SWAN

17

HETTY’S EYES KEPT FALLING back to the collar despite the several other pieces of evidence that were just as interesting.

The man’s face wasn’t mutilated. Aside from the jagged slash along his neck, he was untouched—no fresh bruises or injuries were visible otherwise. There were signs of old wounds and a few puckered scars, and his nose had been broken at least once. But those were marks of the past, and not helpful at all in determining what killed him.

“I think this was placed on him . . .” Benjy said, tapping the collar. It fell apart at his gentle touch, splitting into halves right before their eyes. But it went blissfully silent. “With great care.”

“More theater,” Hetty remarked. She attempted to keep her words light. “Although hardly necessary.”

“Someone thought so,” Benjy said, picking up the broken collar and frowning as he studied it. He turned it so Hetty could see the pattern of the blood splatters. “This collar was put on him after he was killed, and so was this.”

With the end of the broken collar, Benjy pulled back the torn bits of the man’s shirt to reveal the sigil of the Serpent Bearer. Like Charlie, it had been cut into his flesh. But the cuts were ragged, with torn skin in places where the cutter moved too quickly.

There wasn’t blood around the cuts, more proof that he was already dead when it happened.

“Can’t say I’m happy to see that again,” Hetty said. Although she was grateful to have something to pull her attention from the collar. “But he’s not been set up to be a drunkard. With the collar he’s meant to look like—”

“A runaway.” Benjy dropped the ends of the shirt aside. “Could this be meant for us to find? The collar was activated long enough for us to hear it.”

“By who?” Hetty whispered. “The collar only activates when magic is performed.”

“Or when it crosses a boundary.”

Hetty’s eyes swung around the alley. She saw no one lurking in the shadows, not even glittering star sigils.

“There’s no boundary here,” Benjy said, poking about. “Someone set this up. I wonder how they triggered the collar’s alarm.”

“I don’t care how it was done.”

Benjy’s head snapped up at her words, and he reached for her hand. “You’re shaking,” he said even before she pulled away. Then he looked down at the broken collar in his hand. “This bringing back memories?”

“Only memories.” Hetty had to force her hand not to rise to her neck. “Just put it away.”

“I have to admit,” Benjy said as he placed the collar on top of the dead man, “this is becoming more interesting. One is unusual, but two makes it more than a coincidence. A third would make it a pattern. Add in the theater of these men’s bodies being staged, plus the sigil, and we have the start of something truly nefarious. Someone wanted Charlie and—” Benjy paused. “Who is this?”

“Maybe there is some clue on his clothes.” Hetty knelt and pulled at the dead man’s sleeves, rubbing her hands along the seams. “The clothes we found Charlie in were rags. These are a bit nicer, although they are clearly borrowed clothes. They weren’t made to fit the body. And”—Hetty held up a sleeve—“there are rips in the fabric where a person might have sewn something personal.”

“Like a name?”

“Or a recognizable mark for a household.”

Benjy grunted. “Then we might find another body nearby.”

“Or we might not.” Hetty traced the stitches. “There’s another sigil here, imprinted into the cloth. Likely done to keep people in line.”

“Like servants,” Benjy said quietly.

Hetty nodded. “We’re looking at castoffs. From the kitchens, the gardens, the stables, even. Not much to go on. This was stolen, most likely. Why go through such effort?”

“For confusion,” Benjy said.

“There’s nothing confusing about this.”

“To you, perhaps,” Benjy said, “but it’s supposed to mask motive, and the reason for this death. Very interesting.” Benjy tapped the broken collar. “I can’t wait to hear what Oliver makes of this.”

“He won’t like it.”

“Well, you don’t have to come along to hear him complain.” Benjy reached down to pick up the body.

As if she had a choice.

Dark it may have been, but even the deepest shadows would not completely hide him carrying a dead body. For the people he didn’t alarm, he would draw attention, and possibly the police, his way. They risked it the other night with Charlie. They could not do the same tonight. They were both distracted, exhausted, and in Hetty’s case, hurting from a wound she had never wanted to feel.

As terrible as it was, it was almost a relief to find the dead man. This new murder gave them something to talk about. Something that wasn’t about the angry words they tossed at each other. Something to fill the empty air between them.

No lights flickered in the windows, but that didn’t stop Hetty from rapping on the door until Oliver jerked it open.

“Who’s there?” he called, looking wildly into the night.

Hetty released her spells, and as they appeared on his doorstep, with the dead man hanging suspended in the air by Benjy’s spellwork, Oliver sighed. “What did I ever do to deserve this?”

“This isn’t on purpose,” Hetty said as she shut the door behind them.

Oliver snorted. “I doubt that.” He stalked over to Benjy to study the dead man hovering in his front hall.

“Who’s this?” Oliver prodded the man with a finger.

