CHAPTER TWELVE
11:00 AM, Monday, June 26th, 1922
Station House No. 4
"...Which is exactly my bloody point!"
Murdoch stopped in his tracks, embarrassed to have barged into Brackenreid's office when the inspector was already engaged in an interview. He expected Dr. Ogden to be there, not a young man in a vest and shirtsleeves.
"My apologies, sir." He tried to back out, but his boss crooked two fingers in his direction for him to stay. He darted his eyes through the glass partition into the heart of the station house, looking for the coroner, impatient to hear her results - considering he emptied his own supply of chemical and toxicological testing material and sent them across the way to her office.
He hoped she put it to good use.
"...Don't tell me, it's Murdoch who should hear it," Brackenreid was telling the man.
Murdoch nearly choked when the man turned around - it was Dr. Ogden sporting chin-length hair. Seeing her long legs encased in men's trousers alone was a revelation. No lady appeared that way in public, and in combination with short hair she was astonishing … in a disconcerting way. Since he was unable to think of anything which was even close to an appropriate response, he just stood awkwardly, while Brackenreid waggled his eyebrows behind the doctor's back.
"Murdoch, have a seat," Brackenreid ordered.
Head spinning, he sat.
"Gentlemen, regarding the Jacksons, I have confirmed the time of death as around 7 pm, using three different indicators. I can say neither of them consumed alcohol of any kind and there were no traces of strychnine in their systems, which distinguishes them from both Mr. Landswell and the other bootleg-booze deaths. I found evidence of inhaled poison in both Mr. and Mrs. Jacksons' lungs."
Murdoch discovered if he just listened to her voice, or focused on her eyes, it helped him concentrate. He took in some air to speak.
She must have anticipated his question because she continued talking. "I must wait for more chemical reagents and testing supplies, but my first guess, due to the lungs and the reddish tinge of their skin, is carbon monoxide."
"Nothing else, Doctor?" She appeared more certain than he was; CO may be the most obvious, but not the only possibility. "Do you have an opinion of how the carbon monoxide was delivered?"
"That is hardly my area, Detective, and it will be days before I am able to complete full autopsies and lab work on the remainder of the men and women in my morgue." He saw her take on a certain smugness. "But, gentlemen, I worked on another angle for you regarding all these deaths deaths which might prove helpful to you." She brought out a folded sheet from her pocket. "Dr. McDaniels gave me the idea. I have your victims listed in the most likely order in which they died - which is not the order in which their bodies were found, by the way. I believe the first deaths were as early as last Tuesday night, which makes the first consumption of the alcohol adulterated with methyl-alcohol likely a week ago on Monday."
"Excellent work, Doctor Ogden," Brackenreid accepted her typewritten list with enthusiasm. "We are going to root out those Italian bastards, every one of them."
"Surely not every person of Italian descent is suspect, Inspector?" she asked.
"I don't trust any of 'em. Too foreign to fit in, if you ask me - and the food is inedible. Murdoch will that list help you?"
"It will."
"Then help pinpoint an entry point and source for the poison? And how was it added in the first place?" Brackenreid asked.
"Regarding that poison and who might be responsible…" she said. "Denaturing means chemicals are added to distilled alcohol to render it unpalatable, therefore un-drinkable, so it can be used for medical or industrial applications. You should know, the chemists who adulterate the alcohol, or denature it, likely get paid more by criminals to subsequently remove the added poisons to make them consumable again, than they are paid by the original and legitimate purveyors in the first place. Each batch uses a particular formula."
He was impressed at her ingenuity, already thinking how he will use that information. Perhaps a new chart…
"What a mess." Brackenreid sounded disgusted.
Murdoch agreed wholeheartedly. "Yes. And, Doctor, thank you. We are consulting with local distilleries about their specific formulas and quantities of chemicals with which they denature alcohol. When I get your analysis of the tainted alcohol we can match it with a specific distillery." He saw her jaw tighten. She expected a better reception from him, he assumed, and probably an apology for his remarks yesterday.
He rose to escort her to his office and try to eke out that apology in private. "Uh…Doctor, if I may have a word with you…? I...er...understand you are limited by lack of resources. When you do get the required materials, may we have the exact cause of death for the Jacksons first thing?"
