Tess Gerritsen - The Bone Garden - A Novel

It was another moment before Jack dared to lift the pillow. He stared down at the mottled face, the skin imprinted by the pressure of coarse fabric. He pulled the rag, now soaked with saliva, from the man's mouth and tossed it aside. It landed with a wet thump.

— Well, that's done, — said Fanny. She rose, panting, her hair in disarray.

— We need to strip him. —

They worked together, peeling away the coat and shirt, the boots and trousers, all of it too worn and filthy to keep. No sense running the risk of being caught with a dead man's possessions. Still, Fanny searched the pockets and gave a grunt of outrage when she came up with a handful of coins.

— Look! He had money after all! Took all my free drinks and didn't say a word! — She turned and flung the man's clothes into the fireplace. — If he wasn't already dead, I'd— —

There was a knock on the door, and they both froze. Looked at each other.

— Don't answer it, — whispered Jack.

Another knock, louder and more insistent. — I want a drink! — a slurred voice called out. — Open up! —

Fanny yelled through the door: — We're closed for the night! —

— How can you be closed? —

— I'm tellin' you we are. Go someplace else! —

They heard the man give the door one last angry thump of his fist, and then his curses faded away as he headed up the street, no doubt toward the Mermaid.

— Let's get 'im in the wagon, — said Jack. He grabbed the naked man under the arms, startled by the unfamiliar heat of a newly dead corpse. The cold night would remedy that quick enough. Already, the lice were abandoning their host, swarming from the scalp and weaving their way through tangled hair. As he and Fanny hauled the body through the back room, Jack saw ravenous black dots leaping onto his arms, and he resisted the impulse to drop the corpse right then and there and slap away the insects.

Outside, in the stable yard, they swung the body into the dray and left it there, uncovered in the cold, as Jack harnessed the horse. Wouldn't do to deliver too warm a corpse. Though it probably wouldn't make a difference, as Dr. Sewall had never been one to ask questions.

Nor did he ask them this time. After Jack dropped the body onto Sewall's table, he stood by nervously as the anatomist peeled back the tarp. For a moment Sewall said nothing, though he must have registered the extraordinary freshness of this specimen. Holding a lamp close, he inspected the skin, tested the joints, peered into the mouth. No bruises, Jack thought. No wounds. Just some poor unfortunate sot he'd found collapsed dead on the street. That was the story. Then he noticed, with a flash of alarm, the louse crawling across the chest. Lice did not cling long to the dead, yet this body was still infested with them. Does he see it? Does he know ?

Dr. Sewall set down the lamp and left the room. It seemed to Jack that he was gone a long time— far too long. Then Sewall returned, holding a bag of coins.

— Thirty dollars, — he said. — Can you bring me more like this? —

Thirty? This was better than Jack had expected. He took the bag with a smile.

— As many as you can find, — said Sewall. — I've got buyers. —

— Then I'll find more. —

— What happened to your hands? — Sewall was looking at the angry claw marks the dead man had left on Jack's flesh. At once Jack pulled his hands back, into the folds of his coat. — Drowned a cat. He didn't much appreciate it. —

The bag of coins made a pleasant jingle in Jack's pocket as he steered the now empty dray over the cobblestones. What was a few scratches on the hand when you could walk away with thirty dollars? It was more than any other specimen had brought him. Visions of sacks bulging with coins shimmered in his head all the way home. The only problem was the clientele of the Black Spar; there simply weren't enough of them, and if he kept this up, there'd soon be none at all. It was that damn Fanny's fault, driving them away with her foul temper and stingy drinks. That had to be remedied at once. They'd start by showing a bit more generosity. No more watering down the rum, and maybe a bit of free food.

No, the food was a bad idea. It would only take longer to get them drunk. Better just to let the rum flow. What he had to do now was convince Fanny, which was no easy feat. But wave this sack of coins in front of her greedy face, and she'd see the light.

He rounded the corner into the narrow alley that led to his stable yard gate. Suddenly he yanked on the reins, drawing the horse to a stop.

A black-caped figure stood before him, silhouetted against the ice-slick gleam of cobblestones.

Jack squinted to make out a face. The features were shadowed by the hood, and as the figure approached, all he could see was the pale gleam of teeth.

— You've been busy tonight, Mr. Burke. —

— I don't know what you mean. —

— The fresher they are, the more they fetch. —

Jack felt the blood freeze in his veins. We were watched . He sat still, heart thumping, his hands clutching the reins. It only takes this one witness, and I'll swing from the gallows.

— Your wife has let it be known that you seek easier ways to make a living. —

Fanny? What the hell had she gotten him into now? Jack could almost imagine he saw the creature smile, and he shuddered. — What do you want? —

— A small service, Mr. Burke. I want you to find someone. —

— Who? —

— A girl. Her name is Rose Connolly. —

IN THE LODGING HOUSE on Fishery Alley, the nights were never silent.

A new lodger had joined them in that tightly packed room, an older woman recently widowed who could no longer afford her room on Summer Street, a private room with a real bed. Fishery Alley was where you landed when your luck crumbled beneath your feet, when your husband died or the factory closed or you were too old and ugly to turn a trick. This new lodger was doubly cursed, both widowed and sick as well, her body racked by wet coughs. Along with the consumptive man dying in the corner, theirs was a duet of coughs, accompanied by the nightly snores and sniffles and rustles. So many people were crammed together in the room that to empty your bladder meant tiptoeing across bodies to the pee bucket, and if by accident you trod on a stray arm or smashed someone's finger beneath your foot, your reward would be a howl and an angry slap on the ankle. And the next night, there'd be no sleep for you, because your own fingers would likely pay the penalty.

Rose lay awake, listening to the crackling of straw beneath restless bodies. She badly needed to urinate, but she was cozy beneath her blanket, and did not want to leave it. She tried to sleep, hoping that perhaps the urge would go away, but Billy suddenly whimpered and his limbs jerked out, as though to catch himself as he fell. She allowed his nightmare to play out; to wake him now would only burn its imprint into his memory. Somewhere in the darkness, she heard whispers and then the rustle of clothes and muffled panting as two bodies rocked together. We're no better than animals in a barnyard, she thought, reduced to scratching and farting and copulating in public. Even the new lodger, who had walked in with her head held high, was inexorably surrendering her pride, every day shedding another layer of dignity, until she, too, was peeing in the bucket like everyone else, hefting up her skirts in plain view to squat in the corner. Was she an image of Rose's future? Cold and sick and sleeping on filthy straw? Oh, but Rose was still young and sturdy, with hands eager to work. She could not see herself in that old woman, coughing in the dark.

Yet already Rose was just like her, sleeping shoulder-to-shoulder with strangers.