“It’s another one,” Benjy said, “like Charlie.”

“Another . . .” Oliver’s head whipped back to the body, and he pushed up his glasses to get a better look. “Stars above, it’s that same sigil! Why haven’t you stopped this?”

“Just keep him until we find more information,” Benjy said.

“You’d have more information”—Oliver jabbed a hand at the man—“if you let news about the mark spread!”

Benjy only shrugged. “Someone wanted to make a scene, and I’m not letting that happen.”

“You call this a scene, Rhodes?” Oliver’s voice broke and he slammed his hand against the wall. The shadows of the light above twisted his features as he turned on them. “Two men are dead! This is murder, not a game!”

“You mean a puzzle,” Benjy replied without a hint of a smile. “All you need to do is keep quiet.”

As Oliver’s mouth flapped open like a fish, Benjy steered the dead man toward the cellar. “If you have questions, Hetty can explain. She’s very good at that, after all.”

Oliver turned toward her, with more than one question on his face. Hetty answered the easier one.

“We found him in an alley. Someone left a collar on him, and the sound drew us to him.”

“Here I thought you two simply went home after leaving the repass,” Oliver sighed. “That’s what most people would do, but no, you must surround yourself with trouble!”

“You were there?” Hetty’s anger cut through his rambling words. “You were there and you let us run around the whole time!”

“I was told there wasn’t much to do. That the burial society would handle things.”

“Payments and the meal,” Hetty said, “small things, not things that mattered. You should have known that. Do you think any of them know how to put together a funeral? Especially in a few days? Why did you even think you could manage it on your own? We always did this together.”

“I know.” His words were directed at the ceiling. She looked up as well, but if there was anything up there, it was something only he could see. “I was trying to help.”

“You disappeared! That was no help. Do you even have a good excuse?”

“Things went well without me, didn’t they?”

“I spent the whole time scrambling about.”

“Be honest—you don’t mind. You never liked staying still, especially when it’s about things you don’t want to dwell on. No tears for Charlie Richardson from you. Or from any of us who called him a friend.”

Hetty turned her attention to Oliver, and for a wild moment considered the extremely unlikely prospect of him being a cause of Charlie’s death. But only sadness cloaked his words.

“I was never fond of him, you know,” Oliver went on. “He never did a favor without asking for more in return. His path to success came too quickly for a man who started with dust in his pockets. I suppose it doesn’t matter now. He’s been laid to rest, and you brought me a new body to study.”

“You don’t have to,” Hetty said quickly. “We don’t even know if he’s connected.”

“Of course you don’t,” Oliver said rather sternly, “because I have yet to take a proper look at him!”

With that, Oliver marched down into the cellar, as if he never had complained about the arrival of the dead into his home.

The man’s features were still unfamiliar to her, but perhaps they were thinking too small. They didn’t know everyone in town. If they had a picture of his face, they could show it around. See if anyone knew the man. Once they knew his name, there would be one less question to ask.

Hetty drifted into the next room. Unlike the kitchen, the front room stayed neater since Oliver seldom used it.

A large ornate desk shoved in a corner was covered with more papers and books than usual. Hetty riffled through them looking for a clean page and stumbled upon a series of letters written in Oliver’s neat script. Letters to Thomas, half written, scribbled over, all conveying sentiments that he drowned in drink rather than put them down plainly on paper. Hetty knew she shouldn’t be reading his letters, but she couldn’t help herself, couldn’t contain her morbid curiosity. She was about to set them back where she’d found them and return to her search for a pencil when she saw her name:

Hetty’s back to her old habits again. She threatened to quit her job last week. She called it a difference of opinion, but I wonder if this is just an excuse. She’s been itching to leave town, and Benjy says

That was the end of the page, but instead of turning it over to read more, Hetty shoved it back into the drawer, more terrified than she had been at any point that night.

Arguing had started to drift up from downstairs, with Benjy’s deeper voice a counterpoint to Oliver’s higher tenor. The door muffled the words, but it didn’t matter what sparked a disagreement. It could have been about the bodies, or the state the house had been left in. Or her. Hetty knew they talked about her, just as she had done with them when the other was absent. This felt different, though, and she had no interest in learning more than that.

“I’m going home!” Hetty called down into the cellar.

There was a pause in the yelling, but Hetty rushed out the door before Benjy could come up the stairs and stop her.

She kept expecting him to catch up with her at the street corner, or past the cigar shop, or even a few blocks away. He’d run up and then fall into step with her. However, she made it all the way back to their room without sight or sound of him.

Disappointment stirred, but she let it go. If he’d followed, they would have had to talk, and she had nothing she could say without causing more trouble.

Her racing heart made the thought of sleep naught but a fanciful notion, and her restless hands went to the dress that waited for her.

