“No, Andrew.” She shook her head. “We found the letter in Ernie’s pocket! The one that foretold of someone about to die. He was about to give it to me, I know it.”
“Oh, that. The letter was waiting for you in the foyer. It was from me. Ernie simply picked it up to give you, along with the other magazines he was delivering. He’s so good at scurrying after anything you want, isn’t he?” He chuckled and frowned simultaneously. It turned his visage into a gruesome mask.
“You? You put the letter there for me?” Allene asked, her voice cracking. “Oh my God, Ernie!” She rushed to his side, where he was still unconscious, but thankfully breathing. Ernie, who was only trying to help. Oh, God in heaven. How could she have been so wrong? As her hand rested on his cold, sweaty forehead, a million scenes played out in her mind, a kaleidoscope of images. Hazel Dreyer dead on the floor of a laudanum overdose. Jasper’s uncle splayed out on a floor of broken glass, with too much wood alcohol drowning his mind. Florence.
“Yes. I put it there. And yes, I killed Hazel and your drunk uncle.”
“You goddamned bastard!” Jasper hollered with a viciousness that sent spittle to the factory floor. Jasper took two rushing steps to attack Andrew, but Andrew’s legs shuddered, and he collapsed to his knees in weakness before Jasper could even touch him.
“I am. I am. I own that I’m a monster.” He began to laugh and slowly sat down to rest his arms on his knees. “Oh, this business. It’s killing me. I need a breather. I need a bracer too. Got any whiskey?” he asked Jasper, chuckling.
Jasper gathered Andrew’s shirtfront in his fist. He didn’t even try to resist. He even dropped the screwdriver, as if thankful that Jasper was keeping him from falling over. “Why?” Jasper growled. “Why would you kill my uncle? He did nothing to you.”
“Ah, but he did plenty to you. Look at you, all indignant and playing the victim. He was a drunk, in debt, and an embarrassment. He wanted you to stay away from Allene and Birdie. Didn’t you ever listen to him?” Allene and Jasper exchanged glances. “Oh, it was easy enough to overpower him and pour the wood alcohol down his throat. Allene gave me the idea. She told me that she’d almost poisoned herself by accident. I bought a bottle, but no one would know it was mine, not his. All too easy.”
Allene’s stomach curled into a knot. She remembered the remark and remembered Andrew had waved it off as a minor accident. She thought Andrew had forgotten it. She hadn’t wanted him to be jealous of her being in Jasper’s apartment, but the whole time, he’d been thinking of murder instead.
“But Hazel Dreyer? So you did get the wrong prescription?”
“I did. And I didn’t.” He shrugged.
Allene remembered the young pharmacist wearing far too fine a wardrobe after he’d been fired. “The pharmacist. You paid him off, didn’t you?”
“Eh, he hated the job anyway.”
“Why, why? Why would you do these things? They didn’t deserve any of it! Why would you kill Florence? What did she do to you?”
“Florence?” Andrew rested his head in his hand, scratching his head. A few strands of his hair fell loose to the floor, revealing small balding patches beneath the dull-brown hair. “Oh, Florence. Well, I didn’t kill her.”
“And we’re to believe that?” Allene said. She stood, placing herself between Ernie’s unconscious form and Andrew. “After you’ve confessed to killing our dearest . . . you killed Birdie’s mother. I thought you loved Birdie!”
Andrew’s head snapped up at Birdie’s name. “I do.” He held an apology in his eyes. “I’m sorry, Allene. So sorry. But you won’t miss me. You never loved me, and perhaps I never loved you. But now Birdie won’t have anything to do with me.” He dropped his head, and Jasper let go of his shirt, not wanting to touch Andrew’s face. He collapsed to the factory floor and began to weep. “She despises me for giving her everything she wanted.”
Jasper and Allene stared at him, this grand, six-foot-tall man crying like a left-behind child on the playground.
“What, did you do these things to get her attention? Why, why would you?” Allene asked, incredulous. What a way to woo a girl! None of it made sense. But Andrew was still sobbing into his arms. Soon, the weeping began to abate. He seemed to be meditating on his sins in silence. They waited to hear more.
“Andrew,” Jasper said, but Andrew stayed silent. His story was finished and unraveled, for the time being. The police wouldn’t be so patient. “Allene, see if you can send Dawlish to bring the police. I’ll watch Andrew and Ernie,” Jasper said. Behind Allene, Ernie was starting to moan and regain consciousness.
“No. Wait.” Allene was watching Andrew acutely. There was something strange and still about the way his head sagged into his folded arms, the way his fingers hung loosely over his elbows. She took a deliberate step closer, letting her boot clack hard on the floor, yet Andrew stayed frozen still. Two more steps, and she gathered her skirts to crouch at his side, observing him down to the factory dust in his hair. She lifted her fingers, readying herself to touch his shoulder.
Jasper raised a hand of warning. “Allene, don’t—”
With a small grunt of effort, she pushed Andrew’s shoulder hard. He fell over, eyes open to the ceiling, the mask of death already finding a home on his grimacing face.
CHAPTER 29
This is becoming a habit, Jasper thought.
This has to stop.
Another crime scene was laid out before him, and once again, he was threaded into the story inextricably, irreversibly.
An ambulance arrived to whisk away Ernie, who had awoken in excruciating pain from the stab wound. While Jasper spoke to the police, Allene stayed with Andrew’s unmoving body, as if guarding him. Yet he’d seen her eyes. It was the same expression she’d have when experimenting with one of her new parlor tricks. Which proportion of alcohol and water do I need to infuse and light up a dollar bill without burning it to a crisp?
What he didn’t see was sadness or regret. For Allene, Andrew was a mystery to be solved, even in death. The coroners placed Andrew’s body on a stretcher and covered him decently with a sheet. They asked Jasper what the devil he was doing at yet another crime scene, but he didn’t respond.
With no corpse to watch over now, Allene hugged herself as she turned to stare out one of the smoke-stained windows. The police had already exhausted their list of questions and promised to ask more after she revealed the letters they’d been receiving and why she, Jasper Jones, and their friend Birdie Dreyer seemed to be involved in non-influenza New York City deaths with alarming regularity.
“I should go,” Jasper told Allene. “Dawlish can take you home.”
“Where are you going? To the morgue?” Allene asked, without breaking her stare out the window.