Page 16 of Method of Revenge (Spencer & Reid Mysteries #2)

Chapter Sixteen

L eo entered the morgue through the back door, along the dirt lane behind St. Matthew’s Church. During the summer months when temperatures rose, she would prop the door open in the hope that any breeze might carry in fresh air. The vestry had been chosen as a site for a city deadhouse in part because of its proximity to Scotland Yard, but also for its stone foundation and exterior. It kept things icy during the winter months and at least partially cool during the summer. However, nothing could prevent corpses from more rapidly decomposing during the warmest times of the year or snuff out the odors that arose from them.

She was grateful for the persistent chill of the morgue right then as she hurried through the back office and into the postmortem room. It cooled the heated flush of her skin, compliments of her racing pulse and Jasper’s contrary nature.

“There is no proof to support your theory,” he said— again —as he entered the room behind her. He’d argued against her possible discovery during the entire carriage ride from Lambeth.

“No, there isn’t… yet ,” she replied. Seeing her uncle at one of the autopsy tables occupied by a corpse, she called, “Is that Andrea Geary?”

Claude peered at them from over the top of his spectacles. “It is.” He frowned. “Inspector Reid, you’ve quite a contusion there.”

Jasper rubbed his jaw, which had begun to purple on the way to Spring Street. Luckily, Mr. Nelson had not had anything other than his fist to swing at him, although Jasper was certainly furious that the debilitating strike had prevented him from apprehending the suspect. He might have been slightly humiliated too, but Leo suspected he’d never admit to it.

Shedding her coat and hat, Leo tossed them onto an autopsy table along with the hooded cloak she’d found at the Nelsons’ home. Tibia, the morgue’s gray tabby, had been sleeping upon it in a tightly curled crescent. The cat meowed a complaint, then hissed at Jasper as he passed by.

“It’s nothing,” he told Claude, scowling at the tabby. “What have you noted about the body so far?”

Leo was glad to see the corpse had so newly arrived that it was still clothed. Her eyes went straight to the brooch pinned at the woman’s throat. In the factory yard in Wapping, the checkered pattern had looked to have been done with two colors of fine thread. But now, after taking a second look at the children in both the death portrait and the photograph found inside Mrs. Nelson’s bedside book, Leo believed otherwise.

Mr. Higgins exited the supply closet, and she suppressed a groan. Everything about him was thin and long, from his frame to his face to his mustache, the tapered points of which stretched to the edge of his chin. As usual, he looked perturbed to see her.

“Miss Spencer,” he greeted with a sniff of disdain, then, cocking his head, “Inspector,” with a touch more respect. The young man was unbearably morose and clearly did not wish for his appointment here as an apprentice to her uncle.

For his part, Jasper ignored him. So did Claude.

“I’ve yet to complete a thorough inspection, but from what I can see,” her uncle noted, as he moved aside clumps of hair matted with blood, “there is significant injury to the parietal bone, inflicted by a heavy object. The impression in the skull is round, indicating the shape of the object used. A single strike.”

“That alone would have killed her?” Jasper asked.

“Instantly,” Claude confirmed. “But I will look for further injury and evidence, of course.”

“Uncle, does this injury remind you of another body that came in recently?” Leo didn’t want to lead him too much toward the answer she sought.

Claude furrowed his brow and looked again. “Hmm. Quite. I believe the expecting Jane Doe from last month had a similar skull wound.”

Leo exhaled, relieved. She then unpinned Andrea Geary’s brooch.

Mr. Higgins, who had returned to his work on another corpse that was open and in the process of a postmortem, sighed heavily at her handling of the body.

Leo held the brooch out to her uncle. “Can you confirm that this is human hair?”

He took it, his hand quivering. Leo shot a look over her shoulder at the apprentice, but he was busy removing a spleen, nearly dropping it back into the open abdominal cavity in the process.

“It is,” her uncle said, returning it to her. “The texture is fine and smooth, most assuredly from young children.”

Leo offered the brooch to Jasper. He shook his head, not needing to hold it. Or perhaps not wanting to. It was mourning jewelry. Many thought it a fashionable accessory, a way to memorialize a lost loved one. But like death photography, Leo thought it macabre.

“Look again at the hair of the children in the photographs,” she urged. Impatiently, she reached into Jasper’s coat pocket, where he’d stored them, but he caught her wrist before she could retrieve them.

“I can get them myself, Leo.”

Jasper released her and took out the photographs.

“The little boy is fair, and the girl’s hair is somewhat darker,” she said. Holding the brooch next to the photographs, she touched a light blonde square, then a darker one woven in. “I don’t believe this woman is Andrea Geary. I think she is the dead children’s mother, Evelyn Nelson.”

