Dead Ringer Read online

  I wished I had brought my sister Myrtle’s pearl-handled pistol, official orders be damned. Bullets might be ineffectual, but I felt certain it would feel good to wildly fire them into the darkness regardless. What had we been thinking? The sewers belonged to the beast and it was enraged that we had dared to encroach on its territory.

  Dust rained down on our heads as something hammered at the bricks.

  “Here it comes!” John whispered, unnecessarily.

  Every instinct urged me to run in the opposite direction, but as the only woman I wasn’t going to be the first to break ranks — and some perverse part of me craved a glimpse of our quarry after weeks of fruitless hunting.

  A moment later it emerged into the beam of Albanesi’s lantern, trailing a tornado of flies. The engineer uttered an inarticulate shout as a mighty limb knocked man and torch aside. I had the quick impression of yes, a mud man, its head brushing the roof of the tunnel, but then glass shattered and kerosene from Albanesi’s lantern spattered on the bricks. A moment later, it caught fire.

  I clung to my own lantern as two huge hands grabbed my shirtfront. The mud man lifted me up into the air and I stared at a crude visage with a turnip-shaped nose and mouth clamped in a grim line. There were no eyes to speak of, merely shallow depressions on either side of the face. In the flickering yellow firelight, it seemed a demon from Hell.

  John shouted something and the creature tossed me aside. I landed on my bottom in the shallow water but managed to keep my lantern aloft. In the beam of light, I saw Albanesi tear his coat off and try to smother the flames leaping up the tunnel wall.

  The mud man paused in our midst, lumpen head swinging to and fro. I regained my feet just as it stooped toward John and I had the impression it was studying him with intense interest. The buzzing of the flies rose to a crescendo. Then the creature tilted its massive head and it almost seemed to me that its face softened.

  John held up the handcuffs. His voice was stern. “By the power vested in me by the City of New York and Police Commissioner Thomas F. Byrnes—”

  The creature threw its head back and gave a wordless howl of fury. It moved with sudden speed, pounding its great fist against the wall just over John’s head. A crack ran through the bricks from the force of the blow. Then it turned and shuffled away.

  No one gave chase.

  Albanesi leaned against the wall in his shirtsleeves, fingering his rosary and muttering in Italian. John aimed the beam of his lantern down the tunnel, but the mud man was gone.

  “Are you all right, Harry?”

  I scowled. “No.”

  John looked me over with a critical eye. “Yes, you are. Mr. Albanesi?”

  The engineer made a creaky noise to indicate that he was unharmed.

  “I must commend your quick action in dousing the flames,” John said, returning the handcuffs to his pocket. “You should submit an expense voucher for your coat. They’ll replace it.”

  I peered into the darkness. “Did you get a good look, John? It really was a mud man.”

  He nodded sagely. “It’s all come clear now.”

  “Has it?” I sniffed at my shirt and recoiled. “Oh, my Lord, that’s atrocious.”

  “We need a rabbi.”

  I looked up, my eyes literally watering from the stench. “What?”

  John expelled a long breath. “I’m fairly sure it’s a golem.”

  “Right.” I frowned. “What’s a golem?”

  “A figure from Jewish mythology. A man made of clay and brought to life.” John met my skeptical look with maddening poise. “Has to be, Harry. Nothing else fits.”

  Over the last year, John had bent his considerable intelligence to becoming a monster expert. He would curl up in his favorite chair in the upstairs parlor at Tenth Street and pore over back issues of the S.P.R.’s journal, along with scholarly works on folklore and less reliable accounts like the penny dreadfuls Mrs. Rivers was always confiscating from our resident errand boy, Connor.

  Nothing was too outlandish or far-fetched. John kept notebooks full of handwritten notes on vampires, were-wolves, Black Dogs, bloody bones and mummies. My own research was confined to forensic science and the rich criminal underworld of New York City, which I believed of greater use, but I was forced to concede that I had no plausible alternative to John’s golem theory.

  “All right,” I said. “We’ll find a rabbi tomorrow. Hopefully he won’t laugh us out of his synagogue.”

