Seeing Councilor Franklin Williams unmasked and hearing his threat sent ice water through Julia's veins. She struggled against an incredibly strong thug who was dragging her backwards out of the building into a dark alleyway with Mr. Williams getting pressed into holding the door open. The man who had her in his grasp was adept at always keeping her off balance while he pursued an argument with Williams - an argument to which she paid only scant attention while focusing on escape, hoping their disagreement would give her an opportunity since she did not think she could get away from two men working together.
"Finish her off, and let's be done with it!" Mr. Williams growled when the three of them were outside.
"No!" The thug suddenly thrust Julia at the councilor. "Here! You want her dead? You do it yourself like you did for Dobbs," he ordered in a gravelly voice.
Julia stumbled forward, and used her momentum to lunge at Mr. Williams, hoping to topple him over, but it did not work. Williams was more solid than he appeared and he hooked a hand in her hair to pull her up short and then got his hands around her neck from behind.
Julia's lungs burned and she saw spots before her eyes, hungry and desperate as she was to get air. She heard Williams ordering his henchman to bring the wagon around back, showing how confident he was he could subdue one troublesome woman. Striking that bastard and bloodying his nose was terribly satisfying, but the surge of adrenalin was failing as fast as her breath: the man had her by the neck, squeezing her slender throat closed as time lost all meaning. Julia's thoughts scurried in terror from one solution to another to save her own life for she instinctively knew: no one was coming to rescue her, not this time.
Damn you, William Murdoch! She cursed her husband's meddlesome ways, needing the energy of rage to keep her going. Then….Think! Think while you still can! Her mind whirred, going through options, calling on her forte—the human body and mind.
Franklin Williams had apparently already killed once by strangulation and it seems he developed a taste for it rather rapidly… except Julia knew garroting a helpless man was not the same thing as using one's bare hands to throttle the life from someone who could fight back.
He probably has no idea how long it can actually take to kill a person this way, a small clinical part of her mind offered, and he does not know where to put his hands for maximal effectiveness.
Julia realized what she had to do, when her whole being screamed at her to do otherwise. She reached her hands up above her head as if to scratch at his eyes, and then…surrendered….
…a small figure crept along in the shadows with quick, light steps, keeping to the side of the building and then peered around to the entrance. In the darkness ahead, the front door opened and closed noiselessly. The figure hesitated only for a fraction, then plunged on, ducking under the windows to remain hidden from anyone inside…
As Julia's legs gave out and she sagged, her slight frame became dead weight in Franklin William's hands. He reacted by loosening his grip on her throat and bending forward to lay his lifeless burden down.
Julia responded by reaching up and behind her, finding the sharpened bit of wooden clothes hanger she fashioned and had hidden in her hair, and driving it as hard as she could into Franklin William's flesh. His screeching howl galvanized her as she took in a deep gulp of oxygen. She heaved herself upright as he fell to his knees, the end of the stick poking out of his right eye and blood leaking around his fingers. "You bitch!" he cried as he tried to grab her sleeve. Still gasping for breath, she kicked at him but his fist caught in her skirt and pulled her off her feet as he struggled to use his weight advantage on her. She fell on him which jostled the stick in his face and he screamed again, allowing her to get free.
She ran down the narrow cobbled lane a dozen steps, right into Williams' masked henchman. He picked her up easily and dragged her back to where Councilman Williams was cursing angrily.
"She's put my eye out! Help me!" he whined.
"Nay! She is no threat to me as I don't plan to have her see my face, and I will not hurt a woman. You decided to make this problem," the other man answered, while still not letting go of her. "Mr. Graham wants her alive—for now."
"Graham says to do what you are told!" Williams argued back.
"Aye—and my services are on contract with Mr. Graham, not you, and I am not for the killing of someone whom I'm not ordered to."
Williams spit in rage. "I am ordering you!"
The man gave a grating laugh. "You?! You are Mr. Graham's boot-lick- he owns you! You misunderstand, councilor —I am here to mind you keep your place, not take orders from you. My brotherhood has a code, even if you politicians have none, and killing women or children who have done no harm to Mr. Graham is beyond the Pale."