Jasper scrubbed his jaw, agitated. But at least he wasn’t still disputing her theory.

“And you propose that she took a false identity when applying for work at Henderson’s factory,” he said.

“Six months ago, yes. Her children would have died two months before that.”

He continued, “Her motive was to get close to Jack Henderson and decipher a way to seek vengeance?”

“Something that could be more easily done if she was a trusted employee,” Leo replied.

It made sense, even if Jasper still appeared skeptical. As a detective inspector he was supposed to be cautious, but at least he was entertaining the possibility.

Claude made a sound of interest. “Didn’t you say the Nelsons filed a formal complaint? Surely Mr. Henderson would have recognized her as the mother of the poisoned children and turned her away at once.”

Leo had thought of that. “Not if he and his solicitor had only dealt with Mr. Nelson for the complaint. If Mr. Henderson had never set eyes on her before she applied for the position of his secretary, how would he have known who she truly was?”

“So, she took a new name and insinuated herself into the company she detests,” Jasper said. “To what end? You saw her. She was meek and skittish around Mr. Henderson. Hardly the conniving woman you’re suggesting she was.”

Leo refused to back down. The more she thought this theory through, the more accurate it felt.

“What if her conniving wasn’t hers alone? Her husband must have been aware of her new position, especially if she was absent from the house for several hours each day of the week. You’re right. She was meek and skittish. Perhaps her husband forced her into this scheme, and she felt as though she had no choice but to go along with it.”

Jasper braved the autopsy table where Tibia had gone back to sleep and lifted the black cloak. “You’re certain this is the same blue embroidery?”

Leo pursed her lips. “Need you truly ask? Yes, I am certain.”

“So that night at Striker’s, Mrs. Nelson exposed herself and her six months of deceit by giving Gabriela a photograph of her dead children. Why?”

“To warn her?” Leo suggested. “To tell her the truth? That her husband was intent on avenging their children by poisoning Mr. Henderson’s own beloved daughter.”

But she’d been too late. Gabriela had already consumed the poisoned drink.

At the adjacent examination table, Mr. Higgins snorted a laugh. Leo swiveled on her heel.

“Is there something you’d like to contribute, Mr. Higgins?”

He set the extracted liver into a basin. “What you’re saying is all very entertaining, but the body has already been identified as Andrea Geary. There is no evidence to the contrary.”

Leo bit her tongue. The man hadn’t contributed much in the way of anything, but on this he’d formed an opinion? Even worse was that he was correct. They had only speculation and coincidence to go by. Miss Geary had been the one to pull the complaints file from Mr. Henderson’s shelves; if she was truly Mrs. Nelson, she very well could have gone home that evening and warned her husband that the police were likely to visit their address soon, especially after seeing the death portrait Jasper had shown Mr. Henderson.

But as Mr. Higgins had so smugly pointed out, that was only supposition.

Then there was the question of why Andrea Geary, or possibly Evelyn Nelson, had been killed. And apparently, by the same person who’d killed Regina Morris. Leo closed her eyes, overwhelmed by everything she didn’t yet know.

“If this is Evelyn Nelson,” Jasper said, “we need proof. We need someone to identify her.”

Leo brightened. “Like the boy from outside their home?”

Jasper shook his head. “Not a child. But another neighbor will do. I’ll send a constable to knock on doors?—”

A bell rigged to the lobby door rang, signaling someone’s arrival. Claude went to see who it was, leaving Leo and Jasper alone. She lowered her voice to keep Mr. Higgins from overhearing.

“Do you recall Mr. Nelson’s occupation from the London Directory?”

“Ironmonger.” Jasper shifted his jaw and winced. “He sells tools, hardware, anything made of iron, and I’m sure he’s in repairs. That would account for his build.”

“He would have ready access to a mallet.”

“So might David Henderson,” he reminded her. “Think. Why would Terrence Nelson bludgeon Regina Morris and his own wife, but poison Gabriela?”

“Because Gabriela’s death was meant to be symbolic. It was meant to be revenge. Death by arsenic is equal retribution.”

Jasper continued to shake his head. “No, equal retribution would be the poisoning of Henderson’s two children. Not just Gabriela. And yet, David is alive and well.”

He was also Jasper’s top suspect for Regina’s murder and Mrs. Nelson’s. She was Evelyn Nelson. Leo was certain of it.

Claude returned, and with him was Sergeant Lewis.

“Hoped you’d be here, guv,” Lewis said. “The address for Andrea Geary was a sham. The woman who runs the boardinghouse hasn’t ever heard of her.”