  I turned to Albanesi, who had regained some measure of composure though he kept glancing warily down the dark tunnel. He’d escaped with only a smattering of mud on one sleeve where the golem had shoved him aside.

  John, with his preternatural luck, was untouched.

  I’d gotten the worst of it by far. Foul-smelling ooze soaked my hair and shirt and I stank of kerosene where the broken lantern had splashed on my trousers.

  “You can’t tell anyone about this,” I said to Albanesi, knowing the request was pointless. By morning, the whole corps of engineers would know about the mud man.

  Albanesi nodded. “Can we go up now?”

  “Yes,” I replied with feeling.

  We ascended the ladder, John’s squeaky boot protesting the entire way. Albert Wood, the young man who’d been assaulted earlier that night, was gone. The police must have taken pity and let him return home. But several officers had stayed behind to watch the manhole and the Night Squad had finally arrived – or one of its detectives, at least.

  His name was Julius Brach. He had fine, expressive features and a slender build that contrasted with the beefy Irish beat cops who made up the bulk of the Twenty-Ninth Ward. Brach wore the navy coat of the Metropolitan force though with a single row of four brass buttons rather than the double-breasted style of the regular patrolmen. They stood apart from him, not hostile but not exactly friendly. The Night Squad was viewed by half the department as a curiosity, and the other half as a bunch of crazies.

  Detective Brach strode over as we emerged from the manhole, his sharp brown eyes taking in the grotesque state of my clothing and Albanesi’s shattered lantern. “I take it you found the beast,” he said mildly.

  The engineer removed the map from his pocket and marked the place where we had encountered the golem. Then he thrust it at Brach, turned on his heel, and walked away.

  I would have done the same if they’d let me.

  “We found it all right,” I said. “But it got away.”

  A series of expressions flitted across Brach’s face, which I’d always found fascinating to watch. His features were too sharp and thin and pale and mournful, yet somehow the sum was intriguingly attractive.

  “Did it attack you?” he asked.

  I shared a look with John. He looked as uncertain of the answer as I was.

  “It pushed Mr. Albanesi and knocked me down, but it could have done worse. It was huge. I’d estimate almost twice as tall as Mr. Weston.”

  “About eleven or twelve feet then,” Brach said thoughtfully. “That corroborates witness statements.”

  “Where’s Sergeant Mallory?” John asked with a slight frown. “If we’d had reinforcements down there, we might have cornered it.”

  “Called away on another case,” Brach said evasively. “I can’t share the details, but it took precedence.”

  My curiosity was piqued but I knew he wouldn’t tell me anything. I’d worked with Brach before; he went by the book. But perhaps I could pry it out of our boss, Mr. Kaylock, when we reported in at the S.P.R. offices on Pearl Street. I was dying for a new case and if it was juicy enough to divert Mallory, it might be just the thing I’d been waiting for.

  I left John explaining his golem theory and wandered toward the group of patrolmen, hoping they might have another horse blanket. The Tenderloin was still buzzing and I ignored the glances of pity and disgust from passersby. The ones with money flaunted their Saturday night best, silks and satins and fine wool coats, but even the beggars and thieves gave me a wide berth.

&nb
sp; As soon as I got home, I intended to burn my clothes and dig out the lye soap that took a few layers of skin off.

  That’s if I could even persuade a cab to pick me up.

  I was just thinking I couldn’t hate this case any more when I heard a low chuckle behind me.

  “Miss Pell! Fancy seeing you here. Did you just muck out some stables?”

  The voice, soft but with an undercurrent of malice, froze me in my tracks.

  Dear God, not here. Not now.

  I turned slowly and found James Moran staring at me with undisguised amusement. He was dressed to the nines in a black evening coat with tails and and snowy white tie, perfectly knotted. Not a single raven hair was out of place. His boots had been polished to a high gleam and the edge of a spotless silk handkerchief poked from his breast pocket.

  Moran had been a musical prodigy as a child and he still had the hands of a concert pianist, with strong, elegant fingers. They toyed with a puzzle of interlocking metal circles. The only flaw in his appearance was a bulge in his coat pocket that I assumed was a weighted leather sap or sock filled with nickels. James Moran wouldn’t risk punching anyone with those hands.

