“OK…into a gang, I gather. She now considers this street gang family.”
Alastair frowned at this as she closed her bedroom door to go change and remove makeup and mustache, ascot and wig. She was a consummate actress as well as a phrenologist and surgeon. He got only a peek at her large makeup lights and mirror.
He heard the soft laughter of Audra and Gabby as he made his way back toward the front of the house. Unsure what to do with himself until she’d return and introduce him to the would-be witness to Leather Apron, or whoever might be behind the Vanishings, Alastair wandered into the parlor, the room where he had been accidentally shot by Gabby. He stood gazing at the room as if in a dream, the memory of that thunder-and-lightning night coming in flashes. What he recalled most was lying over the top of Waldo Denton-the man he believed the garroter-and bleeding over him where he was pinned below Ransom’s 260 pounds.
He looked down at his girth and wondered just how much he weighed these days. He feared what a scale might say about it.
“I am ready to proceed,” said Jane from behind him. “Are you prepared to meet Audra?”
“Where best to conduct the interview?”
“Anywhere but here. What about the kitchen. We’ve nothing but good memories there.”
She led the way, adding, “I’ve prepared the child to meet you. Have shown her photographs. It’s how I first learned of her father and mother, and besides, she knows of you…says she has seen you on the street, knows you as The Bear, she says.”
“You have photographs of me?”
“From newspaper accounts, yes, and one I purchased from Mr. Keane.”
“Hold on! Are you saying Philo charged you for a photo of me, and you were foolish enough to pay?”
“Well, it was a rather memorable photo. I am in it as well,” she replied, smiling. “Imagine a photo of us together.”
“At the fair? On the Ferris wheel? When?”
“At the train station when you snatched that boy’s head off his garroted neck and pushed it into my hands.”
“Tewes’s hands, you mean.”
“Yes, if you wish to get technical. It’s how we met, all the same, isn’t it.”
“Blasted Philo.”
She called for Gabby to bring Audra into the kitchen to meet Inspector Ransom. In a moment, the college-aged Gabby, maternally guiding and hovering about the little girl, stood smiling before them. Although scruffy-haired, Audra’s eyes were constantly working, suspicious. Gabby had bathed the girl and had dressed her in hand-me-downs.
Audra held firm to her newly acquired doll in one hand and Gabby with the other. Gabby introduced her to Alastair, ending with, “And you know my Aunt Jane.”
Alastair smiled his warmest, wanting to get on the child’s good side.
“Are you a Zoroaster?” asked the small girl.
“A what?”
“I forgot to tell you, Alastair, she asks everyone if they are a Zoroaster, a devil.”
“Hmmmf,” he let out a sound. “Do I look like a devil?”
“Ahhh…yeah, you do,” came the small reply half swallowed in Audra’s throat. Jane had not exaggerated; she was a cute little blond thing indeed.
“Zoroaster is a deity, Alastair, one that Audra believes is running loose and unchecked here in Chicago, at work and behind the Vanishings-telling other individuals, according to Audra, to bring him sacrifices. She also says some strange old sick-in-the-head bird named Bloody Mary procures for Zoroaster.”
“Oh, great…our killer is a deity, a supernatural being who talks to that old crone, Bloody Mary.”
“You know her?” Jane’s look was incredulity at its zenith.
“Not a cop in Chicago doesn’t know Bloody Mary or has arrested her at one time or another. Frankly, Jane, this doesn’t feel like a useful lead. More like a frightened girl’s tale.”
“Then you know where to find this so-called Bloody Mary, but you’re not going to look into this allegation that she is somehow connected to the Vanishings?” asked Jane.
“Why not at least pick her up for questioning!” said an excited Gabby.
Alastair took Jane into the hallway and whispered, “Look, the old bat is out of her head. A complete loon. From day to day, she doesn’t even know who she is, but I’ve known her for years. Can find her almost any night in the drunk tank.”
“Perhaps she has graduated to more serious crime than public intoxication.”
“No…no…you amateur detectives…”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means, I think this is a dead end.”
“No! Don’t shut down on this just yet. Hear the girl out.”
“Bloody Mary’s a vagrant, a regular at the station house.”
“And like the Phantom has remained invisible until you opened your eyes to him and proved him a fiend.”
“Bloody Mary is hardly invisible. She’s a public nuisance and a beggar.”
“But she sounds like she has the habits of a weasel.”
“More like a rat and smells it. Lice ridden…nobody wants to go near her.”
“Just hear the girl out, Alastair.”
“OK…OK…”
They returned to join Gabby and Audra. Gabby was in midsentence, “And besides, I did some research and Zoroaster is not all bad; in fact, he’s a she and she’s a he, Mother. Ironic, huh?”
“Whatever do you mean?” asked Jane, blinking.
“Zoroaster is both good and evil. I showed Audra where it says so in my book on mythology, and she’s accepting us as all from the good Zoroaster.”
“Sounds promising,” replied Alastair. “Now listen, little girl,” he said, “I have arrested this Bloody Mary on occasion, so don’t go suspecting she’s anything but human, and if she is in any way involved in carving up little kids, she will pay dearly once I have her in my jail again.” He displayed his enormous handcuffs. “So stop your worrying. Just tell me what you’ve seen.”
She looked, big-eyed, all about the room, from face to face, still reluctant to speak. Gabby tried to dispel the tension with a joke. “If you at any time feel it necessary, you can always shoot Inspector Ransom.”
Jane and Ransom both glared at Gabrielle, who instantly gasped, realizing what she’d said was not at all funny as she’d intended. “I didn’t really mean…I mean…no Audra, there’s no shooting the inspector.”
Ransom pulled forth a photo of Anne Chapman in her yellow print dress. “Look, child, did you ever see Anne Chapman-this girl”-he put the photo in her hand-“with Bloody Mary?”
“Ahhh…no, I didn’t but-”
Already skeptical of learning anything from the child, Alastair placed another photo and another and another before her. All the remaining victims, some still missing. “Have you ever seen Bloody Mary kicking about with any of these children?”
“They aren’t street kids like me. They all had homes.”
“I am aware of that, but did you or didn’t you see them with Bloody Mary?”
Like a little one-man judge and jury, Audra looked from the photos and up at Alastair, sizing him up, reevaluating him. “I think I ought to take you to my king,” she blurted out.
“Your king?”
“Yes, Robin. He’ll tell you; they’ll all tell you who the killer is, that it’s Bloody Mary and no one else.”
“The same old beggar lady who sells stolen stuff from windowsills and clotheslines?” asked Ransom.
“That’s her, all right. But her real job is butchering children like me.”
“And you say you can back this up with others like this Robin fellow’s testimony?”
“The whole lot of us know it’s her. She’s been after us for months.”
“Well, then, Audra, dear,” came Jane’s soothing voice, “why don’t you take us to your king and his court?”
“They’ll beat me if they don’t go for it, they will…but I told King Robin that we gotta trust somebody, and when Miss Jane was so kind to me…I began to tell. Trouble is…if you tell everything, the demons-the bad Zoroaster’s people-they’ll kill you for it.”
“She told me the demons don’t want adults to know they’re here,” Gabby added.