Tess Gerritsen - The Bone Garden - A Novel

— You know, do you? Yet it's myself who's looked at with suspicion every day of my life. You have no idea. —

— Miss Connolly, last night I saw the same creature you did, but no believes me. No one else saw it. Worst of all, the hospital groundsman saw me bending over her body. I'm looked at with suspicion by the nurses, the other students. The hospital trustees may banish me from the wards. All I've ever wanted was to be a doctor. Now everything I've worked for is threatened, because so many doubt my word. Just as they doubted yours. — He leaned closer, and the candle's glow painted his face with gaunt and spectral shadows. — You've seen it, too, that thing with the cape. I need to know if you remember the same things I do. —

— I told you that night what I saw. But I don't think you believed me then. —

— I admit, at the time your story seemed like… —

— A lie? —

— I would never make such an accusation against you. Yes, I thought your description far-fetched. But you were overwrought and clearly terrified. — He added, quietly: — Last night, so was I. What I saw chilled me to the bone. —

She looked at the candle flame. And whispered: — It had wings. —

— A cape, perhaps. Or a dark cloak. —

— And its face glowed white. — She met Norris's gaze, and the light on his features brought back the memory with startling clarity. — White as a skull. Is that what you saw? —

— I don't know. The moon was on the water. Reflections can play tricks on the eye. —

Her lips tightened. — I'm telling you what I saw. And in return, you offer explanations. ‘It was just the moon's reflection '! —

— I'm a man of science, Miss Connolly. I can't help but seek logical explanations. —

— And where is the logic in killing two women? —

— There may be none. Only evil. —

She swallowed and said softly: — I'm afraid he knows my face. —

Billy groaned and rolled over, his face slack and innocent in sleep. Looking at him, she thought: Billy understands nothing of evil. He sees a smile and does not understand that darkness may lie beneath it.

Footsteps thumped up the stairs, and Rose stiffened as she heard a woman's giggles, a man's laugh. One of the female lodgers had lured a client upstairs. Rose understood the necessity of it, knew that a few minutes with your legs spread could mean the difference between supper and a growling belly. But the noises the couple made, on the other side of that thin curtain, brought a mortified flush to Rose's cheeks. She could not bring herself to look at Norris. She stared down at her hands, knotted in her lap, as the couple groaned and grunted, as straw rustled beneath rocking bodies. And through it all, the sick man in the far corner kept coughing, drowning in bloody phlegm.

— And this is why you hide? — he asked.

Reluctantly, she looked at him, and found his gaze unflinching, as though he was determined to ignore the rutting and the dying that was happening only a few feet away. As if the filthy sheet had curtained them off into a separate world, where she was the sole focus of his attention.

— I hide to avoid trouble, Mr. Marshall. From everyone. —

— Including the Night Watch? They're saying you pawned an item of jewelry that wasn't yours. —

— My sister gave it to me. —

— Mr. Pratt says you stole it. That you stripped it from her body while she lay dying. —

She gave a snort. — My brother-in-law's doing. Eben wants his revenge, so he spreads rumors about me. Even if it was true, even if I did take it, I didn't owe it to him. How else was I supposed to pay for Aurnia's burial? —

— Her burial? But she… — He paused.

— What about Aurnia? — she asked.

— Nothing. It's just…an unusual name, that's all. A lovely name. —

She gave a sad smile. — It was our grandmother's name. It means ‘golden lady.' And my sister was truly a golden lady. Until she married. —

Beyond the curtain, the grunts accelerated, accompanied by the forceful slap-slap of two bodies colliding. Rose could no longer look Norris in the eye. She stared down instead at her shoes, planted on the straw-littered floor. An insect crawled out from the straw where Norris was seated, and she wondered if he noticed it. She fought the urge to crush it with her shoe.

— Aurnia deserved better, — Rose said softly. — But in the end, the only one standing at her grave was me. And Mary Robinson. —

— Nurse Robinson was there? —

— She was kind to my sister, kind to everyone. Unlike Miss Poole. Oh, I had no love for that one, I'll admit, but Mary was different. — She shook her head sadly.

The couple behind the curtain finished their rutting, and their grunts gave way to sighs of exhaustion. Rose had ceased paying attention to them; instead she was thinking of the last time she had seen Mary Robinson, at St. Augustine's cemetery. She remembered the woman's darting glances and jittery hands. And how she had suddenly vanished without saying goodbye.

Billy stirred and sat up, scratching his head and scattering pieces of dirty straw from his hair. He looked at Norris. — Are you sleeping here with us, then? — he asked.

Rose flushed. — No, Billy. He's not. —

— I can move my bed to make room for you, — said Billy. Then added, with a territorial note, — But I'm the only one gets to sleep next to Miss Rose. She promised. —

— I wouldn't dream of taking your place, Billy, — said Norris. He stood and brushed straw from his trousers. — I'm sorry to take up your time, Miss Connolly. Thank you for speaking to me. — He pulled aside the curtain and started down the stairs.

— Mr. Marshall? — Rose scrambled to her feet and followed him. Already he was at the foot of the stairs, his hand on the door. — I must ask that you not inquire at my place of work again, — she said.

He frowned up at her. — I'm sorry? —

— You threaten my livelihood if you do. —

— I've never been to your place of employment. —

— A man was there today, asking where I lived. —

— I don't even know where you work. — He opened the door, letting in a blast of wind that tugged at his coat and rippled the hem of Rose's skirt. — Whoever inquired about you, it wasn't me. —

On this cold night, Dr. Nathaniel Berry is not thinking about death.

He's thinking instead about finding some willing quim, and why wouldn't he? He is a young man and he works long hours as the house physician at the hospital. He has no time to court women in the manner expected of a gentleman, no time for polite chitchat at soirées and musicales, no free afternoons for companionable walks on Colonnade Row. His life this year is all about serving the patients of Massachusetts General, twenty-four hours a day, and seldom is he allowed an evening away from the hospital grounds.

But tonight, to his surprise, he was offered a rare night of freedom.

When a young man must suppress too long his natural urges, those very urges are what drive him when at last he's let loose. And so when Dr. Berry leaves his hospital quarters, he heads directly toward the disreputable neighborhood of the North Slope, to the Sentry Hill Tavern, where grizzled seamen rub shoulders with freed slaves, where any young lady who walks through the door can be safely assumed to be in search of more than a glass of brandy.

Dr. Berry is not long inside the tavern.

After no more time than it takes to drink two rum flips, he comes walking back out again, with the chosen object of his lust laughing giddily at his side. He could not have chosen a more obvious whore than this disheveled tart with her tangled black hair, but she will serve his purposes just fine, so he leads her toward the river, where such assignations regularly take place. She goes along willingly, if a bit unsteadily, her drunken laughter echoing back along the narrow street. But as she catches sight of the water straight ahead, she suddenly halts, feet planted like a balky donkey's.