The Bachelor Girl's Guide to Murder (13 page)

It must be confessed that with the
Globe and Mail's
star reporter sitting proudly next to her and the congregation whispering behind her, Jem heard very little of the sermon.

On Sunday afternoon—delightfully devoid of Gavin, or so Merinda said—they disembarked the trolley at Trinity and strolled into the mouth of Corktown. Brigid's boardinghouse, when they presented themselves in front of it, was found to be rundown and gray—a damp old building that seemed to suck all the light from the air. As the afternoon was fine, Brigid suggested going for a walk rather than talking indoors.

“I worked for Montague for just a summer,” Brigid explained as
they strolled. “While I was there, Fiona started and she was so pretty and young and hopeful. She did me good.”

“It must be very hard on you,” Jem said, “all that has happened.”

“My family thought someone must be intent on hurting girls from Corktown. You know, Fee and I liked to go out to the dances at Elm Street. We enjoyed ourselves. Maybe it was someone from there. Morality police and all that.”

“The Morality Squad doesn't usually kill people,” Jem said.

“And you're not reckless,” Merinda added.

“No,” Brigid insisted. “We never were. We stuck together and walked home together. We kept our arms covered and our skirts to regulation.”

Merinda pursed her lips. “Was Fiona walking out with a young man?”

“I think she was. But she wouldn't tell me about him. At first, she was humming all the time and slipping off. It seemed like she'd found a good thing. But her mood changed and she became sad all the time. I asked her about this man and she said there was no one. One night… just before… ” She broke off. “You know…
just before
… ”

“Before she was murdered,” Merinda said bluntly.

Brigid nodded. “Fee told me I should stop going to Elm Street dances. She'd met a man there and he wasn't who he said he was. He'd promised her everything. A new life and all that. But he was false. And then… And then she was gone.”

They walked in silence a moment.

“You have no idea who this was?” Jem asked at length.

“Not a hint. I'd stopped working at Montague's by then and gotten the job at the King Edward laundry. And Fee… well… ”

“What about these notes?” Merinda said.

“The notes tell me to keep quiet and to think before I speak.” Brigid suddenly turned to look for danger in the crowd around them. Apparently seeing nothing troubling, she continued. “The notes all threaten that I'll be in trouble too. They keep mentioning Grace, who was a friend of mine. We worked together at the laundry, of course.
But I didn't know her as well as Fee.” Brigid began to sniffle and Jem held out a handkerchief.

“When was the last time you received a note?” Merinda asked.

“Yesterday. I don't know what information I have that this person is so afraid I'll share. I have no… ” She bit her lip. “I don't know if this is helpful, but one of the girls at the laundry recognized the man who brought the last note. His name is Forbes, and he is on the Morality Squad.” She looked at Jem and Merinda. “Is that important?”

Jem shrugged. “It could be. Thank you.”

Merinda looped her arm with Jem's as they strolled back home late that afternoon. “Isn't the city something?”

“It's something, all right.” Jem wasn't as enamored with Toronto, especially with someone targeting young women. “Who's this Forbes fellow? Anyone you've heard of?”

“No,” said Merinda. “But I certainly intend to find out.”

*
With the exception of one Mr. Murdoch and his lost chicken, Fidget. Merinda and Jem chose not to include this case in their official count.

CHAPTER NINE

There is nothing so debilitating or hopeless as the onslaught of winter in the Ward. As October collides with November, the snow shrieks in. At first, it is tantalizing: trails of dancing crystal that children stick out their tongues to taste. But the flurries stir heavily, the temperature plummets, and play is suspended as they return to makeshift shelters that do little to shield them from the elements. The Ward groans as the cold deadens the skin and stabs the bone.

Excerpt from a journal Jem still should not be reading

W
hen Ray arrived at St. Joseph's it was as if the curtain of his memory was pulled back and he was once more a young man newly arrived in the city. He remembered how his eyes were constantly rimmed blood-red and raw with dust and how daylight and dusk blended into one unending day.

