“Well,” he began. He no longer had a job there, but it wouldn’t stop him from trying to find out more about Andrew’s death. “Yes.”
“You’re always going to the morgue.” She turned to Jasper, and he realized now that her dry eyes were red and her eyelids and nose were swollen. She was a quiet crier, he now knew. “Why is it, Jasper, that you prefer to spend time with the dead and not with the people who love you?”
“I had a job,” Jasper began. “I had to work. I’ve no money. You do. It’s that simple.”
She stared at him. “Had a job?”
Embarrassment suffused his cheeks. “I got fired.”
Allene’s shoulders fell in exhaustion. “Oh Lord, Jasper. When?”
“Around the time that you got sick. I was becoming unfocused and messy. And I seemed to coincidentally know too many corpses that came though the morgue.” He waved his hand. “But that’s not important. Not now. I think we should find out what killed Andrew.”
Allene sobered further. “The police think it’s a suicide. They don’t believe the fight with Ernie killed him.”
“Well, we see it all the time. Murderers don’t want to go to Sing Sing or fry in the electric chair or deal with the circus of the courts. Death is easier. Murder and suicide go together like peaches and cream.”
Allene shuddered. “I don’t believe Andrew wanted to die.”
“Neither do I. And what’s more—Andrew said he had nothing to do with Florence’s death, and you and I both know that she was murdered too. So let’s find out the truth. The pathology laboratory is probably closed, but I can still get in.”
“But you’ve been fired!”
“I still have my keys,” he said thoughtfully. “And you have money, which opens all sorts of doors.” At Allene’s silence, he added, “Or I could just ask nicely. Want to visit the morgue with me? I could use the company.” He reached for her hand, but she shied away.
“Don’t. It gives me hope where I don’t have a right to feel it.”
Jasper took his hand back. He’d been so used to toying with Allene and her affections. She was a chum, a rare gal, and he was used to playing her any way he wanted, whatever was convenient to him. But there was pain in her eyes. There were consequences to his actions, and he hadn’t cared before.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“It’s all right. I’m getting used to not getting what I want.” She gave an empty laugh before hugging her arms to her chest. “Jasper, if Florence hadn’t died, I believe you never would have stayed in my life after that party. Why are dead people the only things that bring you closer to me?”
They stared at each other. Neither of them truly wanted to hear the answer.
“This will be the last time you’re to set foot in this department, ya understand?” Dr. Gettler barked at Jasper. It was early evening. The rest of Manhattan was sitting at their tables, digging into their wheatless, meatless wartime suppers, caring for their sick, while Allene and Jasper were in the coroner’s office at Bellevue. They’d called Dr. Gettler for an emergency toxicological consultation (“I’m eating my dinner!” he’d yelled at Jasper on the telephone), and now the Bellevue campus was dark, save for the lit lamps in the hospital and a single one in the pathology building where they stood.
“Yes sir.”
“And why on earth did you bring your girl? This ain’t the theater.”
“I’m not his girl,” Allene said. Bitterness didn’t suit her, and it was time to discard it. “I’m . . . we’re . . .” Her eyes rolled to the ceiling, searching for the word. “We’re family.”
They’d used the word when speaking to the police after Hazel died. It felt more and more right this time. Jasper took her hand and curled it around his arm. Funny how he didn’t realize he’d been lonely until he wasn’t.
“Please, sir. She can handle it. She’s a whiz at chemistry.”
“Really?” Dr. Gettler looked at her suspiciously, a challenge lighting up his eyes. “What’s your favorite molecule?”
“Ozone,” she replied, without missing a beat. “It’s so delicate, so ephemeral. And what could be more beautiful than something created by light and energy?”
“Humph.” Dr. Gettler shrugged. “You’re one of those poet chemists. I’m more of a bricklayer chemist.”
“So what’s your favorite molecule?” Allene countered.
“One three seven trimethylxanthine.”
Allene nodded in acknowledgment. Jasper waited for the punch line, but neither said a word. The parts of the formula were familiar to him, but Allene had always outshone him in her pure love of the subject.
“What is it?” Jasper finally asked. They both looked at him like he was a simpleton.
Allene whispered, “Caffeine. The man likes his coffee.”
The door opened. Allene and Jasper turned around and saw Charles Norris, the chief medical examiner, staring down at them with his fierce eyes beneath those bushy salt-and-pepper eyebrows.
“Alexander, what is this boy doing here? I thought we fired him.”
“We did, sir. He came back anyway. Brought a chemist too. A pretty one, at that.”
Dr. Norris stared at Allene, who, to her credit, stood up straighter and met his eye, before he turned back to Jasper.
“We’re not a charity organization,” Dr. Norris told him. “You have no job here. Go home.”
“But sir. See, there’s a problem.”
“Not doing your job? Using our lab as your personal playground? You know, we fired Barston too. He told us you tampered with that socialite’s corpse before it went to the undertaker.”
“I’m sorry. It was wrong of us. But I swear to God, we had the best intentions.” Jasper put out his hands in supplication. “Sir, I believe that my friend Allene . . . and I . . . and our friend Birdie Dreyer . . . well, someone is killing the people we love. All of them have come through the morgue, and each one has shown evidence of foul play.”
Dr. Norris frowned. “So you—”
“And my fiancé just died,” Allene blurted out.
“Your fiancé?”
“He says he killed everyone,” she added. “But we think he was poisoned. He may have even poisoned himself.”
“And we need to find out immediately, because these letters of warning—or declaration, rather—keep coming,” Jasper added. “And our friend Birdie—you remember her mother; she’s the one who died from a laudanum overdose? Well, she’s dying from some sort of cancer, and . . .” He let out his suspicions because there was no point in hiding them. “I think she’s being poisoned too.”
Allene nodded in agreement.
Dr. Norris took this all in stoically, without one trace of confusion. He peered at Jasper. “What letters?”
“Ones that said ‘You’re welcome.’ Presumably for murdering someone we know,” Jasper said. Allene opened her mouth to add more when Dr. Norris held out both hands, silencing them.
He worked his fingers into his beard, thinking. Meanwhile, Dr. Gettler leaned back against a countertop and waited, studying them both. Norris pointed at Jasper, then Allene. They had the feeling that the judgment of God and all the apostles was coming down on them. Allene shrank a little as he waggled the mighty finger in their faces.
“You have some nerve.”