Captain Davies gave Jasper the same look he always gave him: the look that said he was disappointed—but not surprised—that Jasper was still among the living.
“Ah, back after your leave of absence.” The other man said the words with a nasty smirk.
Jasper was grateful that Paisley had thought to send word to the captain because it had never even crossed his mind to do so before he went into Chang’s that night a week ago.
“I got Law’s message from earlier—something about a dismembered body packed in salt and sent to us by an idiot in New Orleans?”
“That about s-sums it up, sir.” Jasper took the seat across from the captain without being invited, a gesture that earned him a frown.
“Why the hell didn’t Law just send the goddamned box back?”
Jasper wasn’t sure what to say to that, so, he said nothing.
Davies made a harrumphing sound at Jasper’s nonresponse. “So, the crate broke and disgorged Mr. Albert Beauchamp—do we know for a certainty this is Mr. Albert Beauchamp?” He grimaced. “Hell, is it even possible to identify a body that has been in salt for almost half a year?”
“D-Detective Law is taking the butler, Robert Keen, to Bellevue to identify the body. Based on what we’ve learned s-s-so far, it does seem likely that it is Beauchamp.” He hesitated.
“What?” Davies demanded, scenting trouble.
“I found a co-copy of Beauchamp’s will in his safety deposit b-b-box and took it.” Davies didn’t care about legality and made a “get on with it” gesture with his hand. “His real name was Albert F-Frumkin.”
Davies sat back as if Jasper had punched him. “You’re bloody joking! Frumkin?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, I’ll be damned. There’s a name from the past. You’ve heard of him?” he asked when Jasper exhibited no surprise.
“No, but his d-daughter told me about him.”
“His daughter? I’m surprised she stayed in the city with a name that notorious. At one time Albert Frumkin’s name was in every paper—respectable and otherwise—for months.”
Jasper hesitated, not wishing to tell Davies the woman’s real name, but not seeing any way around it. “She’s been living under her mother’s m-maiden name—Martello. She is very concerned that her n-name not show up in the n-n-newspapers.”
Davies scowled across at him, his eyes narrow. “You’d better not be saying what I think you’re saying, my lord. I don’t sell information to the papers,” Davies added with a huff when Jasper remained silent. “And I sure as hell don’t appreciate you hinting at it.”
“Of c-c-course not, sir.” Jasper agreed. Although he had no evidence that Davies was a crooked copper, his allegiance to the mayor—a man as bent as a mule’s hind leg—made him suspect.
Davies grunted, looking as if he weren’t going to let it go, but then he seemed to change his mind. “What did she say about him?”
“She knew n-n-nothing about his activities since l-leaving New York but m-mentioned he used to own s-several newspapers?”
“Ha! Flash rags is probably the politest term for what he and his kind doled out like slops to hungry pigs. A few bits of actual news cut with brothel recommendations and the best cockpits, dog rings, and bowling alleys. He’d probably still be flogging his sordid rags if he hadn’t tried to extort money from the DA himself.” He shook his head and gave the first genuine laugh Jasper had ever heard him issue. “When did Frumkin move back? Because I know he left here in a hurry—him and his partner, Barclay, both—with District Attorney Murphy hot on their heels.”
“According to his b-butler it’s been about three and a half y-years.”
“He set up another newspaper?”
“Er,” Jasper hesitated, not wishing to share the little black book just yet. “It’s not clear what he’s b-b-been doing, but he appears to have a great deal of m-money.”
“Gone respectable?” He answered his own question. “I doubt it—that kind never change their spots.”
For once, he and the Welshman agreed on something.
“You think he’s back to his old tricks—extortion?”
Jasper could hardly lie outright, but … “I suspect that m-m-might be the c-case.”
“Hmmph. Any suspects?”
Jasper considered reminding him it had barely been six hours and the corpse had been dead more than half a year, but he knew Davies wouldn’t care about such picayune details. “Not as yet, sir.”
The older man eyed him with suspicion and dislike. “You’re not going to handle this like you did the Janssen and Finch cases, my lord?”
“I’m sorry, sir, but how is that?”
“By keeping secrets that make me look like an incompetent fool when one of the city’s wealthiest philanthropists kills herself and then Tallmadge asks me what the hell is going on.”
Jasper didn’t think the captain needed any assistance when it came to looking like a fool, but he did find it interesting that Tallmadge had approached the other man about the Janssen/Finch murders. It was hard to imagine the irascible Welshman and the coolly reserved superintendent of police talking about the case. Or talking about anything, for that matter.
Davies smacked a hand on his desk. “This time I want a written report from you—every day. I don’t care how late you work, the last thing you do is leave me a report of your day’s activities.”
It wasn’t exactly an unusual demand—Jasper had made reports on cases to his superiors in London. But then his relationship with his superiors in London hadn’t been adversarial. This felt more like a punitive measure than an actual interest in keeping informed. But he really had no choice, did he?
