Justy leaned on the wall of a warehouse opposite the Owens compound and tried to ignore the stench from the Collect Pond that seeped over the Broad Way. It was a potent mixture of rotten fish, decaying meat, burned hops, and urine, made all the more pungent by a blanket of thick clouds that covered the city. He wondered how the people crammed into the new tenements on Elm Street could stand it. But stand it they did. They even used the pond as a source for drinking water.
There was a light burning in the window of Kerry’s cottage. Justy knew she would be sitting in the armchair beside the window, reading by the light of a three-stick candelabra. Something by Swift or Richardson, he supposed. He felt a spark of envy. Most of the books on his night table these days related to the law.
He tugged his watch free of the fob on his waistcoat and squinted at the face. It was too dim to read, but he had heard St. Peter’s bell strike nine, so he knew he was now catastrophically late for dinner.
Eliza would understand. She was twenty-two years old, a doctor’s daughter with sparkling blue eyes and a mouth that rose on one side and fell on the other when she was trying not to laugh, which seemed to be all the time. They had only met twice, the first time in Philadelphia a month ago. He was giving evidence in court; she was handing out books to veterans at the City Hall. When they had met again, two weeks later, at the Governor’s Ball, he was surprised to learn she lived in New York. He was even more surprised when she had taken his arm for a stroll by the Battery, and bombarded him with questions: about him, about books, and about how best to help the immigrants that were flooding the city, usually without prospects of any kind. He wasn’t used to women talking about anything other than themselves or what they were wearing. It was a pleasant feeling.
He took a deep breath, walked across the street, and knocked. When Kerry opened the door, her face was shadowed by the candlelight behind her.
“You must be chilled to the timbers, standing out there all this time,” she said.
“You saw me?”
“Like a spare peg at a wedding. I don’t know how you managed to creep up on all them English during the Rebellion. They must have all been drunk or half asleep.”
He shrugged. “Most of them likely were.”
She looked down her nose at him, a half smile on her face. She wore a long dress and a heavy woolen shawl. Her hair fell in a dark wave over her right shoulder. He thought about the habit she had, of curling it around her right hand, over and over, as she read. He swallowed the vague sense of panic that rose in him. “May I come in?”
She stood aside. “There’s no fire.”
The room was small and plain, with a table and two upright chairs at one end, and a swept fireplace flanked by two armchairs at the other. There was a door opposite that led to her bedroom. It was ajar, and as Justy walked in, he heard a sound come from it. He looked at Kerry.
She smirked. “Jealous?”
He felt the heat in his face and she laughed. “Don’t worry, ye drumbelo. It’s just wee Rosie Tully. She’s only five, but she snores like an old man.”
“Seamus and Tamsin’s girl?”
“They had their hands full tonight.”
They each took an armchair. Justy nodded towards the bedroom. “Was Rosie with you when you found the girl?”
Kerry’s face seemed to close up. “I couldn’t leave her in the street.”
“Of course not.”
“I told her to look away. It was dark. I don’t think she saw anything.”
Justy nodded. “There’s nothing else you could have done.”
Kerry swallowed. “It was like the girl was holding on for someone to come. So someone would be there when she died.”
The words hung for a moment in the chilly air of the plain room. There was a book on the small table between the armchairs. Wax from the candelabra had dripped onto its cover. The Coquette, or, The History of Eliza Wharton.
“Is it any good?” he asked.
“I’m not sure many men would say so.”
“I heard it was written by a woman.”
“Too lowbrow for you, then?”
Justy drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. “Tell me about the girl.”
“She was lying on her side.” Kerry’s voice was tight. “She had a kind of thin robe wrapped around her. One of her shoes was off. She was crying. I tried to turn her, and then…”
Justy waited.
“She’d been cut open. She had her arms wrapped around her.” Kerry swallowed. “But the innards were spilled out of her. She was half-frozen.”
She bent her head and her hair fell across her face.
“Did she say anything?”
“No.”
“Did you see anyone?”
“No.”
“Did you take anything from the alley?”
She looked up. She shook her head.
“Just one more thing, then. Why were you down there in the first place?”
“What? Are you worried about me now?” Her voice was clotted.
“As a matter of fact, yes. That’s a dangerous area, Kerry.”
“Why? Because of all the darkies? Did you forget I’m half darky myself?”
“That has nothing to do with it. That girl you found had darker skin than you, and that didn’t save her. Now why were you there? It’s hardly the most direct way to here.”
Kerry took a deep breath. The light caught her face for a moment, showing the strain around her eyes. “The direct way is along Elm Street.”
Justy nodded. The week before he had stood in the center of a line of watchmen at the corner of Elm and Barley Streets, holding back a crowd of angry black men who were intent on tearing the heads off a crew of construction workers. At first he had thought it was an ordinary labor dispute between blacks and whites, but then he saw that the builders had begun to dig up the old Negro burial ground.
The cemetery had been closed nearly a decade ago, in 1794, but the city appeared to have gone back on its promise to leave the ground untouched. The workers didn’t know who had employed them, and there were no records at Federal Hall of anyone applying for permission to start work on the site. After Justy had stopped the dig, the workers had not returned, but the long, dark scar of open ground in the corner of the old burial ground remained. Justy was not superstitious, but even he had to ask how the spirits of the thousands of men, women, and children buried over the years might take exception to being disturbed so callously in the name of progress. And how they might react.
“You might do better to stay on the Broad Way in future.” He pulled out his watch.
“Nice tatler,” she said.
He nodded. It was not a particularly thin piece, and it was made of silver, not gold, but it was precious to him. Jacob Hays, the High Constable, had presented him with it on his first anniversary as Marshal, two years before.
“No dummy?” Kerry smirked. It had become the fashion for men to carry two watches on their person, one of which was a fake, a disk of cheap metal painted gold tucked into the opposite fob pocket from the real watch. The idea was to confuse thieves, who would not know which of a man’s twin watch chains was attached to the genuine article. But Kerry had been one of the best pickpockets in the city, and she knew all it took was a little patient surveillance. Wait until the swell draws his thimble from its pit, and then have at it.
Twenty-five minutes past nine. He tucked the watch away. “I’ll leave you be, Kerry. Thank you for telling the watchmen to send for me.”
He was halfway to the door before she spoke. “How’s the doctor’s daughter, by the way?”
He stopped and turned slowly.
“It’s a small town, Justy. You can’t walk a girl along the water for more than an hour in this town without some cove noticing.”
“Is that so?”
Kerry’s mouth twisted. “I didn’t know you liked the fair ones. Or maybe it’s not her looks that draws you. Her father’s a wealthy man, I’m told, for a nimgimmer. A big house here, and a spread across the river, too. She’s quite the catch.”
His face burned, and she laughed. “Boys a dear, you always were easy to rake.” Her voice was bitter. “But don’t worry. I know you’re not the kind to whore yourself. Not like me.”
“Kerry…”
“I’ll see you, Justy.”
It was like having a door slammed in his face. He took one last look at her, sitting in the shadows, staring into the empty grate, then he turned and walked out into the night.