sneezes.

“Bless you,” Mrs. Runkel says.

Whitman approaches the wood-burning stove, kneels down, and opens the door. The fire turns his thoughts to Azariah. Where is he now? The hot air brushes Walt’s face. “A cold one today.” He lifts the kettle. It is full. “Tea will be ready in a minute.”

“I could use a cup of tea,” Mrs. Runkel says. “Sounds grand.”

“Me too,” Saunders says. “Do you need any help, Mr. Whitman?”

Walt turns, ready to say no, that he has the tea in hand, but Henry is already coming toward him. Their eyes meet, and Walt waits.

Henry lowers his voice. “Is everything okay? I was worried when you didn’t arrive.”

Walt, still crouching, reaches for Henry’s hand, squeezes, then lets go, careful that the Runkels don’t see. “I had a few setbacks today. I’ll tell you about them once they’ve gone.”

Henry nods. “I’m glad to see you.”

Walt stands and looks at Henry. He didn’t notice until now, but Henry’s face is damp with sweat. And pale. “You don’t look well,” Walt says.

“How nice of you to say.” Henry smiles. “That’s what spending all night in the graveyard will do.”

Walt shakes his head. “I think I have a cold too. The price of justice. Shall we?” He motions to the Runkels.

Saunders nods, goes first, and takes his place across from the couple. “Tea will be ready shortly.”

Whitman sits on the bench next to Mr. Runkel, and the man’s demeanor changes—he straightens up and appears stronger. “Nobody has even looked for her,” he says.

“Pardon?” Walt says.

“For Maggie’s body,” Mr. Runkel says.

Saunders shakes his head. “That must be difficult.”

“We are grateful that they found the man who took her body,” Mrs. Runkel says, meaning James Warren, “but we want her back.”

The kettle rattles and clanks now. Walt stands. “Excuse me.” Over at the stove, Whitman dumps the tea leaves into the strainer. He empties the steaming water into the teapot, retrieves four cups and saucers from the shelf above the stove. The tea steeps for a few minutes before Walt pours, then distributes the cups, careful not to slosh it over the sides. His own tea burns his tongue. “Still very hot,” he says.

Harriet sets her mug down beside her on the bench. “An article on Maggie could help us find her body.” She breaks down, recovers, and blows her nose with a handkerchief she keeps bunched up in her left fist. “She deserves to rest.”

“It was your article today,” Ned says, “that led them to the medical students who bought Sheriff Harris’s body.”

He is right. Harris’s body was discovered in the NYU Medical College morgue. Walt learned of this in the same Bennett article that inspired his visit to Snuffy in the prison. Did the Runkels read it too? They must have if they know all this. Still, if they believed the Herald article, they probably would not have come here seeking their help.

He’s thinking ahead now. Another article on body snatching would keep the Stowe story in the public’s mind, and if it helps recover the Runkels’ daughter’s body, then even better. However, a search would not be an easy one—the body could be anywhere by now. Sheriff Harris’s body was easily recognizable because of who he was; Maggie’s is not.

For just a moment, he wonders if the Runkels’ story is another diversion from his mandate to keep the college going, but he just as quickly realizes that keeping the college open long-term still depends, in large part, on exonerating Lena.

So Walt turns around and makes eye contact with Henry. “Exactly right.” He takes out his green notebook. “A brilliant idea. Yes, an article on your missing daughter, the implications of body snatching from another perspective. Now, what can you tell me about your daughter?”

Ned starts. Maggie, the eldest of their two daughters, started vomiting at night, just after dinner, the cause of which they had hoped was bad food. But during the night, she didn’t get better, and around four A.M., her vomiting turned to diarrhea. Ned and Harriet Runkel had tried to make their daughter comfortable, but by morning, Maggie had died of cholera.

“Bad drinking water,” says Ned.

Henry stops him. “The new water system—hasn’t it helped stop cholera?”

Harriet looks him straight in the eye. “Not everyone in New York gets that water.”

“We know about the resurrection men,” Ned says. “People die around us all the time and folks stumble over each other to get to the body. That’s why we paid the priest to bury Maggie in the graveyard far away from our neighborhood.” Mr. Runkel drops his head. “All that did was raise the price of her body.”

“We haven’t always lived in Five Points,” Harriet says. “Things happen. Circumstances beyond your control.” She pauses. “You could end up living there, and then you’d see how everything changes.”

“I can’t imagine,” says Whitman.

“You should come see for yourself,” Ned says, “how bad it is.”

“I don’t know if that’s possible,” Saunders says. “This isn’t the only story we have to write.”

Walt turns to Henry. “Whatever do you mean?” He sees Henry’s eyes get bigger, but he can’t stop himself. “Of course we’ll visit. How about tomorrow?” Then he remembers the meeting with Miss Blackwell and the cadaver supplier. “I’m sorry. How about the day after tomorrow? I have a prior commitment.”