With that he put her down, but kept a tight grip on her arm. "I brought the wagon around as you asked, but I think it is you I will offer a ride." He turned to Julia, his green eyes locked onto hers through his mask. "You are warned, doctor. If Mr. Graham gives the order, the Black Hand will come after you, and everyone you love or care about if we have to, and we will never stop." Then he inexplicably released her and turned his attention to hustling Councilor Williams over to the wagon. Williams protested the whole way, neither man ever once looking back.
She called out after them— "Don't pull it out yourself, get a doctor to do it!"
Julia was left confused, bruised and shaken in the darkness, her throat still choking and burning as she took in every painful breath of damp night air. She shivered for more reasons than the cold temperature, pulling her arms about her. The clatter of the wagon was receding when she jumped at the sound of a gunshot from the direction of the building. Her heart, which had started to slow down a little, revved up again and her shaking was more pronounced. Adrenalin, it is just adrenalin, she reassured herself.
She walked to the back door and paused with her hand on the knob, not sure she wanted it to be unlocked or not… It was not.
Was that Chief Constable Davis, come to clean up the mess? Could he have been in there with William? Who or what got shot? That question and her need for an answer forced her to stuff her fears and propel herself back into the house to stealthily retrace her steps, sniffing the air for the smell of gunpowder she found it. That she was behaving exactly in the way she cursed her husband for moments before, she conveniently ignored. The closer she got the stronger the smell, and then she heard voices echoing ahead of her. She quietly pushed open the baze door and was shocked at what she saw, the body lying face up, illuminated by moon light.
"Inspector Brackenreid!" she exclaimed in a harsh whisper, rushing over.
Standing next to Thomas Brackenreid was his wife, Margaret, the pistol she wielded still in her hand. "Don't worry, doctor, he's not dead," Margaret claimed. "I'm not as good a shot as I thought I'd be." Her eyes glittered feverishly.
Kneeling on the floor, the Inspector was applying pressure to a wound in Chief Constable Jeffrey Davis' shoulder. "Dr. Ogden, some help please?" he asked. "We need this man alive and well so he can testify and be fit enough for jail. He's just passed out from the pain…I think."
"What happened?" Julia came over to check on the Inspector's field dressing, and saw it was adequate and that Davis was coming around. "Keep pressure on it and I will get something to bind it up."
"I let Murdoch out of the cells so he could get the goods on Davis and Graham to clear his name. Then I came looking for you," he said to her.
"And I followed him," Margaret added, pointing at her husband. She was dressed in what Julia took to be an old pair of her son's trousers, jacket and boots with her hair captured in a soft cap. "You are not the only woman who will come to her husband's defense!" She looked at him fondly and then back at Julia with pride. "Thomas tried to send me and our sons away but he would not say why. He should know better than to try to keep me in the dark after all these years… So, I saw to the boy's needs and came back—"
"Some copper I am, not knowing me' own wife was tracking me!" The Inspector shrugged.
Margaret explained. "I needed to know what was going on. He had that look about him…like I was never going to see him again…" she choked up briefly. "So I decided to put on a disguise to follow him. Thomas came to this house, and I noticed him," she pointed to Davis, "getting out of a buggy and sneaking around and I did not like the looks of it one bit."
She said this completely without irony.
"I saw another man call two others away from guarding the front of the place, clearing the way, so I came inside. Out of nowhere, Davis had the drop on me…" The Inspector told Julia, smiling with a mixture of satisfaction and bewilderment at his wife. "Had a gun right to my head, and I heard the pistol cock, and thought I was a goner for sure."
Margaret frowned, and showed off her handgun. "I fired first. Thomas keeps this in the night stand, already loaded." She shrugged when Julia raised her eyebrows. "Well, I am the wife of an inspector after all, so I taught myself to use it." When her husband gasped she grinned. "What? You thought I fired willy-nilly in your direction?"
The Inspector came over and took it from her, then hugged her fiercely. "Woman, you amaze me!" And he meant it sincerely.
He turned to Julia, who completed her bandaging of Davis' wound. "What happened with you? I saw the cloak room," he gestured to the large closet where Julia was held. "Did you escape? Did they let you go?"
