CHAPTER FIFTEEN
7:30 PM Monday June 26th, 1922
Sullivan Office Building
Julia turned the engine off, got out of her motorcar and studied the street where she parked. Somewhere around the vaunted "Golden Hour" Julia found herself so far away from the morgue that it may as well not even be in Toronto anymore. Detective Pearce reluctantly gave her the address where the anonymous woman's body was found, which turned out to be a cluttered blind courtyard formed by the backsides of five different buildings of varying heights. To her left was an alleyway barely wide enough for a donkey cart, and to her right was a wider but twisted laneway leading to a side street. All around her were closed doors, loading docks and dust bins, a few windows facing each other across the alleyway space.
Julia stood exactly where the body had been found, craning her neck to peer up at the jumble of buildings, to the one whose upper floors were lit a glowing yellow by the western sun. Under her feet was a patchwork of dirt, cobblestones and bricks. It matched what she sampled off the woman's clothes and body. While the majority of the blood and various bodily fluids had been washed away, she saw blood spatter on the side of one wall.
From the damage to the woman's body and using a chart she found in a morgue journal, she estimated death was due to a fall of between seventy and ninety feet. There was only one building tall enough, and in the right location. For a second she was caught off guard, her heart clenching, imagining the horrid fear and excruciating pain the poor woman felt. She did not do the calculation, but if the woman was conscious when she went over, the fall was long enough to be aware of the end coming.
Composing herself with a breath and a stiff talking-to, she walked back to the main street to the front entrance of a seven-story brick office building. She pulled on the door handle, which did not budge. As it was after hours, it took some wrangling to get the janitor to allow her access to the roof. Somehow, she forgot she'd have to actually walk up all seven stories - eight of you count the roof access - when she was told the elevator was out of service. The stairwell was hot and stuffy which made her choice of changing into a dress for tonight's expedition a blessing, especially with a leather bag slung over her shoulder, containing her personal Autographic Kodak camera. Trousers were perfect for the morgue where a skirt exposed her legs to a penetrating damp chill, but she was not envying men who had to contend with layers of fabric over every inch of their persons every day - and walk up seven flights of stairs at the end of June.
She opened the door to find a flat roof, surrounded by a tall parapet. A slight breeze ruffled her hair and skirt helping cool off the sweat she worked up. The view was unremarkable, although she thought at night it might have been pretty. Julia was caught again trying to imagine what the woman saw just before she went over the edge, when her skin prickled with the uncomfortable sense she was not alone.
Julia swung around, immediately seeing a man also searching up here. Anxious thought hit her like a bolt. What if he is the killer and I've stumbled onto him cleaning up the scene?
But the man paid her no mind and wasn't touching anything - he was glancing around the scene, smoking a Sweet Cap cigarette. Don't be ridiculous, she told herself. He could merely be a business tenant, ending his long workday by visiting the roof for some air before going home. She settled her nerves by blowing out air through her lips.
Physically, he was not particularly intimidating, shorter than her own five feet nine inches, slight in stature with thick, wavy black hair and black eyes shaded by a light brown straw boater. She calculated he was in his mid-thirties, a tradesman perhaps, dressed in brown tweeds. Once Julia made eye contact with him, she was bowled over by his intensity, her skin creeping with gooseflesh.
"What d'you want?" the man asked, eyeing her suspiciously.
She tried to imagine what Detective Murdoch would have said, but not having his mind for crime she decided careful honesty was the best approach. "I'm Doctor Julia Ogden, Toronto City Coroner. I'm here trying to determine the cause of death for someone in my morgue," she replied. "May I ask who you are?"
The man held on to his suspicion. "Why d'you care?" He took a last drag on his smoke, then dropped it and ground it out with his shoe.
"Do you work in this building?" she countered. "Because if you do, you might be able to tell me who she was. Or you might know something about her death."
He ignored her. "Was she murdered? Was she?"
Julia was shocked at the harshness in his voice. She took an involuntary step back. "That is what I am trying to determine. Why do you ask?"
"Might be she hung around with the wrong crowd, see. Sbaglio - how you say...a mistake? Or might be sending a message to someone else by hurting her."
A message? To whom? What does that mean? she worried. Who is this man?
