~Chapter Twelve~
~ Station House No. 4, six o'clock
Everyone in the bull-pen heard the door slam shut, sending constables to bury their faces in files or find an excuse to go investigate someone or something. Inspector Lamb was generally even-keeled and mild-tempered, but was known to have a volatile streak: station house gossip was he nearly came to blows with his former superior, Inspector Cassidy, over a case. John Hodge, who had been at Station 4 since the 1870's and knew a remarkable number of officers, remained tight-lipped and loyal as ever about every man who had ever been a member of the outfit, quashing any such talk swiftly and as sharply as possible whenever it arose. The men respected Hodge; however that never stopped them from being leery on those odd occasions when Inspector Lamb was on a rampage. Like now.
"Detective! Hodge! Higgins! In here." Lamb called out from his office. He started talking rapidly before they even got fully inside. "Mr. Kingman is still writing out his statement. Higgins: Please get Burke to escort Mrs. Kingman back home with our compliments. Make sure her husband sees her with an officer—I want to keep the pressure on him. Then come back. Hodge? You and Higgins work together, take some men, no one is going home! Relieve the next shift from foot patrol tonight if you have to. I need you to confirm Mr. Kingman's alibi—get the names of every man he says he played cards with and get their signed statements, and go visit his lady friend—discreetly of course, and get in writing if she can confirm his story. See if he had any other un-witnessed time period on Friday with enough time to have shot Dr. Walters, including from the end of his card game to the first kiss with his lover. I want to know where he was minute by minute… Understand?"
He glared at them. "Go! Now!" He actually made a 'shooing' motion to get them out of his office. "Slorach, shut the door!"
Slorach winced. This was not good, not good at all. "Sir?" he ventured, trying to understand why his boss was so beside himself. That detective shield was slipping from his reach. "You think Mr. Kingman shot Dr. Walters?"
"Alister Gordon's office just sent a messenger to me. It seems their own investigators also learned Mr. Kingman was not shooting skeet as he claimed, and they also want me to go pick up Dr. Walters' body and take it back to the morgue to test out some theory about him being shot, not with a hand gun, but with a rifle from across the street!" Lamb nearly growled that out. "This is based on some supposed mathematically calculations that teacher, Mr. Murdoch, made, and a hole in some lace, of all things. Gordon thinks he is going to run this investigation." That rankled Lamb more than he'd like to admit. "Well he is not the crown prosecutor any more to give me orders!"
"Shot from across the street? From where?" Slorach was trying to visualize the area.
Lamb slapped the pages on his desk. ""Their theory is that Mr. Kingman, who is an excellent shot it seems, took a .22 long rifle to shoot Dr. Walters from a distance, thus explaining lack of powder burns, lack of shell casing and lack of witnesses to anyone coming and going from the Ogden residence. As for from where….supposedly from the roof of a house directly across the way. I will be sending you back to double check that. My guess it is only a preemptory move on behalf of the defense to muddy the waters. Gordon is a wily old fox at that." He got up out of his chair. "Julia Walters is still our best suspect since she lied about where she was and has not corrected that lie; but with no physical evidence, as much as I want to, I am reluctant to make an arrest." Lamb began pacing in front of his desk. "Kingman's statements got me thinking. What if we have this all wrong? What if, instead of Mrs. Walters, it was Dr. Ogden who killed his son in law? The motive is the same—anger and revenge for bankrupting his daughter, getting the debt settled."
