Моника Шонесси - The Tell-Tail Heart

Dashing up the remaining steps, I reached the plateau to find it emptied of humans. Well, live ones at any rate. Quite different from the scenic grounds below, the reservoir had been built for function and therefore attracted fewer tourists. At this late hour, the isolated hilltop—jutting some ten to twelve stories into the air, higher, even, than the tallest buildings of downtown—offered enough privacy for one to murder with discretion. The act, however, hadn't escaped the notice of turkey vultures. A great many flapped about the woman's body on the ground calling scree! scree! Eddie and Sissy hadn't been the only ones to dine al fresco this evening.

Behind me, Eddie gasped as he topped the staircase. I, on the other hand, approached the scene with equanimity. When you've lived on the streets as I have, you learn to take death for what it is—a certainty. That, and I'd become too embroiled in this affair to let a little thing like a carcass befuddle me. After setting my orb down, I approached the body, keeping a respectable gap between the vultures and me. Even at a distance, I knew this had to be Mr. Uppity's handiwork. I sat back, dismayed at my inability to stop a killer, and stared at the woman's two empty eye sockets.

A Considerable Mystery

"Oh ,Jupiter!" Eddie exclaimed. With a pallor matching the victim's, he staggered to the edge of the retention pond and scattered the vultures. Pity. The birds had already made a meal of her, pecking and ripping her face to sausage meat. What's more, the smell of excrement permeated the area; the woman had given her daily due. Due to her recent killing, she'd not begun to rot yet. Cats, on the whole, are not a squeamish lot. This, I'm certain, applies to the rest of the animal kingdom—but not to humans. Men hold death in great regard, always waxing about the waning of life. But present them with a body, and they fall to pieces faster than a teacup dashed against the hearth. For all his macabre interests, Eddie was no exception to the rule. He knelt beside the woman, one trembling hand against his mouth.

"Just awful," he said. "What's become of this poor soul?"

Now that the carrion creatures had flown, I took a closer look at the body. Grey hair, wrinkles, a thickness about the waist—these marked a woman of advanced years. Her clothes, while wet with water from the reservoir, were of the highest quality—tight stitching, smooth gabardine, silk flowers at the bodice. If there's one thing I know, it's dresses. I doubt Snow or Big Blue could differentiate between summer-weight and winter-weight wool or crepe de chine and charmeuse. Having clawed countless examples in my time, I excelled at such things. Visitors of all walks frequented the Poe house—a testament to my friend's standing—and, like any good host, I greeted them as they entered. No hem escaped my welcome.

Vultures had made a mess of her neck and face, but the empty eye sockets told me what I needed to know. The right side was a flowing cup of detritus, the left, a barren well. Even I possessed enough knowledge of anatomy to know she'd lost one organ to bird claw and the other to accident or disease. In all likelihood, she'd worn an artificial eye. This also meant any doubt I had in Mr. Uppity's role—and there was precious little—had disappeared. And while I hadn't caught the fiend in the act, I'd at least involved Eddie in the mystery.

"Catters, we must do…something," he said. "We must help."

I knew the definition of help , and she was beyond its reach.

"Her windpipe looks as if it's been cut by a knife, but that's not what interests me." He gestured with his pinky finger. "Look there, at her face. One socket appears to have been surgically altered in recent years. I can't prove it, but I'm sure she wore a glass eye." Blood rushed his cheeks as he leaned over the body, his earlier uneasiness gone. "The buzzards have eaten most of her other eye…but wait! The tattered shreds of a pale blue iris. I knew it, Catters, I knew it!" He jumped to his feet, fled to the staircase, and shouted to the people below. "Summon a constable! A woman's been murdered!"

On his return, he snatched the eyeball I'd dropped and stuck it in his pocket as sightseers flooded the plateau. At first, they kept their distance. But when they crowded the body, Eddie commanded them to leave "for the sake of the crime scene," he said. Some listened, some did not. At last, two dour-looking gentlemen arrived and ran off the remaining onlookers. The first and older of the two wore a dark overcoat and carried a leather-bound notebook. The second I took for a night watchman, judging by his heavy cloak, wide-brimmed hat, and long brass-tipped stick. I'd befriended many over the seasons and always found them agreeable. They shifted towards us, two greying apparitions in the twilight.

"I'm Constable Harkness, Spring Garden District," the older man said. His large white mustache covered his mouth. When he spoke, his bottom lip wiggled beneath the whiskers. "This is Watchman Smythe. Are you the one who found the body?"

"Yes, at first candle-light," Eddie said. "I was out, strolling with my cat—"

"Sorry, your cat?"

Sensing the need for my input, I meowed to clear up whatever confusion had arisen.

Constable Harkness wrote something in his notebook with a pencil stub he pulled from his vest pocket. He dotted the page with sharp tap of the lead.

Watchman Smythe poked the woman's body with his stick. "Cold as a wagon tire," he said.

These two simpletons did not impress me. What was a "constable" any way? And why had Eddie involved one in our private mystery? Surely we could've handled things on our own. At this stage, we needed fewer how dos you dos and more hunting. But since humans are impossible to herd, I sat idly by, waiting for them to catch the wave that had already swept me into deep water.

The older gentleman continued, "Your name?"

"E. A. Poe," Eddie said.

"As in Edgar Allan Poe?" Watchman Smythe rested the end of his nightstick on the ground and leaned on it. "Why sure, I've read your stories." He turned to the older man. "You've heard of him, haven't you, Constable? He writes the popular pieces for Graham's Magazine ."

"I don't read the popular pieces," he replied. From his sour face, "popular" must've been one pickle of a word.

"'The Murders in the Rue Morgue' was all-out sensational!" Watchman Smythe said. "You don't find 'em much smarter than Detective Dupin."

"Balderdash." Another sour pickle face from the constable.

The watchman tipped his hat at Eddie. "The wife will have a conniption when she finds out I met you, Mr. Poe. She fancies the way you kill people."

Constable Harkness raised an eyebrow.

Eddie loosened his cravat with a finger. "They're just stories, Mr. Smythe. Flights of imagination."

"Be that as it may, Mr. Poe, I still find your presence here most…interesting," Constable Harkness said. "Do you know this woman?"

"No. I've never seen her." Eddie tucked his fingers in his vest pockets. "But I'm not sure anyone could recognize her in her current state. Buzzards. They got to her before I did, I'm afraid."

More scribbling in the notebook.

"You seen anyone else up here?" Watchman Smythe asked. "Comin' and goin', that is?" He wiped his nose on his sleeve.

"Unfortunately, no," Eddie said.

"The Irish are a shifty lot," he continued. "They can slip past anyone. Even the likes of me."

The older gave the younger a stern look and said, "We shall keep an open mind, Smythe."

"Aren't you going to inspect the body?" Eddie asked.

Constable Harkness harrumphed, then stooped over the remains.

"Look closely at her face." Eddie leaned over the man's shoulder and pointed at the woman's face. "I think you'll find that one eye socket is smooth and hollow, as if she's had a surgery." He then leapt into a discussion of glass eyes and murderers. While he talked, I sniffed a clear puddle at the woman's feet. I'd thought it reservoir water at first, but after a series of uproarious sneezes, I knew it to be the same vile liquid I'd noted at Shakey House. Something about this bothered me. If Mr. Uppity was guilty of the crimes, why had I smelled the medicine on Mr. Abbott, or perhaps even Josef? My theory of the murder had more holes than a mole's den.