She just looked at him with a hard expression, placing her hands in her trouser pockets. "It's on the list, Detective." She nodded at Brackenreid. "Inspector." Then she sailed out.
His boss watched her leave, perhaps a little longer than was proper, clearly remaining entranced by the new coroner, Murdoch noticed. He ignored the fact he himself had watched her exit as well.
Well, Brackenreid did like feisty women. Murdoch made a loud noise, which might have sounded like a harrumph. "Sir. I hope she understands she cannot wear that...that get-up to court! I am surprised she is not using more, um...discretion." He thought advertising her social deviance was not a great idea.
Last a week? If word of it gets to the mayor she'll be out as coroner before the day is over - and my investigation will be a basket case because of it. He harrumphed again.
"Relax, Murdoch. That get-up is practical for what the doctor has to do - can you imagine rousting bodies or digging into a corpse in a frilly dress? Plenty of women wore trousers in the war - the smart ones at least. You know this. What she does isn't much different from what they were doing at the front," Brackenreid chuckled. "So... the Jacksons are definitely not like Mr. Landswell nor Knox, or the rest of the poor alkies."
"I concur, sir. I already have an idea about what killed the Jacksons. I will be going back to their apartment when you and I are finished here to test my theory., and it does not involve sewer gasses."
"I bet the manager will be happy to learn that."
"Not necessarily, sir." He was certain Mr. Crumb was going to be quite upset, if his guess was right - and it was not carbon monoxide either. "As for Mr. Landswell, I believe it is murder and the murderer was trying to hide his, or her, deed - one more tree in the forest, as it were - hoping to make it look like just another death by illegal liquor. We require more physical evidence. It is too bad Dr. Ogden does not have enough resources to get her job done with alacrity, er...especially since it holds up our job as well." He knew his boss' weakness was flattery and at this point he was so desperate to save his case he had no compunctions to stoop low. "I thought perhaps with your influence..." Brackenreid scowled, telling Murdoch he had overplayed his hand, so he backtracked. "They are asking you to oversee these investigations… sir."
"I get your point." Brackenreid raked a hand through his brilliantined cap of thick red strands. "I am going to rattle a few cages for us, get some money freed up for the morgue, considering the mayor demands this wrapped up tout suite," he promised. "We still have a load of cases to tie around Rocco Perri's neck and I will use that to pry the purse open. What did you get out of his two gang members?"
Murdoch crossed his arms. "Not much sir. The second man told me Rocco Perri already knows we are trying to connect him to the poisoned alcohol. Considering how tightly held the knowledge is, how did Perri find out?"
Brackenreid only grunted.
"He implied Mr. Perri knows my name and is going to, well, essentially kill me, if I keep up the investigation." Murdoch was not particularly worried about the threat; it worried him more that news traveled so fast, even Perri's distant operatives were in on it. "It might be bluster or bluff; you know how suspects like to posture or threaten when there is nothing else they can do. The problem is we have no physical evidence at all of any connection to Mr. Perri for these poisoned alcohol deaths." He let that sit between them, knowing the inspector understood the dilemma.
"I think the threat against you means we are on the right track, Murdoch. Keep digging. I don't need to tell you to be careful."
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11:10 AM, Monday, June 26th, 1922
City Morgue
Julia's good mood from knocking Detective Murdoch down a peg was short-lived as she returned to the morgue only to find yet another body waiting for her - a bloody mess under a sheet.
"Jack?" she called over, "what have we here? I thought our establishment usually required reservations."
Jack grinned. Putting his mop down, he came over to her. "Compliments of Station House No. 9, Doctor. The constable just said she was found this morning in an alleyway; an unwitnessed death and no name to go with her. It took a while to clear the scene. I guess they called a morgue van from the garage to bring her over."
"Any other information?" Julia was irritated a body was essentially dumped on her doorstep. She saw Jack pale and she instantly regretted confronting him. "Sorry Jack. Not your fault. Was there anything else, any paperwork or evidence for me? The name of our guest?"
"No, Doctor. I guess she is unidentified. The constable said Keele Street Station, number nine, found her and Detective Pearce is handling the case, if there is one."