"But sir! Dr. Ogden was with his own physician, a Dr. Roberts, who confirmed that!" Slorach was also having uneasy feelings. "You said it yourself, sir. The widow…"
"Dr. Ogden is wealthy enough, and has enough police knowledge to have paid someone to do it. Truth be told he is a cold-blooded bastard at heart, always was. Think of what he told us—from a certain angle, one can make the case that his refusal of a loan to his son in law might have been the tipping point for someone to commit murder, making a motive even for his own daughter. Don't you agree?" Lamb finally stood still with his hands in his pockets to help him get a grip on his agitation. Outside his glass door, he could see a commotion was brewing by the desk, disrupting Hodge's organizing of the men to go out and check on Kingman's whereabouts. He dropped his attention from it, trusting Hodge to take care of it. It will be his new job soon, anyways…
Slorach was irritated at having his case go sideways on him, and felt it necessary to point out his boss was letting the pressure get to him. "Inspector, if you go that far, then you might as well speculate Marshall Kingman or Mrs. Walters paid someone to do the shooting! That Dr. Walters was indeed suicidal as his wife proposed and either the housekeeper or grounds keeper have been lying about finding the pistol …" he said sarcastically. "Or you can decided he went so far to pay someone to shoot himself dead!" Slorach appealed to his superior, trying to get control back of the direction of the case. "It seems unreasonable…"
"Yes!" Lamb shouted, silencing his detective, his eyes narrowing to slits. "Why, yes! Slorach. Get that copy of the Will and read it closely. Go specifically to the conditions of payment." When Slorach did not seem to catch on, his agitation flared up again right as the telephone rang. "Some of them pay out more or less for an unnatural end and some pay nothing at all for suicide. Find out! Now!" he urged, before snatching the earpiece from its holder. "And get me the weapon, detective. We simply must have that pistol!"
He turned back to the desk and answered the telephone's jangle harshly. "Yes! Inspector Lamb here… Oh, sorry sir…Any developments? ...Well, you see…"
Slorach decided discretion was the better part of valor, and beat a hasty retreat to his own office. A call from Chief Constable Giles was not going to make Lamb's mood any brighter.
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~ Rosedale, seven o'clock
Dennie greeted Julia and William with an update: Joseph's sister was coming in on the last train from Ottawa, arriving at eleven thirty-five tonight. The three of them sat with Mrs. Hastings in the Ogden kitchen over cups of tea and plates of cold chicken, with all their notes spread amongst the crockery and silverware. William agreed to organize their data, placing his calculations on a fresh piece of paper to guide the coroner or whomever was going to need the information to officially confirm his and Julia's findings.
They were just getting going when the telephone rang. Mrs. Hastings made to answer it, but Dennie shushed her, saying: "I still have a bit of energy left—you eat."
Dennie came back in a short moment. "It's Mr. Gordon himself who has called, not an assistant. He asks to speak with you now. 'Immediately' is what he said. He seems rather peeved," Dennie reported. "Oh, he was polite and correct about it, but it is really an order..."
"I understand." Being ordered around by a man was nothing new. Julia's fine mood soured the closer William drove the pony towards Rosedale, because it meant closer to having to deal with her father. She was very glad he was nowhere to be seen. Addressing Mr. Gordon's displeasure was about all she could handle.
Julia rose to go to the telephone. "Would you mind waiting until I am finished with Mr. Gordon?" She made a face, "Or rather until he is finished with me?"
"Of course," William said distractedly. He was busy sketching out a grid to collect his calculations, placing each value in a box in his neat script. "Mrs. Hastings, I seem to have forgotten to take a measurement. With your permission, I would like to go back into the consultation room if I may?" Leaving the two remaining ladies to their meal, his own appetite forgotten, William made his way from the back of the house, through the door separating the family quarters from the medical practice. He passed by Julia who was red-faced and uncharacteristically silent as she pressed the ear piece tight against her head while frowning at a photograph of her, her husband and her father which used to be hanging in the hall. William examined the picture: He assumed Julia turned it over, since the rest of the family pictures were taken down or covered out of respect for the dead. He gestured with his measuring tape, receiving a nod from Julia as permission to go into the room.
William had forgotten to measure the size of the window. It was simple enough to do. As he measured off width and height of the opening then re-measured for anything lost when the window was fully deployed open, he heard Julia and her father talking, their voices rising quickly. It was impossible not to overhear, so he made as much noise as he could to alert them their privacy was compromised. He waited until a lull in their conversation before clearing his throat and going back into the hall. Dr. Ogden's back was retreating away from his daughter, who remained planted by the telephone.
"I am sorry you overheard any of that, William. My father has been impossible lately. Please excuse him. I attribute it to the shock of Joseph's death." Why she felt it necessary to defend her father was beyond her, since he'd been horrid again in a failed attempt to assuage his guilt. At least this time I did not scream at him like a fish-wife—Father can thank Mr. Murdoch hovering in the next room for that!
He came next to her and reached up to remove the offending photograph from her hands. "It is of no consequence, and forgotten already. Your father is looking for answers, grasping at straws perhaps."
