“They all look turn of the century, 1900 more or less,” I said. “So?”
“That’s the thing,” Connor said. “If they were all suicides, they probably happened periodically through history. They should all be dressed in different styles reflecting all those times, right? But they’re not. Everyone who died here is from the same era.”
“So, something tragic happened all at once,” I said.
Connor nodded. “That would be my guess.”
“But what?” I looked down at the structure of the bridge, namely the two sets of train tracks that ran across them. “Train derailment?”
“I’m not sure,” Connor said, reaching into his coat pocket and pulling out a small stoppered vial, “but we’re going to find out.”
He walked around in the drift of souls until he narrowed his focus in on a man in his early twenties wearing a suit two sizes too big for him. Connor flipped the stopper off the top of the vial and the air immediately filled with the smell of patchouli. Tendrils of light brown vapors rose up from it and slowly snaked their way up and around the young man. When the smoke reached his nostrils, his face fell slack.
“Hey, friend,” Connor said, sounding quite collegial, “you mind telling me what you’re waiting for?”
The young man gave a slow nod as he continued to stare off along the distance of the East River. “Our steamer,” he said.
“You’re expecting a boat?” I asked.
The man nodded again, ever so slightly.
I looked over at Connor. “Are we talking metaphorically? Like a boat to the afterlife? I don’t think the East River qualifies as the River Styx, does it?”
Connor gave me a look. “Shush,” he said, turning his attention back to the ghost. “Where are you going today?”
The man smiled, a grin crossing his face from ear to ear like a cartoon character. “On a picnic.”
I had forgotten how exaggerated the features could get on a spirit when raw emotion came to the surface. Connor didn’t react; he just nodded along with him.
“Sounds nice,” he said. “When are you expecting it?”
“Soon,” the man said, but his face changed. Uncertainty crept into his eyes and his mouth twisted in concern. “But, my goodness, I thought it would certainly be here by now. You do think it’s coming, don’t you? Mr. Carter promised us and I’d hate to think that the St. Mark’s Lutherans were so unsound in their financial affairs that they had to cancel.”
Connor looked at me and gave a bitter smile. “Comforting to see that budget concerns have a long and illustrious history.”
“Do you think that the lady will know what the holdup is?” the young man asked, his voice barely an audible whisper on the wind.
“Lady?” Connor asked him.
The man looked around the expanse of the bridge through the crowd of his fellow ghosts, nervous. His face was pained. “I shouldn’t say anything more or she’ll hurt me.”
“I think I know what lady,” I said, stepping around to get in front of him. “A woman with dark hair, wearing a long green dress, yes?”
“Dark haired, yes,” he said, “and in a green dress that I daresay is a bit immodest on a woman.”
“Figures,” I said. “That dress of hers is no doubt scandalous by his standards.”
“Well, at least your little water woman is a bit of a fashion plate,” Connor said. “A killer, but still able to pull off the cover shot of Paranormal Quarterly. Nice.”
I turned back to the young man. “Why are you afraid of her?” I asked, but the look on his face was already enough to give me my answer.
The young man’s fear seemed to be agitating the rest of the ghosts around him. Like a ripple in a pond, frantic energy began to radiate outward from him until we were surrounded by a sea of nervous spirits. “Foul fortunes come on foul winds,” he said. “And together they blow twice as hard. She has risen, but the worst has yet to rise.”
“Tell me,” I begged of him, wishing I could reach out and grab him to shake him. “Who has risen? What’s her name?”
“We should probably get out of here,” Connor said. “As in, now.”
“Tell us,” I said. “Please.”
“General . . . Slocum,” the young man said, his fear growing. His feet left the ground as his agitation grew, swirling off into the crowd. I wasn’t sure if he was gearing up to attack or not, but it was clear that Connor’s ghostwrangling mixture had worn off. I didn’t want to see what happened next, but Connor was already one step ahead of me.
Already in motion, Connor bolted off across the bridge and I came running after him. Spirits dove and wove around us and I did my best to keep them from passing through me as I ran. By the time we passed beyond one of the stone towers at the end of the bridge, the swarm was well behind us and already settling down again. When the two of us stopped running, we both were panting pretty heavily.
“Dare I ask how my hair is?” I asked.
“Still perfect,” Connor said, “although you could maybe use some product in all this wind.”
“Smart-ass,” I said. “Can you do anything to disperse them?”
Connor shook his head as he fixed the collar of his windblown trench coat. “I don’t think so, kid,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve seen so many ghosts in one place since that night at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Besides, it’s hard to disperse them when I don’t know why they’re still here in the first place.”
“So what now?” I said, adjusting my coat. I tapped my bat. “Fat lot of good this would do.”
“Don’t get all bent out of shape,” Connor said. “I consider what we just did a win. We made it off the bridge alive, didn’t we?”
I nodded. “Yeah, that’s something.”
“But that’s not all,” he added.
“No?”
“We have a name,” he said. “I’m not sure who General Slocum is, but I aim to find out.”
“I hope Godfrey Candella’s on call, then,” I said.
Connor headed off toward the lights of Queens. “With all the cuts, everybody’s on call all the time.”
“True,” I said, yawning with fatigue, shivering, “but I think this has to wait until morning. I’m not sure if Godfrey needs his sleep, but I’m pretty sure I do.”
18
Heading down to the Gauntlet always creeped me out a little. The archives were far older than the coffeehouse, movie theater, and offices above, and descending the well-worn stone stairs into the caverns that housed our gathered archival resources sometimes felt like I was going on a caving expedition. I hurried all the way down until I reached the door at the bottom and swung it open to reveal the main room where overhead lights, shelves and shelves of books, and antique wooden worktables galore gave a hint of civilization that calmed me again. As luck would have it, Godfrey Candella was rushing out of one of the aisles, heading for his office off to my right. I had to jog just to intersect with him, but when I did, I almost wished I hadn’t.
“What do you want?” Godfrey said, continuing past me with his stack of books.
I followed him as he headed into his office. His large wooden desk was threatening to collapse under the weight of already accumulated books, but Godfrey seemed determined to test the limits of its structural integrity by finding room for more.
“Nice to see you, too,” I said. Godfrey shoved some papers off the top of one pile of books, letting them fall into another one, forming one super pile of loose paper chaos. Something didn’t feel quite right. It was far too quiet down here. The hustle and bustle of the usual staff was all but gone at the moment.
“Where the hell is everyone?” I asked.
“What everyone?” Godfrey asked, snapping. “This is it. Me. I’m the everyone.”
I looked around for someone else down here, anyone else. “You’re kidding,” I said.
Godfrey put the books down on his desk and pushed his horn-rims back up onto his nose. “First of all,” he said, “I rarely kid. Especially when it comes to the Gauntlet.”