“Yes, sir.” Jasper suppressed his irritation, but the other man must have seen something, because he smirked.
“Good.” And then he smiled up at Jasper in a way that made the hairs on the back of his neck tingle. “I’ve got something else just begging for your august detecting powers.”
Jasper refused to rise to the bait and ask.
He didn’t have a long wait. “I’ve got a letter here from James W. Brinkley. Heard of him?”
“The gold miner?” That wasn’t exactly accurate: gold baron would be more appropriate.
“The very same. It seems somebody has kidnapped his dog. Or I suppose that would be dognapped.”
Jasper blinked.
Davies smirked and held up a piece of paper. “He’s offering a reward—five hundred dollars to locate the hound.” Davies’s smirk matured into a full-fledged grin.
Jasper could only stare. Five hundred dollars was an unheard-of amount of money—at least he’d never heard of such an enormous reward. Still, this was the city with the most millionaires in the world. They’d even coined the word here.
“I’m sorry, sir, but what has this to d-do with me?”
“You’re going to find the dog.”
Jasper frowned. “Perhaps D-Detective Law and I m-might look into it after—”
“No. I want you to put finding this dog at the top of your list. Frumkin’s been dead at least six months, another few days or weeks won’t make a difference.” When Jasper hesitated, Davies leaned across his desk. “That reward might not mean anything to you, my lord. But I’m betting Law could use the money. So could I. If you find him, we’ll split the money three ways.”
Jasper struggled to find the logic in that.
Davies tossed the letter across the desk. “There’s his address. The letter is from Brinkley, and he asked for you especially.”
Ah, that explained things.
“Perhaps the dog is n-no longer alive,” Jasper pointed out.
“Don’t you worry about that—the reward is good dead or alive. I want you to go see him before you do anything else on Frumkin’s case.” His eyes narrowed. “I can’t emphasize how much I’d like you to find his dog, my lord. Do you understand?”
“I understand.” Jasper stood.
“Don’t forget the letter.”.
Jasper picked up the letter. “Thank you, sir.”
“You’re dismissed,” Davies said, turning back to whatever it was he’d been working on before Jasper had disturbed him.
Jasper’s new office was diagonally across the hall from Davies’s. The room held four desks, but he and Law were the only occupants; it seemed the detective training program would take a bit more time to get going than anyone had expected.
Jasper suspected the entire plan had slipped through the cracks; training detectives was unimportant when you weren’t sure you were going to have a police department left for them to work in.
He folded Brinkley’s letter without reading it and tucked it into his breast pocket, taking advantage of the quiet, empty office to settle down with Frumkin’s little black book.
First, he made a list of names that had no items beside them—he surmised that meant Frumkin hadn’t yet been paid.
He next made a separate list of those names that appeared in the three months leading up to Frumkin’s disappearance.
Together the two lists added up to seventeen names. He could hardly speak to all one hundred-plus people in the book. At least not yet. Three months seemed like a manageable notion, but … seventeen names.
He sighed at the thought of finding and interviewing seventeen possible suspects, closed his eyes, and slumped back in his chair. Seventeen names was about sixteen too many possibilities for a crime that was over a half a year old already. It was—
“Inspector Lightner?”
He opened his eyes to find Patrolman O’Malley’s apprehensive face looming over him.
Jasper smiled wearily at the young man, who had worked with him on his very first case in New York and seemed an honest, hard-working lad. “Yes, Patrolman?”
“Are you sick, sir?”
“No.” Jasper pushed himself up in his chair. “D-Did you need something?”
“This just came for you.” O’Malley handed Jasper one of his own business cards. It was so grubby that he didn’t particularly want to touch it, but he took it.
“The message is on the back,” the patrolman said.
“If you want to see John Sparrow, come to the Tombs and bring $5. He’ll be sent to Blackwell Island at five o’clock this evening.”
Jasper looked up. “John Sparrow?”
O’Malley shrugged.
Jasper turned the card over. It was his personal calling card from back home and had only his name.
He ran through the names of the people he’d given his card to in the brief time he’d been in America. Who among them had been named John?
John, John, John.
He relaxed his body and mind. With a memory as damaged and faulty as his, he only became more hidebound the harder he tried to cudgel any names or faces free. He’d found the most successful approach to retrieving a memory was to approach the search like a young man on a European holiday: there was no hurry, no rush, it was just another meandering day hiking the Alps or wandering through an ancient village and—
A filthy young face coalesced in his mind’s eye. A crippling stammer.
A-ha! It was from the boy.
Jasper opened his eyes and realized O’Malley was still waiting for him, his youthful face creased in anxious confusion.
“Are you w-working on anything?” Jasper asked.
“Er, no, sir.”
Jasper pulled out Brinkley’s letter and smiled. “You are n-now.”