"Precisely!" What she thought was: My father feels guilty for making the financial disaster which my husband created, ultimately worse by not covering the debt, so instead of acknowledging that…
"What did Mr. Gordon say, if I may ask?" William was curious what could have silenced her so effectively.
"Actually, much as I expected." She kept herself from sighing. "You were right: he warned me that offering anything to Mrs. Tough, even having gone to see her, can be interpreted in a bad light. He chastised me for being naïve," she frowned disgustedly, "much as that awful detective did. However, I do feel vindicated by taking on my own inquiry, with your help, of course, because Mr. Gordon continues to believe the constabulary is intent on arresting me if they do not accept our theory against Mr. Kingman."
His head swiveled sharply. "You might still be arrested?"
"Unfortunately he cannot guarantee I will not, at least until Katie Tough vouches for me. Getting that cleared up is paramount. On the other hand, he also informed me that the Chief Constable weighed in on our evidence, including your trajectory calculations and that since you helped craft our theory of the case, it was worth looking into—and told Inspector Lamb to follow up and get the coroner involved. He said that it was a good thing Chief Giles has such a high opinion of you, something about you playing chess… "
Julia saw that William paused and was staring in some sort of odd middle-distance, as if captured by a thought. She nudged him gently and offered to help set the picture down on the telephone table, but he would not let it go. "William?" She spoke his name. He turned his large brown eyes to her blue ones, his throat working. "What is it? Is something wrong?" she asked, quite curious about what he was up to.
"Julia…" he dragged each syllable out. "In this picture, look at how all three of you are dressed. You all wear long white coats over what appears to be grey clothing—your nursing dress has a long, straight skirt…."
"Yes, I see. We have a uniform of sorts…easy to wear and clean. Why?"
"All three of you have a stethoscope around your necks. Your husband was thin and upright, similar in build to yourself. In your heels, you are nearly as tall as he. His hair was longish and full, and he was clean-shaven. You carry a Gladstone bag, do you not? In fact, from a distance, standing still, I imagine you are hard to tell apart." William's hand trembled slightly—he was not sure of he was excited or frightened.
"But William, I am a woman with long auburn hair, no one could…"
"Oh, yes they can. Especially when you wear your dark grey Bellevue cap." William was thinking rapidly now, automatically taking the photograph into the consultation room, and setting it on the desk. Julia followed, trying hard to see where he was taking this.
He looked out the window then back into the room, a scowl on his face, eye brows bunched together. "Look at the picture—your profile is not much different than your husband's. Julia, from that distance, in shadows, the shooter could have been aiming at you just as easily, and it is your office. You yourself told me your father hardly ever uses it anymore."
Julia unconsciously stepped out of the line-of-sight of the window, her mouth getting dry and her palms sweating. "That is wild speculation! Really, I was hoping you would be more logical in this, certainly more so than my father!" Her hands were on her hips and her chin jutted out.
William was drawn to the blaze in her eyes. He almost stopped talking so that fire there could warm him, until fear for her overrode everything else. "Julia, hear me out. In all this, don't you think it is strange that James Hammond was the one who blocked your alibi, putting all this suspicion on you? Why should he come to the door saying he was with her all Friday, to supposedly protect her from the police? Why give Katie an alibi? The constables explained their business there. She did not need an alibi. But what if he did?" He took both her hands in his, trying to get her to see what he did. "Katie Tough was explicit that her husband disliked you…what if she wanted us away from her rooms this afternoon not as much for herself but for you? If he thought…"
"If he thought I performed an abortion on Katie, he'd be outraged, furious!" Julia was startled by the thought. "Midwives are often accused of that…"
"Do you know if he served in the military?" he asked.
"No, but he is from the country, probably used to shooting things….Ah!" Her face crumbled. "Oh no. There is a rifle in the house, I have seen it. Oh William!" Julia's hands covered her mouth in fright. "If Katie says anything to him or if he finds out she plans to call on the authorities, it will not just be a beating she'll get—this time he really will kill her. Oh my God! I have asked her to be in harm's way! We must act to save her life, but how?"
William spoke decisively. "We call Inspector Lamb. We call him and tell him to send constables over to your patient's rooms to take her and the children away and protect them, and detain Mr. Hammond." He waited for a nod from Julia, then went to the telephone and asked the operator to ring Station House No. 4.
He did not wish to alarm her or belabour the point; if Katie Tough died… so would Julia's only hope of avoiding a murder charge!
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