The Bachelor Girl's Guide to Murder (19 page)

“Just ‘Constable' now.”

Ray ignored him. “Detective Constable, you're the only investigator who would have pursued the Corktown case. And now it's wide open. Have a seat.” Ray used the toe of his scuffed shoe to kick a crate across the floor, and Jasper sat on it. “You really think you were kicked
back to the traffic beat because you brought Merinda Herringford to a crime scene?”

“I couldn't be sure. It was the explanation they gave.”

“No. Chief Tipton saw Montague's name in connection with the crime and became petrified. You might have named him a suspect, so you had to be removed.”

“You think Montague is the killer?”

Ray shrugged. “All I can see is that a lot of people are”—he pulled a phrase from the air—“covering their tracks.”

Jasper ran his hand through his hair. “And St. Joseph's Home for Working Men? You've been writing about it quite a bit lately. What's the connection?”

Ray was impressed and smiled. “You read my paper!” He spread his palms on his knees. “It's a Montague-run establishment. Investigating it is keeping me employed. McCormick wants more pieces like that Don Jail exposé. Apparently, trailing Merinda Herringford around Toronto is not news enough.”

Jasper studied Ray's face. “That's not all you know about St. Joseph's, is it?”

Ray cocked his head. “Can I trust you?”

“I hope so.”

Ray looked around the office, as if spies might be lurking in the shadows. “St. Joseph's is full of vulnerable prey: men who are easily coaxed into doing the Morality Squad's buffoonish work and laundering money at the tracks. They take their chances and do the work in order to keep Montague's hands clean.”

“All of them?”

“No. Not all. It's a legitimate establishment in ways. Some men living there are just trying to get by.” Ray smiled. “Did you come here to talk about Montague, truly?”

“No.” Jasper seemed to be choosing his words carefully. “I came to talk about your exclusive Herringford and Watts connection.”

Ray leaned on the back legs of his chair and rocked. “You're Merinda's keeper?”

He shook his head. “A concerned friend.”

“Concerned?”

“You encourage them. With your articles. She is over the moon to be officially represented in the
Hog
. You validate the whole experience.”

Ray shrugged. “They interest me.”

“They are girls in bowler hats and men's trousers.” Jasper seemed exasperated.

“I thought you were helping them. Merinda told me that you'd been allowing them to trail your cases.”

“She nearly trips over my shoes following me.”

Ray leaned forward until his chair rested on all four legs again. “I suppose I was wrong about your relationship.”

“I'm not… she's not… ” Jasper coughed and rearranged the brim of his hat. “Our association is strictly professional. I respect Merinda.”

“As you should.”

“I know things about Montague's Morality Squad.”

Ray kept his expression unchanged. “As do I. I room with half of them. But I don't know what you're getting at.”

“Merinda needs watching, and she drags Jem along with her. In this case, you and I both know they are in over their heads. Merinda would take a bullet for Jem, but I don't want her to have to.” Jasper exhaled.

“Agreed. But I don't think, as you do, that they play at detective as at some children's game.”

“You seem to say as much in your articles,” Jasper said.

“I try to keep my tone light. I want to feature them so that people know they are available to help without posing them as an actual threat to Mayor Montague's anti-female brigade.”

“Jem has the right idea. She's pursuing a sane, useful, safe profession at Spenser's.”

“Yes,” Ray said, “right up until the moment she darts off and follows her friend. Tell me, Detective Constable Forth, would you pursue Merinda's friendship so ardently if she only knit socks and aided the church bazaar?”

Jasper mulled over the question a moment, his eyes drifting over scrap paper sporting tomorrow's headlines. “She was going to be a doctor. She's a great scientist.”

“And Ms. Watts?”

“Conditioned to be a wife. Raised in appropriate circles. She's beautiful, gentle, and committed to appropriate accomplishments. At least she was until Merinda got her claws into her.”

“I should write all this down,” said Ray, crossing his hands behind his head. “Publish it in the
Hog
. The origin of our bachelor girl detectives.”

“But you won't,” Jasper said.

Ray smiled. “No, I won't, because I'd very much like you on my side. I don't have many friends, and definitely not very many among the police. You must think my work on this rag is the lowest of the sort. Scraping the mire.”

“You couldn't be more wrong. You have the audacity to seek out what no one else will. And you're pursuing the Corktown case, as I wish I could.” Jasper sighed. “I can't expect you to stop Merinda. Truthfully, if you stopped running articles about their adventures, she would find somewhere else to get word out about them.”

“So what are you asking?”

“I suppose I'm asking you to watch out for them.”

“Detective Constable Forth, I already am.”

After Jasper had exited, Ray went back to his desk. He'd barely settled in when Skip appeared, his face grave. “You look like you've seen a ghost!”

“This was in the post.” Skip silently held a slip of paper out to Ray. “No envelope or anything.”

Ray spread it out on his desk. Clippings of words in several different fonts, obviously pulled from different newspapers, had been
pasted together. Some bold and in full caps as if from a headline, others small.

Stop covering the Corktown Murders!
was spelled in the largest letters. Other text followed in smaller print.

Ray whistled. “Well, nice threat!”

