11

The Erie County Morgue was two blocks away from police headquarters. The bodies themselves were in the basement, while the first and second floors held offices of the county coroner, the health department, and the water commissioner. The morgue area had not been part of the original building but, with the commercial development of liquid-air refrigeration, a cooling plant had been installed in the rear of the building to facilitate temporary storage of the city’s dead.

The morgue attendant was an immense, impossibly affable man named Childers. He was an inch shorter than Walter, but twice as wide, all in the waist. “Call me Chill,” he said, breaking into a broad, welcoming grin at the sight of Harry’s badge. “Everybody else does. ’Cause of the temperature down here. Get it?”

Harry assured the man the joke was not too deep for them, then asked to see Esther Kolodkin.

Childers heaved a sigh. “She was a pretty young thing.” He attempted, without total success, to sound appropriately solemn when discussing a deceased. “And a librarian to boot. Terrible to die like that when she could have been home raising a family.”

He led them down the stairs and through a corridor to a set of double metal doors. “Gonna be cold. You boys want some coats?”

Walter shook his head. “Not going to be here long enough.”

Childers shrugged, looking like a mountain of gelatin in an earthquake. “Okay by me.” He grabbed a large fur coat off a rack against the far wall. “I gotta. Been working in the cold so long, I can’t feel my feet anymore.”

“Can’t see ’em either,” Harry whispered to Walter.

As soon as the doors swung open, Walter cursed himself. A blast of cold like January in the Dakotas slammed him the face. But he refused to give Childers the satisfaction of grabbing a coat, so he followed the man inside, an equally stoical Harry next to him.

The room was twenty by thirty, each wall lined with a series of large drawers, three high and eight deep. Childers stopped at the first row on the left and pulled out the center drawer.

Esther Kolodkin, chalk white and naked, stared at the ceiling of the morgue. She was the height and weight Walter expected, with dark hair, eyes slightly almond-shaped, and a full lower lip. She would have been attractive without being beautiful. Her legs were long and thin, her waist tapered, and her breasts full. Walter and Harry looked from her face to her feet without letting their eyes linger anywhere.

They then both turned their attention to the three puncture wounds, each within inches of the other two, just below the rib cage. The wounds had been cleaned and only a small crust of mottled blood surrounded each one.

“Always feel a little funny undressing the girls, especially the nice looking ones,” Childers said suddenly. “They don’t mind, o’ course, but I’ve taken a good bit o’ sass from my wife. She don’t say nothin’ about the hags though.”

Walter glanced to Harry and, when he was certain Harry had seen the same things as he had, they nodded to Childers to push the drawer closed.

“Got her clothes?” Harry asked.

“Outside.”

Thank God, thought Walter.

The burst of warmth that hit Walter and Harry entering the hall was of equal intensity as the burst of cold going in. The effects of the dead were kept in labeled burlap sacks in a large storeroom. Childers stood beside them as they checked over Esther Kolodkin’s clothing and the scant possessions—a cheap bracelet and phony garnet ring—found with the body. After a minute or so, Harry handed the bag back to the attendant.

“Find what you wanted?” Childers asked, leaning forward to catch any chance bit of salacious gossip.

“Yeah,” Harry grunted. “Just like it seemed. Poor kid. Wrong place, wrong time.”

“That’s all?” asked a clearly disappointed Childers.

“Yeah,” Harry grunted. “What’d you think there’d be?”

“I’ll never complain about August heat again,” Harry muttered once they were back on the street. “‘We don’t neeeed no coats.’ Walter, sometimes you’re an idiot.”

“I suppose. What do you think about the girl?”

“Wasn’t like no robbery I ever seen.”

“Me either.”

“It was two guys, not one.”

“One grabbed her from behind. By both arms. The other did the work.”

“Her arms were pulled back. Stretched the dress so it tore ragged when the knife went in.”

“And they stabbed her first. Only took the purse later.”

“Yeah, no struggle. She was killed before she knew what was happening. No need to do that with a woman. Just grab the purse and go. If she made a beef, then mebbe you kill her to keep her from being heard. But no one is going to do it first, especially when there’s two.”

Harry nodded. “Unless you were trying to make it look like a robbery when what you really wanted to do was to kill her. Then you take the purse to cover the killing instead of killing her to cover the robbery.”

“Wonder if she’s really got a sister in Chicago. Would help if she did.”

“She does. One of the coppers had her name and address as next of kin.”

“You’re joking. A Buffalo copper? How in hell did he even know to check?”

Harry shrugged. “Dunno. Someone on the force must be smarter than they look.”

“That wouldn’t be hard.”

“So, Walter, an interesting day’s work, wouldn’t you say? Wilkie and Hanna don’t seem so crazy after all.”

“People can be right by accident, Harry.”

“You’d know, Walter.”

“Maybe. But I’m still not positive.”

“C’mon, Walter. Something went on here.”

“Something is not the same thing as the thing. Maybe Czolgosz did just meet the girl after he got to town and they were drawn together by a mutual desire to overthrow the government.”

“And the knife wounds?”

“We’re guessing. And I can’t see why you’re so anxious for Wilkie to be right . . .”

“I’m not anxious,” Harry protested. But they each knew what it meant if Wilkie and Hanna had been correct. If Czolgosz was simply some lunatic acting alone, Ireland and Foster’s failure to spot the gunman could be dismissed as bad luck, or even incompetence. But the more it seemed like Czolgosz was part of something bigger, the more it seemed that Ireland and Foster might have part of something bigger as well.

“Doesn’t matter anyway, Harry. We’ve got a trail to follow in any case. Let’s give Wilkie his wish and hustle on back to Chicago. There’s an express leaves at six. We can just make it.”

“You don’t want to stay here and try to find who killed the librarian? Might be a helpful piece of information. You’re going to leave this to the coppers?”

“I’ll bet you that dinner you want me to come to that we have a better chance finding whoever killed that girl in Chicago than in Buffalo.”

“You’re on. But not for the dinner. It’s tomorrow night. And you’ll be there.”

Harry headed to the Iroquois to collect their bags. They didn’t say much on the walk, but each knew what the other was thinking. Had one or more operatives, men in their outfit, turned traitor?

As they neared the hotel, Walter heard something. Actually, he didn’t really hear it; more like he sensed it. As they turned the corner on Eagle Street, Walter suddenly grabbed Harry by the wrist and pulled him into a doorway. He didn’t have to put a finger to his lips. Harry already knew to shut up.

They waited for a few seconds, then Walter took off his hat and carefully peeked out from the doorway. Then he moved quickly back onto the street, retracing their steps, Harry a half-step behind. As they neared the corner, a clack of boot heels echoed from the pavement. They turned on to Washington Street just in time to see a man in a black coat jump into a coach facing back the other way. It was black with no markings. The coach tore away from the curb and took off over the cobblestones. At the next corner, it careened around to the right and disappeared.

Harry took off his skimmer and rubbed his hand across his pate. “Well, we sure got someone’s attention.”

“Look like a copper to you?”

“Nope. You?”

Walter shook his head. “Might be Hanna keeping tabs on us.”

“Mebbe,” Harry admitted. “Can you figure out why he’d feel the need to do that?”

“No.”

“Me either.”

“Who else then?” Walter asked.

Harry glanced at him but didn’t answer.