He remembered feeling hopeless, with coins too few—foreign coins he had trouble learning to count. He remembered how certain he was that, because he couldn't understand the foreman, he was being cheated of his full pay. He remembered how the rent was too often due to their grim landlord, who seemed to be a wolf-man torn from the pages of a fairy story.

When he began his exposé and prepared to face the flophouse once more, Ray took a carpet bag so bare it was nearly worn through, tossed in sweaters and trousers, socks and suspenders, a new notebook
(though he still longed for the old, comfortable one), and a ratty old Bible, a memento of the St. James poor box.

He ensured that the woodstove was off and the bed was made. He kept his sparse bookshelf dusted and the floor tidy. When addressed by others at the flophouse, he responded in gruff, one-word sentences. He kept cigarettes in his pocket and a flask by his bed. He'd use them to bribe a few friendships, especially if he felt someone could tell him about Montague and link him to the Corktown Murders. Yes, he was here for McCormick, but that didn't mean he couldn't keep his eyes open too.

If Montague wanted to restore the city to the “Toronto the Good” of old, Ray decided one morning while splashing frigid water on his face, surely he could begin by stocking his flophouse with something better than this, where mattress ticks overran the lice and where there was a sewage system a century more primitive than what he had left behind in his boardinghouse just a few blocks away.

The other occupants of the flophouse were an eclectic bunch. Lars, the Swede who kept the woodpile stocked, was silent but friendly. His height, girth, and broad shoulders assured no one crossed him. Then there was Forbes. He was more of a force than a man, making any room he entered immediately smaller.

On Ray's second night at St. Joe's, Forbes stood in the doorway, bellowing for volunteers. “I need men,” he said with a slur.

Ray propped himself up on his elbow on his bed. “For what?”

“Does it matter?” Forbes said, glowering at Ray.

Ray cocked his head. “For pay?”

“Of course for pay.”

Ray declined, but Forbes rustled up a few other takers. Ray watched out of the corner of his eye as they left the room, wondering if Tony was ever one of Forbes's volunteers.

He waited a moment, then hopped up, stepped into his shoes, and cracked open the window. The men around him, sleeping or nursing their flasks or cigars or shuffling through day-old newspapers, cared little that he might decide to follow their eager bunkmates into
the cold night. Ray could just see Forbes and his volunteers passing under a streetlight. He grabbed his coat, tipped his hat to Lars, and set out after them.

Merinda had mystery on the brain constantly these days. It intruded into conversation every night at dinner and replaced her appetite. Mrs. Malone had prepared roast chicken, potatoes, and peas, and Jem ate them with relish after a day at Spenser's.

“Tippy's still staying late and fluttering about like an agitated bunny.” Jem tore off a piece of roll. She enjoyed these moments, recounting to Merinda the moments of her day. “She's either in love or completely mad.”

“There's no difference,” Merinda said, taking a big bite of chicken. “You know,” she said, nodding at Mrs. Malone's back, “if she wasn't such a good cook, I'd get rid of her.”

“Merinda! She might hear you.”

“What?” Her mouth was full again. “We don't need a chaperone, Jem. I want privacy. We could be latch-key girls.”

“What's a latch-key girl?”

“No chaperones. No maids or check-ins. No breakfast if we don't want it. Free to leave our clothes wherever, come and go with whomever, without Mrs. Malone clucking her tongue in disapproval.”

“Well,” Jem said, lifting her water goblet, “your father would never allow that.”

“My father's not here to give his primitive advice, is he?” Merinda picked at her dinner a little longer, then shoved back from the table and went into the sitting room. There, she ruminated aloud on her plan for the evening. “If Tertius Montague pays men to act as his personal street-cleaners until he wins this blasted election, then he could certainly hire men to take care of his business with girls he once employed! Maybe he didn't kill Fiona and Grace himself, but he could have orchestrated their murders.”

“I'm still not sure what the motive would be,” Jem said from the table.

“Maybe Fiona was the love of his life and he killed her in a moment of passion. But Grace saw it all, so he had to dispose of her too.”

Jem laughed. “It's not like you to see the world so romantically.”

“Let's find this fiend Forbes in his natural habitat, skulking around the Ward.”