Julia's gut was uneasy again. Perhaps being alone on a roof after hours with a strange man who was somehow involved in a violent death was a bad idea. "I do not know. The possibilities are accident, murder or suicide," she explained carefully, trying to remain calm and not excite the man. "I am up here to see if anything helps me determine which." The man's eyes narrowed. Seeing him scour the roof with his sharp gaze, she guessed he didn't miss much. "Sir, may I ask what your place in all this is?"
"Can you prove it?" He continued to block her questions. "Prove if someone killed her? Prove who it was that done this?"
His persistence was annoying her as well as becoming more alarming. Despite the heat from the sun, a chill overtook her. "Physical evidence only says she fell to her death. The height of the parapet makes an accidental fall less likely." She saw he agreed with her assessment.
"So, you figger she was pushed or she jumped? How'll you know? When'll you prove it one way or the other?"
"That is my job to figure out. You have to give me enough time…"
The man interrupted. "So you say." He looked like he was trying to make up his mind. "If you're the coroner, Doctor Lady, what about all those fellows who ended up sick and dead from the bad liquor? How many? Have you figgered out what did it?"
She found that to be an odd turn of the conversation. "The newspapers have the story. I have eight men and women in my morgue. Poisoned by alcohol, just as you might suppose. Not an uncommon phenomenon from a poor-man's still. The constabulary needs to discover where it originally came from."
He glowered at her. "Who do the coppers like for it?"
She reacted to the step he made towards, automatically backing up, bumping against the parapet. "They don't know. Bootleggers," she blurted out without meaning to. Damn! He's got my nerves on edge.
She was about to ask another question when he turned around abruptly for the door. "Sir...!" He had the door open and was about to go down. "Stop, please," she called out. Julia was relieved he was leaving, yet she was desperate to get through to him. "Are you her lover? The woman who fell from this roof?"
To her surprise, he stopped. Keeping his back to her, he spoke. "Where are her two little ones?"
Two children? Julia felt a little sick. "I don't know, because I don't know who she is, but you obviously do. Help me!" She moved over the roof towards him. She'd been right about there being children and dreaded the idea they were alone in the world - as much as she was horrified a woman with small children might take her own life.
He turned as if to confront her, his fist hitting the door hard enough to split the wood. "Her name is Olive. Olive Routledge. Find out what happened to her and the children. I'd be much obliged, Doctor Lady." With that the man was down the stairs faster than she could follow, shouting over his shoulder as he went: "And find out if someone did her in."
"I'll do it for her, not you!" she shouted back after him. "Selfish bastard…" she said to the sky in disgust.
Her heart pounded. What a strange encounter! Julia thought. She recognized his accent as European, possibly Spanish or Italian, and silently questioned what he was doing here, so far outside Toronto's Italian enclave, west of Bathhurst.
She went back to her original fear about the reason he came up here: Was his presence a sign he killed her?
Somehow, Julia doubted it, he'd been too open about it, and too insistent to involve her. But what do they say about the guilty returning to the scene of the crime? What if that is why he was pumping her for information. The whole thing left her feeling rattled. She exhaled heavily, trying to loosen her anxiety, because the man's words baffled her. She recalled Inspector Brackenreid's suspicions about all Italians. She'd be damned if she was going to adopt the same prejudice, assuming the worst because of where he immigrated from.
Surveying around the rooftop again, she went to where the woman - Olive - likely went over, and looked down. How can she possibly decide if Olive went over by her own volition or was pushed? Using her camera, she took a few pictures of the roof, then made measurements and references notes. She walked back, pretending she was the victim - the gravel on the roof was loud under foot, therefore no one was going to sneak up on her. There were no drag marks, no gouges. Maybe there was something I missed on the body to tell me?...Or the angle of the fall?
Sighing, she went down the long flights of stairs to talk with the janitor who swore he had never seen the man from the roof before. In the last of the good daylight, she took photographs of the courtyard and additional measurements before walking to her car for the drive home, all the while planning how to accomplish several things:
One: Inform Detective Pearce about the man on the roof and a lead on his victim's name.
Two: Locate Olive Routledge's children.
Three: Get Ruby to help develop the photographs.
Julia entered her motorcar, hissing at how hot the leather seats were on the back of her legs. Another point in favour of trousers. She started the motor, easing into traffic, optimistic she'd figure out the manner of death, even if she had to throw sacks of potatoes off the roof to see how they fell.
What I absolutely refused to do is ask that damnable know-it-all Detective Murdoch for help!