Ned and Harriet both smile. “Thank you, Mr. Whitman. You have no idea how much this means to us.”

They make arrangements to stop by the Runkels’ flat, and Ned tells them that there are more body-snatching victims living in the same area. You can interview them too for the article, Ned says. It’s important for the reader to understand how many folks are affected by this problem. Whitman agrees, and after he thanks the Runkels again for stopping by, they say their good-byes.

When the door closes behind the Runkels, Henry pounces. “What are you doing? You made a promise to people we have no business trying to help. We’re journalists. We don’t have time for this.”

“If we don’t help the Runkels, who will?”

Henry sits at his desk, twirls a pencil in his hand. “Am I missing something?”

Walt scratches his head. “There might be something I haven’t told you.”

“Besides the fact you ran this morning’s edition without me?”

“Well, that and—”

“Bennett’s eviscerating response that could put the Aurora out of business?”

“What I was going to say is—”

“You realize that Mr. Ropes will want me to fire you for what you did this morning, and I’ll have to beg him for your job.” Henry takes a breath. “You don’t know this, but he wanted me to fire you as my first order of business as editor.”

Walt had no idea it had gone this far. “He did?”

Henry nods. “He said you are the laziest fellow who ever undertook to edit a city paper. I refused because you’re a great writer.”

Whitman clears his throat. “Oh. Thank you.”

The two men stand in silence for several moments.

“Was there something else?” Henry says.

Walt knows what he has to say next will not go over well, so he takes his time. He goes to his desk, slides out the chair, and sits. He picks up a pencil, rolls it on the table, and finally he looks up at Henry and speaks. “I went to see James Warren today—”

At nine o’clock, Walt Whitman turns down the composition room’s oil lamps and watches the flames sputter and disappear, the only light now coming from the office. Henry had responded to his solo visit with Warren much as Walt thought he would. Irritation first. Then curiosity. Now Henry is looking forward to their visit to see Clement’s sister as much as Walt is. The day after tomorrow, they’ll visit the Runkels first and then Frankie.

“Henry?” he calls.

No response.

In the office, he finds Henry, his head on the desk.

Walt says, “Are you ready to go?”

But Henry is asleep.

He puts his hand on Henry’s shoulder, which is warm, and touches his forehead, which is even warmer. At this, Henry looks up, and his pallid face startles Walt.

“I’ll get a cab,” Whitman says. “You can’t walk home like this.”

Across the street from the Aurora, omnibuses and cabs have lined up outside the string of restaurants and bars already packed with people—most of them men who stopped on their way home from their Wall Street offices.

Walt crosses the street and speaks with the first cabbie he sees—a youngish man with molasses skin and greasy black hair. He asks him to pull up in front of the Aurora. “Too much to drink,” he tells the cabbie, not wanting to say the word fever.

With Henry’s arm around his neck, Walt helps him into the cab, and after the ten-minute journey to the Centre Street boardinghouse where Henry lives, Walt escorts him up the stairs. The tiny room holds a bed, a desk, a wood-burning stove, and a series of small shelves. The window is open, and the temperature is frigid.

He helps Henry into bed and covers him with a blanket.

He shuts the window. He starts a fire. Should he stay here and keep a watch on Henry or should he return to his room at the college? It is after ten now, and he still isn’t feeling well himself.

He stokes the fire, then looks around Henry’s room. On the desk, he sees a stack of letters from August and Edie Saunders. He sees a letter Henry started writing earlier that day, in which he mentions his excitement for his new job. He searches the prose for any mention of himself and when he reads, I’ve met an old friend, a remarkable man, Walt Whitman, his spirits soar.

He searches the room for another blanket, which he finds folded up underneath the bed. He situates himself near the stove and folds up his coat as a pillow. The blanket and the warmth from the fire soon warm him through, save his toes and fingers, and it doesn’t take long for him to fall asleep.

The next morning, Walt wakes with a start. He’s not sure where he is, but as Henry’s room comes into view, he remembers everything. He shivers. Not from illness, but because the fire has gone out.

Henry is still sleeping, a good thing, no doubt. It is eight o’clock, and Walt is supposed to meet Miss Blackwell at nine for their visit to the coroner. He nearly forgot.

Whitman uses the embers to restart the fire and adds enough wood to ensure that it will burn for at least a few hours. He searches the room for food. There is not much. A bread end, some coffee, a few spoiled eggs. He prepares coffee and leaves it on the desk with the bread and a note: Will look in on you later. Yours, Walt.

Henry does not stir despite Walt’s moving about. His forehead is still warm, and he looks worse than the day before. Perhaps Walt can talk Elizabeth into examining him. “You rest up,” he says to the sleeping Henry, and then lets himself out.