Vindication burst through Leo, and she nearly hopped with glee. Only the fact that they were in a morgue, investigating two murdered women, kept her feet planted to the floor. Jasper took the news with his usual subdued expression.

“And did you speak to David Henderson? Does he have an alibi?”

The other detective grinned impishly. “He says he had dinner with his father, then went straight home at eleven o’clock. However, when I spoke to Jack Henderson separately, he claimed to have dined out with friends at a club on Ludgate Hill. I asked for names. His boy wasn’t among them.”

Jasper started away from the table, taking out his fob to check the time. “The factory closes at one o’clock on Saturdays. We need to move fast if we’re to catch him there and bring him into Scotland Yard for questioning.”

Then, as if he’d been yanked by an invisible rope, he turned back toward Leo. His eyes cut to Mrs. Nelson, then away again. “We still need someone to identify her as Evelyn Nelson, but I think you’re right. Good work, Leo.”

The compliment stunned her, and she watched him and Lewis leave the postmortem room without so much as a peep from her parted lips. She couldn’t have asked to go with them. There was no reason for her to accompany them and no way to trick Jasper this time. Besides, a corpse needed seeing to. With Mr. Higgins engaged with another postmortem, Leo could at least serve as a barrier between her uncle and the medical student if his hands shook.

Claude began to remove Mrs. Nelson’s clothing, and Leo went to her feet to help with her boots. They had worked together countless times to strip a body in preparation for a postmortem, and now they moved in sequence easily, out of habit and routine. Mr. Higgins had voiced his censure about her assisting her uncle on his first day, but as he was a student, he didn’t possess the authority to order her away from the process. Not yet, at least. However, with enough complaints to his professor at the medical college, the chief coroner might have something to say to restrict her efforts.

“You’ve been busy with the inspector,” Claude commented as they rolled the body onto its side to shift her arm out of a coat sleeve.

“I suppose I feel attached to this case in some ways since I was there when Gabriela Carter died.”

But that wasn’t the only reason. The truth was she enjoyed unraveling the different pieces of information in an investigation, the challenge of deciphering which details were important and which weren’t, and the rush of exhilaration she felt when she figured something out. Just as she had now, with the brooch and the revelation that the dead woman was very likely Evelyn Nelson. With a twist of sadness, she thought of how much she’d have liked to tell Gregory Reid all about it. And how much he would have enjoyed listening to her recount her discoveries. She could even envision his proud smile.

“It was kind of him to invite us to dinner last night,” Claude said. While helping to roll the body onto its opposite side to slip the other arm free from the coat, Leo caught a swift, searching look from her uncle.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I just wonder…is there any reason Jasper might have invited us to his home?”

Leo puzzled at the question. “How do you mean?”

No dinner had been prepared at their own home, and since Mrs. Zhao always made too much for one person, Jasper had kindly invited them. It seemed a straightforward reason. Yes, it had been out of the ordinary, especially for Jasper. He wasn’t the spontaneous sort. He also wasn’t overly hospitable. But what other motive could he have had?

The memory of his unexpected visit a few nights prior to their dinner and how he’d taken her wrist in his hand skittered through her mind. Jasper’s touch had left a prickling sensation on her skin, and she wasn’t certain it was due only to the coarseness of his palm. The moment had been…curiously intimate and slightly awkward.

Claude shrugged as if to dismiss the subject from further discussion. But as Leo rolled down one of Mrs. Nelson’s stockings, then the other, she continued to think about the gentle press of Jasper’s fingers against her wrist.

“Uncle Claude,” she said as she folded the wool stockings and set them on a table with the woman’s other belongings, “speaking of last night’s dinner, I meant to ask you about something Aunt Flora mentioned: the letters she’d received from my mother.”

Before she could go on to ask if those letters were real and if Flora still possessed them, Claude finished unbuttoning Mrs. Nelson’s blouse. A piece of paper could be seen at the top edge of her exposed corset. It rested between the corset and her cotton chemise, the corner of the paper sticking up from the center busk. Leo pulled it free.

“It appears she kept it there for safekeeping,” Claude said.

She unfolded the paper. A woman’s dainty handwriting filled the single page. As she devoured each printed word, Leo’s skin numbed. Her pulse escalated.

“Leonora?”

She peeled her eyes from the paper, which she gripped in a stranglehold. “Uncle, I need to go.”

“Go? Where?” he called as she folded the paper and slid it into her skirt pocket.

“Henderson & Son!” she called as she took up her coat and hat and hurried for the morgue’s front door.