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AFTER DINNER JACK wanted to go for a walk, Anna suspected because he had something to talk about that he didn’t want others to hear. They started out in the direction of Washington Square, passing a group of young men coming out of New York University in high spirits, charwomen on their way home, and Mr. Pettigrew, a neighbor. He stopped right in front of them, all but demanding an introduction that was, strictly speaking, overdue. They should have gone to see all the neighbors as a newly married couple, but as they had done everything unconventionally, the visits had been put off.
Jack was attentive and friendly to Maynard Pettigrew, but his smile was a little strained. When they had finally extracted themselves and crossed the street to enter the park, Jack took her hand and pulled her arm through his so they were walking as close as they could without tripping over each other’s feet.
He said, “Tell me about your day.”
“It wasn’t very good.”
“Tell me anyway.”
She thought for a long moment and told him about the fourteen-year-old girl with syphilis, a mouth full of suppurating ulcers, and ascites.
“Ascites is a condition where a lot of fluid builds up in the abdomen so that it looks bloated. It can be very uncomfortable.”
“And what causes that?”
“Nothing very good. Possibly cancer, more likely liver failure, as she spends most of her time at the Grand Duke’s Theater and lives off nothing but stale beer. Why is it the police keep closing that place down only to have it open again a few days later?”
With his free hand Jack rubbed his thumb against his fingers in the universal signal for hard cash.
Anna, expecting nothing less, shook her head. “I aspirated a half gallon of exudate to give her some relief, but she’ll probably be back again before long. If she stops drinking immediately her liver could recover. I sent inquiries to some of the missions, see if anyone has room for her. If she comes back, of course.”
“You’re right,” Jack said. “You didn’t have a very good day.”
“And I only gave you the highlights. But then neither did you, by the face you’re making. No progress with the Liljestr?m case?”
“Just the opposite,” he said. “Another case a lot like it.”
They came to the bench where they had once sat together, when they had barely known each other. She tugged, and he sat down. There was a lovely evening breeze, and from not very far off the sound of children romping with a very excited dog. From an open window came something that Anna thought was supposed to be music, an oboe being played, very badly but with real enthusiasm.
“I’m listening,” she said.
“A woman called Eula Schmitt was found dead in her hotel room this morning.”
“Not the Gilsey House again.”
“The Windsor. A lot of valuable jewelry and a wardrobe full of expensive clothes. Better off than Mrs. Liljestr?m.”
“What did the coroner have to say?”
“At first he thought it was”—he paused to take a notebook out of his jacket pocket—“an ectopic pregnancy, but they did a postmortem at Bellevue this afternoon.”
“Abortion, then.”
He inclined his head. “Maybe two days ago. She died of the same thing as Janine Campbell, peritonitis. Did I get that word right?”
Anna nodded.
He said, “But all we have on her is a name, and that may not even be real. No identification, not even a monogram on a handkerchief or a label on her luggage. A few dollars in her purse, no train or steamer tickets, nothing. I asked the doctor who did the autopsy—McNamara is his name—if there was any sign of previous pregnancies, and he said yes, ample evidence. The hotel staff doesn’t know anything about her except that she paid for her room a week in advance, four days ago. She hasn’t stayed there before, that anybody remembers.”
Anna closed her eyes to think for a moment. It was getting harder to dismiss the idea that the cases were related. “What does your captain think?”
“He gave us a couple days to look into it. Oscar is already going through the newspaper ads; he’s got a couple of the new patrol officers working with him.”
“The newspaper advertisements? There must be hundreds of them.”
“Try to stop him when he gets an idea in his head. Anyway, the man never sleeps.”
Anna said, “I can’t imagine why somebody would be doing this. There’s no logic to it.”
“No logic that you see, or I see. But whoever it is, he’s settling in now for the longer haul.”
Longer haul. The phrase struck her as particularly brutal, the idea that someone had set himself a lifelong task that involved condemning women to terribly painful deaths.
Jack was saying, “It’s the worst kind of situation. He’s dedicated. He doesn’t rush.”
He was still assuming the guilty party was a man, which was likely, after all. Women killed with poison; men made a science of inflicting pain.