“Take it seriously, Mr. DeLuca.” Skip snapped in front of Ray's face. “Do what it says: Stop covering the Corktown Murders! I don't want this fellow to come after you. Or me. Especially not me.”

“Ah, yes.” Ray read over the rest of the letter and lingered on the last sentence. “I am also ordered to stop reporting the detecting adventures of the Misses Herringford and Watts.” Ray bit his lip and took a look around the office.

Skip watched him warily. “What are you thinking?”

By way of answer, Ray grabbed his coat and set out into the snow.

“Where are you going?” Skip called after him.

“To buy every paper I can get my hands on until I find out where this is from and who sent it.”

Five cold minutes later, Ray stumbled upon a newsboy who was crying the evening headlines on the corner of Queen Street. When he approached, he realized the newsboy was, in fact, a newsgirl. Ray recognized her as one of the pair that did Merinda Herringford's bidding. “You almost finished here?” he asked her.

She widened her dark eyes in an attempt to look more innocent even than her smudged cheeks and quivering lip were doing. “Buy a paper?” She put on a good show. No doubt she made a good living at it.

Ray reached into his coat pocket. “Go get your friend and buy all the papers.” He retrieved a few coins and placed them in her hand.

“My friend?”

“Your partner. The other girl. Look, I'm a friend of Miss Herringford's. I know who you are and what you do for her. Buy them all, a copy of every paper, and take them to Miss Herringford's.”

Not much later, Ray and Merinda were sitting at the dining room
table at King Street, hunched over the bounty of Kat and Mouse's endeavor. Merinda walked to the bureau and retrieved one of the threatening letters Tippy had received. Sure enough, they were the same style.

“Do you see how the slight, uneven frays at the side of each cut letter are left, not right?” Merinda asked Ray. “It stands to reason that a left-handed person would hold a knife or scissors in his left hand. Especially for a purpose like this one.”

“Left handed?”

Merinda's eyes went to the blackboard.

Ray's gaze followed. He noticed his name first on the list of Corktown Murder suspects. He cocked his head with a smile at her. “I was your primary suspect for the murders?”

“What?” Merinda was defensive. “We struck you out.”

“I thank you.”

“So which of our suspects is left handed? Could it be one of them?”

“Who knows about all of them?” Ray said. “I do know that Tony is right handed.”

“And Forbes was toasting people with his right hand at the bar that night. We usually toast with our dominant hand.”

Ray studied the other names on the board. “I couldn't tell you about Montague, though.”

“And it doesn't rule out Tony or Forbes being responsible for the murders. It just means that neither of them are responsible for this letter,” said Merinda.

“Gavin Crawley?”

“Left. That is, he holds his teacup in his left hand.” Merinda squinted, then shook her head. “Busy tonight, DeLuca?”

Ray laughed. “You're about to propose something, aren't you.”

“We're breaking into the
Globe
. I want to scout out Gavin's office.”

Ray raised an eyebrow. “You know what hours we reporters keep. How do you know the intrepid Mr. Crawley won't be in his office?”

“Because Jem will be entertaining him.”

Ray's eyebrow rose even higher.

“Oh, posh. You know I didn't mean anything salacious. I meant dinner. She's going to ask him to have dinner with her.”

“I'll meet you at eight.”

Ray gave her a half smile and Mrs. Malone showed him out.

Merinda impatiently waited by the fire until Jem got home, and then she pounced on her. “Jem, Jem, Jem, I need a favor!”

“For goodness sake, Merinda, I don't even have my coat off yet!”

“You need to go out with Gavin Crawley tonight.”

“Ha! Don't you remember, Merinda? We had a row. He assaulted me! Gavin Crawley is a cad, and I shall never spend a moment in his company again.”

Merinda lifted a finger. “That's the point, isn't it, Jem? He's a true cad. And most likely linked to the Corktown Murders.”

“You have no proof of that.”

“That's why you must go out with him. You must distract him so DeLuca and I can break into his office.”

“I will not,” Jem said, swallowing the envy that arose at the thought of Merinda on an adventure with Ray. “Why don't you go out with Gavin, and I'll go to the
Globe
with Ray?”

Merinda shot her a look. “It's dishonest.” Jem added lamely.

“No. It's an investigation.”

Jem folded her arms and pursed her lips.

“Jemima,” Merinda said softly, “I thought you cared about Tippy. And Brigid.”

“Of course I care. But there has to be another way.”

“How can you say you care if you're leaving a killer out there on the streets? Free to kill again. What if he comes here, Jem? What if he threatens you, or me, or Mrs. Malone?”

Jem shut her eyes, and Merinda knew she had won.

“So… what?” Jem said. “I'm supposed to telephone that vile cad and ask
him
to take me out? What message will that send, I ask you?”

“I don't care if you send him chocolates laced with arsenic, so long as you keep him out of his office long enough for me to get what I need.”

And thus it was that, though determined to toss Gavin Crawley away like a shirt to be laundered, Jem was coerced to coax him to dinner. Merinda could hear half of their telephone conversation from the sitting room. Jem said she would like to give him a second chance. She was a terrible liar, Merinda thought, but Gavin wouldn't hear anything his ego didn't want him to hear.