  Four young thugs hovered behind him, well-dressed if not of Moran’s class. They all had sharp-edged, too-old faces, but none compared to their boss in projecting sheer menace.

  I acknowledged him with a chilly nod. “Mr. Moran.”

  And just like that, I found myself standing alone on the sidewalk. The cops of the Twenty-Ninth Ward had suddenly found something of great interest down the block. Even the handful of looky-loos seemed to have vanished into the woodwork.

  I pushed a clump of wet hair from my forehead and gathered the shreds of my dignity. “This is the site of an ongoing criminal investigation. I’ll have to ask you and your friends to move along quick-wise.”

  Moran surveyed the open manhole and the amusement in his eyes deepened. “Sent you down there, did they? I’d have thought you had your fill of tight spots, Miss Pell.”

  It was a reminder of our encounter in another tunnel the previous summer – a desultory jab not intended to draw blood but simply to irritate. I said nothing, aiming to deprive him of the satisfaction.

  But Moran wasn’t so easily put off. His lips curled in a wolfish smile. “Seems a waste of talent.” He fished in his trouser pocket and took out a silver case. Moran popped the catch and offered me an engraved card with gilt script. “If you ever become dissatisfied with your current employment—”

  “I would rather plumb the depths of the lowest outhouse in the Five Points than associate with you,” I replied sweetly.

  Moran grinned and returned the card to his pocket. He took his time eyeballing me one last time from head to toe. “Well then, best of luck, Miss Pell. I hope you find whatever you’re after. Perhaps a moonlight dip in the Hudson would do you some good.” His boys burst out laughing.

  “I have the authority to arrest you if you don’t move along,” I lied, taking half a step forward. “Ten, nine, eight—”

  Moran held his hands up in surrender. His boys laughed harder, though their leader managed to keep a straight face. “No need for drastic measures. We were just on our way.” He made a show of sniffing the air. “Smells like a pigsty around here anyway.”

  The loud laughter finally drew John’s attention. He turned from his conversation with Detective Brach and saw Moran. John’s face darkened and he broke off in mid-sentence, striding towards us with his hands balled into fists. Moran didn’t even glance in John’s direction, but he smoothly pivoted on his heel and sauntered around the corner of Thirtieth Street with his smirking bodyguards.

  “What did he say to you?” John demanded roughly, his gaze fixed on the point where Moran had vanished.

  I shrugged. “Nothing of interest. Juvenile taunts to impress his lackeys.”

  “Odd that he turned up just now.” John frowned. “Coincidence?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s a stretch to imagine he’s involved. I could almost see him doing something like that for fun, but I doubt he’d know anything about golems. The Morans are Irish.”

  John nodded, though he still looked troubled. “You’d better tell Myrtle.”

  “S’pose so,” I said with a sigh.

  “Does she know you’ve been working the mud man case?” John asked shrewdly.

  I shook my head and he chortled. “You’ll have to explain it now.”

  I shot him a dark look and made no reply.

  Myrtle Fearing Pell was my elder sister, patron saint and tormenter in equal measure. A renowned consulting detective, she enjoyed the luxury of taking only those cases that caught her interest. She disdained run-of-the-mill crimes, preferring not simply the sensational but those that challenged her prodigious intellect.

  And James Moran was the bane of Myrtle’s existence.

  But I didn’t want to think about either of them right now. What I wanted was a mug of hot tea, a bath and some clean clothes. “I’ll never get home like this,” I said ruefully. “I doubt they’ll even let me onto the elevated!”

  Detective Brach overheard and took pity. “I’ll give you both a ride home,” he offered. “Mallory requisitioned a patrol wagon in case you managed to catch the beast.”

  The manhole cover slammed down with a loud clang as we climbed up to the bench of the wagon, which Brach had wisely covered with a blanket. He shook the reins and we rolled down Sixth Avenue, passing the New York Herald Building at Thirty-Fourth Street and then the Ladies’ Mile of elegant department stores. Once we left the Tenderloin the traffic grew thinner and Detective Brach walked us through the encounter with the mud man again, patiently drawing out all the details. To my surprise, he agreed with John’s theory and offered to make an appointment for us the following day at the Eldridge Street Synagogue, where he knew one of the rabbis.