"If there is one?" Julia looked again at the red-stained sheet and back again to Jack, wondering if he was already adopting her sense of humour.
Jack shrugged. "Sorry, Doctor. They require cause of death before doing anything more."
Detective Murdoch demands rather much and other detectives appear lackadaisical by contrast. She checked the clock high on the white tile wall, calculating her tasks and what she had time for. Without testing material she was stuck. She could not even unload Mr. Landswell until there was a positive identification.
"Jack, will you please go to the chemist's supply house and find out what the hold-up is? Could you do that for me? I will keep myself entertained while you are gone."
He wiped his hands, got his cap and was gone in no time. Julia retrieved her apron and adjusted the gurney to get it into the best light.
"Toronto the Good, my foot…" she muttered. "All right, Torontonians, I'm going to ask you to stop harming one another and yourselves for about a week," she said aloud into the empty room, as she readied her tools for another post-mortem. Other than sheer stubbornness, she could not understand for the life of her why she didn't quit this job. It was overwhelming for one person!
Then she imagined having to tell her father she couldn't handle it…
Not on my life!
Sighing exhaustedly, she pulled back the sheet to view the body. The blood-soaked end of the sheet revealed a head with obliterated features.
No one is going to identify her this way.
"Good God, who are you and what happened to you?" she said as she went over the rest of the body looking for answers. She hadn't seen anything so gruesome since the war, immediately pushing those memories back so she could concentrate on what was in front of her now. This was a petite woman, perhaps in her late twenties to early thirties, judging by the texture of the skin she could see and the woman's overall physique. There were so many obvious broken bones even showing through her thin printed cotton dress, she had to get a clipboard to list them. Julia's mind started bringing up possibilities: Was she beaten? Crushed? Run over by a vehicle or horse? Did she fall?
Not knowing the circumstances was maddening.
Wishing she had not sent Jack away for supplies, she cut the clothing off herself, did her initial physical observations and measurements, collected samples, then started washing away the accumulated blood and debris from the body. Unfortunately, there were no birthmarks or scars to help with identification. Her next task was grimmer - a complete catalogue of broken bones: clavicle, right shoulder, right arm, neck, both hands mangled, half her ribs, both legs, both knees...and a crushed skull. The soft tissue and internal injuries were going to be commensurate. The damage did not look like it was inflicted by a bat, pipe or rock. There were no marks indicating a traffic accident.
She ran causes of death against what the body told her. There was no trauma to the back of her body - no abrasions nor direct injuries. What was left was a massive blunt force trauma which told her this woman fell face-first from a significant height.
"Of course, in this white-tiled nineteenth-century excuse for a modern pathology lab, there is no x-ray equipment. Even the troops at the front in France had Madame Curie's mobile x-ray stations!" she muttered to the room. Julia had marveled at the "Little Curies" as they were called and had even once met the famed scientist in the field, where her invention saved countless lives overseas.
"The morgue does not even possess equipment to take and develop basic photographs!"
She caught herself whining. Out loud. Enough! Straightening up, Julia retrieved her clippers. "I'm sorry about this," she said as she removed the woman's hair so she could see the skin, to look for an unexplained head strike, inconsistent with a fall, just as her morgue reference suggested she do. Finding nothing obvious, she searched for anything which might look like a defensive wound, or minute evidence of tissue under the nails, and found nothing. She looked for other bruises, as if the woman had been shoved or held tightly by hands. More nothing. Julia took the final blood samples, knowing the next task was to open the body up.
Closing her eyes, she thought of the young woman. Was this an accident? In the heat, people had taken to sleeping on rooftops for relief from the stifling temperatures. Did she fall off? A homicide? A suicide?
"How the Hell am I supposed to figure that out?" she asked the white-tiled ceiling.
Julia hoped it was not suicide. Exhaling, she rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand and thought back to a difficult time in her own life, and how she briefly contemplated ending it all, before choosing another solution to her problems. She looked down at the anonymous woman and tenderly covered her up. The full autopsy was going to have to wait.
Grunting in disgust, she grabbed her hat and announced to the empty room she would be checking her mail then taking a late lunch as if that was going to dispel unpleasant memories or make the next steps more bearable.