She sewed to keep herself from thinking. Of Benjy’s words that were a strange echo of Darlene’s. Of Charlie’s mother’s complaints. Of letters, both read and unread, that seemed to conspire against her. Oddly enough, the murdered man they’d found hardly lurked at all in her thoughts. Not even the collar, crusted with dried blood, and its siren call.

She was tired, she was confused, and she was angry, but that anger was mostly directed at herself.

Benjy had said several things in relation to her sister, but the one thing stuck with her like a small stone in her boot was the last thing he’d said:

Then go look for her. You never needed my permission!

Had it been anger driving his words, or did the anger simply bring up his true thoughts? That he had given up a long time ago and was just pretending? If he was deceiving her about the search for Esther being a worthwhile endeavor, what else might he be lying about?

Hetty wasn’t sure how long she furiously dipped the needle in and out of the cloth, but she was nearly done with the dress when the door opened and Benjy came shuffling in.

“Catherine Anne looks ready for a night of excitement,” Benjy remarked as the door shut softly behind him. “I didn’t realize you had work to do,” he added, his words clumsy as he settled into an opposing chair. He avoided her eyes. Instead, he fixed his gaze on the cradle still sitting in the corner.

“I probably have to put it aside, since we have another body to deal with,” Hetty said, mostly because she felt she had to say something. “Odd, isn’t it, that we bury Charlie and find another? Keeps us busy. Has Oliver accepted that you have no idea who the man is?”

“No, but he will tell us if he finds anything.” Benjy cleared his throat and pulled a letter from his jacket, postmarked and weather-beaten, and quite unlike the one Cora Evans had given him.

“This was in the box when I came up,” he said.

The letter was addressed to him, and already opened.

Good news would have been the first thing out his mouth, so there was no point in Hetty reading it. But she knew what it was and what it held.

This was the long-awaited letter. The one Benjy had insisted on waiting for the return. He had this idea of a better way to search. He argued that Esther was a healer of some skill, and never shied away from helping others. Benjy narrowed his search on accounts of sicknesses and used them to map out locations where Esther might be found. It was a clever idea, and a plan that spoke of considerable time going over details before he mentioned it to her.

A plan she couldn’t see to the end, because she couldn’t trust him to wait just a bit longer.

“I guess I was impatient. If I waited just a few more days, I wouldn’t have broken my promise.” Hetty ran her fingers along the bodice of the dress, seeking any missing stitches, although she knew there weren’t any. “I sent a telegram earlier this week,” Hetty said to the headless Catherine Anne. “I’m sorry I hid it from you, but I’m not sorry I did it.”

“A telegram?”

“Yes.” Hetty frowned. “I sent it the other day. You almost caught me writing it the night we found Charlie.”

“Only that one?” he echoed.

His phrasing was as odd as his fixation, and she looked upon him curiously. “I only sent one telegram,” she repeated. “You thought I sent more?”

“Yes. Mrs. Evans’s letter wasn’t from the set we sent before.”

“But I sent plenty previously,” Hetty said, “and I often said the postal system is very flawed and unreliable.”

Benjy stared at her.

“I thought you’d been sending letters all this time. I kept thinking we were always short on rent, despite the extra work you took on. I imagined dozens of letters and telegrams you sent because I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Which you only thought because you lied to me for nearly the same time,” Hetty said, although not without sympathy or a flicker of guilt. If she had the means she would have done just that. “We’ve been short on rent because the landlord keeps changing his mind on what to charge us. I did take on extra work, so I can put money into all those collections and donations every­one goes on about. There’s nothing worse when those plates go around and people expect we have nothing to give.”

“I’m such a fool.” Benjy’s voice was muffled as he covered his face with his hands. “I never should have asked you in the first place. Since I’ve known you, you’ve searched for your sister, even when you had nothing more than a direction to travel. It was foolish to think mere words would stop you. Nor”—his hands fell away—“was it fair to ask.”

“Then why did you?”

“I was worried you’ll leave.”

The simple words told her everything she needed to know, yet he continued to speak, not quite meeting her eyes. “Every time you talk about your sister, I’m afraid it’ll be the last time I’ll see you. I know you’ll come back, but that promise has been made to me before.”

The ghosts of his parents and siblings that Hetty would never meet in this life floated between them.

“I wouldn’t go without you.”

As that quiet declaration slipped from her lips, Benjy sagged from such relief that if Hetty dared, she might have asked how long he’d fretted about this.

Ages, clearly, and her stomach twisted with guilt.

She never really thought he paid attention to her comings or goings. Had he really been worried she would just disappear without telling him? What could she have done for him to think that after all they’d been through that leaving him behind was something she’d even consider?

Or wanted?

She glanced in his direction. Her eyes met his, and something flickered there for a short moment before he looked away.