  “I’d accompany you, but I have a feeling I’ll be wanted at Mulberry Street on the other case,” he said.

  “Can’t you tell us anything?” I wheedled. “You know we’ll find out eventually.”

  Julius Brach shot me a sidelong glance. “It’s related to the Cherney kid.”

  “Ah.”

  Now my interest was definitely piqued, though this wasn’t good news. Daniel Cherney was a graduate student at Columbia’s engineering college whose peculiar demise had been of interest to the S.P.R. Unfortunately, another pair of agents had landed that assignment, whilst John and I were given the mud man.

  “In what way?” I asked.

  Brach’s soulful eyebrows twitched. “There’s been a second death.”

  I hoped he might elaborate but then we turned the corner of Fifth Avenue and the carriage drew to a halt in front of my parents’ townhouse at 40 West Tenth Street.

  “Good night, Miss Pell,” he said gravely. “The department thanks you for your aid.”

  I gave him a wry smile. “Always a pleasure, detective.”

  “I’ll come around in the morning,” John said, stifling a yawn. “Let’s say tennish.”

  I waved a hand and they trundled east toward the Weston home on Gramercy Park. Mrs. Rivers was up and nursing a glass of sherry when I entered the foyer. A stout woman in her late fifties, she was more of a second mother than a housekeeper. She set the glass aside and peered at me with concern on her kind face. A moment later her nose wrinkled in disgust.

  “It got me,” I said.

  “Oh, Harrison. Straight to the garden! I’ll fetch a bucket.”

  She practically shoved me through the kitchen door and wouldn’t let me back inside until I’d doused myself several times. I had no objection and was only glad it was August rather than January. This task completed, I shed the foul garments in a heap and sank gratefully into the steaming bath Mrs. Rivers had drawn in the upstairs washroom.

  It was past two by the time I changed into a clean shift. My parents were traveling abroad and Myrtle wasn’t home either, though this wasn’t unusual. My sister kept odd hours. She consulted with va
rious police forces on particularly baffling crimes, as well as taking the occasional assignment from the Pinkerton detective agency. Myrtle could be single-minded when working a case and often disappeared for days at a time.

  I thought again of my encounter with James Moran and wondered if it had been pure chance. Would he summon a golem for his own amusement?

  Or simply to torture me?

  But how could he know I’d be assigned to the case? No, I was sinking into paranoia. If, as Myrtle claimed, James Moran was the spider lurking at the heart of New York’s criminal web, he surely had better things to do with his time. And although he despised my sister, as far as I knew he bore me no special ill will. In fact, he had saved my life once.

  He had done it for his own reasons — a Good Samaritan James Moran was not — and since then he’d barely acknowledged my existence. I’d seen him one or twice at Columbia’s campus on Madison Avenue when I went to meet John for lunch, but our paths rarely crossed.

  These thoughts spun around in my head as I fell into a troubled sleep, dreaming of a shadowy presence that stalked me through narrow alleys. I rose the next morning determined to close the mud man case as soon as possible — if only so I never had to go down into those sewers again.

  Chapter 2

  A light rain fell as John and I climbed the steps of the Eldridge Street Synagogue, a grand house of worship that had opened two years before amidst the tenements, workshops and factories of lower Manhattan. On Sabbath days, it would be bursting at the seams with Jewish immigrants, many newly arrived from Eastern Europe, but on this misty Sunday morning the place was relatively quiet.

  John paused before the enormous front doors, each engraved with the Star of David.

  “So what’s the plan?” he asked, shaking raindrops from his Homburg hat. He wore a grey wool overcoat and looked neat, if a bit bloodshot.

  “That depends on what Brach already told him. We’ll have to play it by ear.” I sighed. “We need something concrete to bring to Kaylock. He’s expecting results and we’ve had this case for nearly a month.”