The Cliff House Strangler (23 page)

“Surely Mr. Vere can’t be the only guard on duty.”

“No, there’s a second jailer who works the same shift. But he claims he didn’t let anyone else in, either.” Some of my dismay must have shown on my face, because the sergeant, who appeared to be a kind man, was regarding me with ill-disguised sympathy.

“I’m sorry to have distressed you, Miss Woolson. I just felt you should be forewarned of the situation.”

“Thank you, Sergeant,” I said, keeping my voice level. “Now, if you’d kindly allow me to confer with my client?”

The policeman turned and led me back to Madame Karpova’s cell. Without a word, he unlocked the door so I might step inside, then silently departed.

The room in which Madame Karpova had been placed was located on the opposite side of the rectangular-shaped cell blocks maintained for male inmates. It was perhaps a little larger than the average cell, but equally chilly, and furnished with no more than the customary cot and single chair; no special concessions had been granted the woman because of her gender. As was usual, there was a barred window situated high on one wall, and a small barred opening in the door, through which guards could check on inmates as they performed their periodic rounds.

Madame Karpova sat straight-backed on her cot. She gave the outward appearance of being calm, but her pale face and overbright eyes betrayed her inner distress.

“Madame Karpova,” I began, feeling profound sympathy for the woman. “I’m so very sorry about your brother.”

She made a dismissive motion with her hand, as if brushing aside my condolences. When she spoke, her rich voice sounded hollow and tightly controlled. “Miss Woolson, do you still have the gold medallion I gave you to represent Dmitry?”

“Yes, I do, but—”

“Good,” she said, breaking in. “Then you will please see about getting me out of this horrible place. I would prefer that you did so by this evening, as my daughter is by herself in our hotel room and will be worried. I have no wish for her to spend the night alone. Nor do I care to sleep on this—this so-called mattress. It is hardly thicker than a piece of cardboard, and is certainly infested with bugs.”

She had not invited me to sit. However, I was so taken aback
by this statement that I sank down, unasked, on the cell’s solitary chair.

“Madame Karpova, first we must discuss what happened, and then decide what’s best to be done about your—”

“Nonsense, there is nothing to discuss.” Her voice did not falter, but I noticed that the hands she was clasping in her lap were trembling. “Please do not tarry, Miss Woolson. You must see to my release without delay.”

Silently, I prayed for the words to make the poor woman understand her situation. “Madame Karpova,” I began, “as much as I might wish to secure your release, I simply don’t have the power. I attempted to explain this to you and your brother this afternoon. You’re being held on a charge of capital murder, just as he was. It’s extremely rare for bond to be set in such cases.”

“But I am innocent!” she proclaimed, her voice growing more strident. “Why would I kill my brother? He and Yelena are all I have in this world.”

As luck would have it, she had hardly finished speaking when the cell door clanged open and Yelena Karpova rushed into the cell. The girl’s lovely face was as white as her lace collar, and her eyes welled with tears as she fell into her mother’s arms.

“Hush,
moya malenkaya,
” said Madame Karpova, comforting the girl in a surprisingly gentle voice. “
Vse budet khorosho.
Everything will be all right. But how did you get here? Did the police bring you?”

“Nyet,”
the girl said between sobs. “Nicholas—Mr. Bramwell. In his carriage.”

“Nicholas Bramwell brought you?” I asked in surprise.

“Yes, he is in front,” the girl said. “Not let him in.” She looked into her mother’s dark eyes. “Mama, please, you come home now?”

Madame Karpova kissed her daughter on the forehead. “Hush,
moyo zolotse.
I will be home before you know it.”

Yelena turned to me. “Dmitry—how he die?” she asked.

I looked at Madame Karpova, seeking her permission to describe the murder to her daughter. The woman closed her eyes, then gave a small nod of agreement.

“I’m afraid Mr. Serkov was stabbed to death this afternoon,” I told the child. “The police claim your mother was the last person to see him alive.” I hated being the cause of the wretchedness I saw on the poor girl’s face. Her uncle was dead and her mother stood accused of his murder. In one afternoon, Yelena’s entire life had been ripped apart. “I’m truly sorry to have to give you such tragic news about your uncle.”