"Not exactly," Julia shook her head, not really understanding why the man let her go. "I will tell you later, but I don't think it's safe here—we have to go."
The Inspector narrowed his eyes. "Agreed. But what do we do with him?" he asked, pointing the gun in Davis' direction.
All three of them looked at Davis, who had started groaning and clutching his shoulder. "If it was up to me, I'd tie him up and put him in that cloak room," Julia suggested.
"Or worse!" The Inspector poked a toe into the wounded man. "But we need him. I think he's the key to all of this. I let him get away the first time and look where it has led to now."
"Can't we just get him arrested? I saw him try to kill you, Thomas," Margaret flared indignantly.
Her husband weighed that idea, eventually discarding it. "No. At this point we do not know whom we can trust, and there are too many fingers of corruption in the constabulary. We may just have to leave him here…"
Julia's eyes brightened up. "Actually, I think I have a better idea. By the looks of him, he will need that bullet taken out. We tie him up. We put him in his buggy and find a secure location to stash him, for his protection as well as ours. My guess is that after this debacle his masters will want him eliminated…" she coughed this last part out.
"That's very bloody-minded of you," the Inspector told her approvingly, loudly enough for Davis to overhear clearly even in his semi-conscious state. "He was only a means to an end and when they have no more need for him—out he goes, and I don't mean lose his job…"
The Inspector found the buggy where his wife said it would be and brought it to the back door. It took the three of them to bundle Davis into it with his mouth, feet and hands bound. They worked quickly, with the Inspector filling her in with what he knew was happening with her husband and Julia giving a fuller picture of what happened with Councilor Williams.
Thomas expressed his shock and outrage. "I knew Graham had the goods on all the high and mighty in the city—but to order Councilor Williams to kill Dobbs! And then for Franklin Williams to actually do it!" Margaret put out a comforting hand to interrupt him from shouting. "Graham, or whomever is funding him, is the head of this snake—we have to take him down, completely, to put everything to right," the Inspector finished.
"I agree, Inspector," Julia nodded as she brought herself up into the buggy's seat and took the reins. "You and Margaret have already risked too much—Inspector, by now everyone knows you were fired, expects you to slink off in disgrace, or perhaps that your wife took the children and left you because of the shame…"
"Never!" Thomas and Margaret reacted in unison to all of those ideas, embracing each other for mutual support. The Inspector started explaining what he wanted to do next.
Julia cut him off. "Hear me out. You did what my husband asked you to do—you found me. Chief Davis may have wanted you dead, but I don't think Mr. Graham is too fond of Davis. One never likes to keep a blackmailer around, especially if one prefers to be the blackmail-er and not the blackmail-ee—given your information about Mr. Graham keeping secrets on so many powerful men in Toronto." Julia thought about her kidnapper's argument with Williams and his threats towards her even while letting her go. "Franklin Williams has been spirited off to parts unknown. He and Chief Davis are still dangerous—because we have no proof. Furthermore, Mr. Graham appears to have gotten himself involved with the Black Hand. You do not need Mr. Graham sending out men from that organization to hunt you and your family down." She saw Margaret's eyes go wide with worry, grabbing her husband's arm tightly while shaking her head 'no.'
"You know I am right." Julia looked carefully into the Inspector's face, seeing the conflict within him. Pressure from his wife sealed the deal.
The Inspector reluctantly agreed. "All right. I think I know where we can lay low and still not be so far away." He tried to hand Margaret into a seat in the buggy.
"No." Julia said. "I am taking Davis. We have to split up—it's safer that way. I want to get to William and make a plan."
The Inspector rummaged in his coat pocket and came up with a few bills and coins. "We can split this, just enough to get by…"
Margaret stopped him. "What about his wallet?" She put her hands on her hips. "It's not exactly like stealing, is it? He was going to kill you!"
Her husband's face bloomed into a devilish smile. "He'll not be needing it wherever he is going." He bent and extracted a billfold from Davis, dividing a wad of cash. "Selling out your mates apparently pays well, Jeffrey," he observed disgustedly.
"Where will you take him?" Margaret asked about the man she had shot.
Julia smiled smugly. "Well…I still have keys to the no-longer-used basement portion of the asylum. It's quite sound proof actually…."