Benjy cleared his throat as he studied the letter with sudden intensity.

“Hetty,” he started, his voice a soft rumble.

“Yes?”

She must have sounded too eager, for he jerked back a bit.

“Have you thought more about our likely suspects?”

Hetty blinked at the shift in conversation. “Suspects?”

“About Charlie. We had a disagreement of opinion about the matter.”

“Which you want to settle now?”

“I have work to finish as well.” He pointed to the cradle left abandoned in the corner of the room. “I need to get it out of this room—I nearly tripped over it this morning. You don’t mind, since you’re going to be up a bit longer, aren’t you?” He gestured at the dress.

He was saying the right things, but he was too keen to move to a different topic, even with a cradle he considered mere kindling.

With it next to his chair, Benjy brought out a small chisel, and bent over the cradle.

He worked away, curls of wood falling on the floor that would be swept away when he finished. That surprised her. It felt like a ready excuse to place in between them to keep conversation at bay.

But no, he was diligently working, and after realizing how closely she was watching, she turned back to the dress.

It wasn’t long before Benjy stopped and said, “The person who killed the man had to be at the repass.”

“What are you talking about? We found him afterwards, and farther away.”

“On the streets we would take home from Crone’s Cauldron. It isn’t far from the Loring home. Only five streets over.”

“That’s far away,” she said. “And if that was true, wouldn’t we have noticed we were followed?”

“Don’t have to be. All someone needs to do is ask the right questions of people who might have seen us pass. The murderer had to be near—the collar was triggered, and the man was freshly dead. Oliver estimates it occurred after the repass.”

“Freshly dead,” Hetty echoed. “You sound as if the man was a squash ready to be harvested.”

“The body was dropped in front of us on purpose. It was planned just as much as Charlie was, maybe even more, with the collar. You don’t see those things around. Most of the prisons bought up the ones that could be salvaged, and the rest were melted down to be reused. This person kept such a thing.”

“I can’t think of any of our friends who would,” Hetty said.

Benjy folded his hands under his chin, his elbows resting on the cradle. “You stole a broken one a long time ago.”

“To be used as a disguise. Would any of our friends do such a thing?”

“With murder involved, it’s hard to say we know them all that well.” A gleam entered his eyes. “Let’s consider the suspects, starting with Marianne.”

She should be annoyed, but this was a reminder that despite everything, he meant what he said earlier.

He wanted her assistance with the case.

“Marianne is considered because she has ample opportunity and motive. But that only fits for her husband. There is no way she could take the time to perform a second murder with her children, her mother-in-law, and the eyes of the community on her.”

“Unless she had help,” Benjy said. “Darlene and George?”

“I’m not sure about a motive. They did have opportunity, according to Penelope. For Charlie, and tonight. Both have been acting quite strange this week, and Darlene pulled me aside to warn me off investigating. George is a former soldier—he’s familiar with death.”

“Magic’s been key,” Benjy reminded her. “George would rather bite off his arm than use magic that’s not needed.”

“People say all sorts of things, and Darlene is quite talented with certain spells. But Eunice and Clarence are better with magic.”

“Separately or together?” Benjy asked.

“Does it matter?”

“Maybe? Why do you want to add them?”

“Eunice led the charge for a number of things for Marianne, some with a great deal more earnestness than should be expected. It might be good-hearted, or hiding her tracks. Clarence is part of the political club like Charlie and George, and he has some magical talent just like Eunice. As you pointed out, we found the second body on the way from their home. That fool Isaac Baxter is on the list too,” Hetty said, “mostly because he tried to bury Charlie with magic.”

“That’s a good reason,” Benjy remarked. “Anyone else on the list?”

“Alain Browne, because he came to us in the first place about Charlie and then lied to me. And then there’s the unknown: some stranger tied to all of this we have yet to meet.”

“That is your pick,” he said, sounding much more like himself. “You don’t want to think one of our friends killed Charlie.”

“No, I don’t,” Hetty admitted with reluctance, “but it’s not only Charlie we have to consider. That man we found had the same mark. But we don’t know who he is or what his connection is to Charlie.”

Benjy sat back, considering her words. “You said so yourself,” he said. “We haven’t exactly been part of his social circle recently.”

“But we would know something . . . you would know something. You notice everything! Because you don’t, it leaves the places we haven’t been part of.” Her hands fell away from the dress as a thought occurred to her. “That political club is having an excursion tomorrow. People that Charlie recruited should be there. We might be able to make a connection there if we asked around.”

“Or maybe not. All I see is a waste of time.”

“Don’t you think it’s interesting,” Hetty pressed. “They’re still having an event the day after Charlie was put to rest.”

“Life rolls on.” Benjy shrugged. “It’s too big to slow down or to pause over something as commonplace as death.”