The girl suddenly pulled out of her mother’s arms and rose to her feet. “He not uncle,” she exclaimed, tears spilling out of her lovely brown eyes.

Madame Karpova’s face drained of color. She tried to grab hold of her daughter’s arm, but Yelena squirmed out of her reach. “Yelena,” the woman pleaded. “Please, do not do this.”

“Mama,
dostatochno,
” the girl cried. “No more lies. It is time for truth.”

“But it will do no good,
dochka.
Don’t you see that?”

The girl shook her head. Expelling a great sigh, she said, “No, truth better. No more lies.”

Madame Karpova stared at her daughter as if she were seeing her for the first time. I thought I understood how she must feel. In the short time I had known the girl, she had appeared to be a frightened little mouse, reticent and exceedingly shy. She had never shown even a fraction of the emotion she had demonstrated here in the past few minutes. It was rather like witnessing a butterfly emerge from its cocoon, full of energy and eager to make its mark on the world.

Madame Karpova muttered something in Russian; then slowly her expression changed. The arrogant air she wore like a royal crown was replaced by a look of such profound pain, I felt as if I were seeing a different person altogether. With a little shock, I realized this was probably the first genuine emotion I’d ever seen on
the woman’s face. The rest had been an act, much like the one she’d put on for us at the Cliff House. Perhaps I was finally seeing the real Olga Karpova, the woman behind the impervious mask.

“All right,
mozo zolotse,
” she told her daughter. “For your sake, I will tell our story, although I do not see how it will alter the situation.” She looked at me. “We are not Russian royalty, Miss Woolson, but I see by your face that this admission does not come as a surprise.”

“Actually, I did wonder about it,” I admitted. “But please, go on. Yelena is right. It’s best to tell the truth. Especially now.”

“The truth, yes,” she said with a dry little laugh. “Well, you may make what you wish of the truth, Miss Woolson, for I am certain it will help me not at all.”

Giving her daughter’s cheek a final pat, she said, “We are Rom, or, as many call us, Gypsies. Dmitry Serkov was not my brother. He was
lubovnik,
my lover. He was also a thief. In Russia, we lived on what I made telling fortunes, and whatever he could steal, or blackmail, from those who consulted me and foolishly confided too many of their secrets. Then, one night, Dmitry drank too much and killed a man with his bare hands. Regrettably, this was a person with much money and power, and we were forced to flee for our lives.

“For a long time, we moved from place to place, but when the authorities got too close, we had to leave the country. Gradually, we made our way through Poland and Germany until we reached London. By then, I had heard of the great Madame Blavatsky, and I attended one of her readings. I was much intrigued, for here I saw a way to use my psychic talents to greater advantage than ever before.”

“Is that when you and Dmitry came up with the effects we saw performed at the Cliff House?” I asked.

She smiled sardonically. “People expect that sort of thing, so we gave it to them. But it was not all an act. Oh, no, much about it was real. It is true that I have been blessed with psychic powers. My mother was born with the gift, as was her mother before her.”

“How long did you study under Madame Blavatsky in London?” I asked.

“For almost five years. I’m afraid I was not entirely truthful when I claimed to have left Russia only three years ago. I thought it best not to discuss the years we spent fleeing from the authorities.” She smiled. “Under Madame Blavatsky’s tutelage, I was able to perfect my abilities. The high priest Tizoc came to me for the first time, and through him I was able to communicate with those souls who have passed over to the other side.”

Once again the woman expelled a long sigh. “There is little more to tell. I went on to join the Theosophical Society Madame Blavatsky formed when she moved to New York. Despite what that horrible Darien Moss claimed, I have helped many people to heal and to communicate with loved ones who have passed beyond the pale. I am proud of what I have accomplished.”

She looked me full in the face. “I am aware of Dmitry’s faults, Miss Woolson. But he was good to me. He . . .”

She paused, and I was surprised to see her eyes fill with tears. “When I was a young girl, Dmitry saved my honor as well as my life. He killed the men who tried to make me
robi,
Gypsy slave. For weeks, he made sure I had a roof over my head. He fed me and cared for me, nursed me back to health. I owe—I owed him everything.”

“But you didn’t marry him,” I said when she again stopped speaking, this time to wipe at the tears that coursed freely down her face.

She shook her head, then lowered it without speaking. Yelena gave a little cry and rose from the floor to sit next to her mother on the cot. Gently, she placed a protective arm around the woman’s shoulders.

“She not proud of what she do,” the girl explained. “She and Dmitry—how you say?—make—no, arrange for her to marry rich merchant. Then after while, I come. They wait until I am one year, steal man’s money, then leave. I do not see—not remember father.”

“Madame Karpova?” I said when she showed no sign of responding to her daughter’s disturbing revelations. “Is this what happened?”

She raised her tear-stained face. “Yes, that is what we did. It was a long time ago.” Rather roughly, she wiped her face with a handkerchief, then made a conscious effort to pull herself together. “Now you know the truth, Miss Woolson. Does it change anything? No, I thought not. Except now you know why I would never murder Dmitry. Never!”

After promising the distraught woman that I would do what I could to help her, I gathered up my things and asked to be let out of the cell, so that mother and daughter might spend some time alone together.

Still uncharacteristically silent, Cecil Vere led me through the corridor of cells and out to the front of the jail, where I found Nicholas Bramwell pacing in the antechamber.

“Miss Woolson,” he said, his face grave as he came to meet me. “How is Madame Karpova? Is it true that her brother was murdered this afternoon?”

“I’m afraid so, Mr. Bramwell.” At his insistence, I went on to relate that afternoon’s tragic events, including the reasons Madame Karpova had been arrested for Serkov’s death. The only information I left out was the psychic’s turbulent history in Russia, as well as her true relationship to the man we had accepted as her brother. Something that personal, I felt, should come directly from Yelena, or from Madame Karpova herself.

Leaving the young attorney to continue his vigil for Yelena, I prepared to depart, when I had a sudden impulse to speak to the guard at the front desk. Mr. Alston, after all, had the responsibility to authorize or reject all visitors to the facility.

“I wonder if you could give me some information?” I asked, approaching his station. I went on to request that he look through the ledger that every visitor to the jail was required to sign before
entering the cell block. The time frame I gave him was two hours before to one half hour after Serkov was killed that afternoon.

Without much enthusiasm, Alston ran a broad finger down the list of that day’s visitors. He identified several people I didn’t know, along with Eddie Cooper, who had returned to the jail to visit his friend after he’d dropped me off at my office.

“I think that’s it,” the guard said. “Oh, wait a minute. There’s one more. Some big shot came in just as Serkov’s sister was leaving.”

“Whom did he come to see?” I asked.

The guard scanned the list of names in the second column, where the visitors were supposed to name the inmate they had come to see. “That’s strange. Whoever was at the desk earlier didn’t write in the name of the prisoner the senator was here to visit.”

“Senator?” I repeated. “Which senator?”

“Let’s see,” Alston said, running his finger back up the left-hand side of the page. “Says here his name was Woolson, Senator Frederick Woolson.”

I
went directly from the jail to Frederick’s house, my mind whirling with questions and barely suppressed fear. What had my brother been doing at the jail? I kept asking myself. And at the same time Dmitry Serkov was being stabbed. Surely it was a coincidence. But taken with my client’s baffling murder, it seemed one coincidence too many. What had Freddie become involved in? Was he in some kind of trouble? He was arrogant and critical and I had a hard time being in the same room with him. Still, he was my brother. And I loved him.

When I reached Frederick’s house, I was told by Woodbury that he was out. When the butler offered to see if Henrietta was in (a mere formality, since Woodbury knew precisely who was at home at any given moment of the day or night), I thanked him and said I would call back later. I had no wish to speak to my sister-in-law until I’d contacted my brother. There was no love lost between Henrietta and myself, but I didn’t want to worry her when there might be a simple explanation for her husband’s actions. At least I prayed there would.

______

S
amuel and I sat in the library that evening, drinking coffee and trying to make sense of the day’s events. Mama and Papa had gone out for the evening with Celia and Charles, so we were able to speak in privacy. I told him I was worried about Frederick but that first I needed to discuss Serkov’s bizarre murder.