He was doing his best to keep me distracted, which was never a good sign for the victim. We rumbled past Catherine Slip and turned down Water Street. “It won’t be much longer now.”
I nestled into my collar, breathing in the warmth of my own body. The buildings had gone from gleaming, pale-colored limestone to brick covered in grit and all kinds of sludge. Cobblestone streets gave way to muddy ones, frozen in parts and treacherous-looking for more than one reason. I spied groups of children huddled together between buildings, their faces and limbs gaunt. It was a brutal morning to be outside.
Thomas, never missing a detail, held me tighter. “They’re mostly children from Italy. Either they’ve run from their families or have been turned out to earn money for them.”
A lump rose in my throat. “They’re so young. How on earth can they make a wage?”
Thomas grew very quiet. Too quiet for a young man who enjoyed sharing facts on every subject imaginable. I noticed his fingers weren’t tapping their usual incessant beat, either. I looked out the window again and suddenly knew what he couldn’t bring himself to say. Those boys—those children—would have no choice but to turn to a life riddled with crime. They’d fight, steal, or subject themselves to worse horrors in order to survive. And some would not.
It was a fate I could not imagine for my worst enemy, let alone a child. Even though Thomas had once mentioned the world was neither kind nor cruel, I couldn’t help but feel it was unjust to so many. I stared, unseeing, as we rode by, feeling helpless.
Neither of us spoke again until we reached our destination. As our carriage rumbled to a halt, chills erupted down my spine for an entirely new reason. If the meatpacking district had been a murderer’s dream, then this building was the seat of Satan’s kingdom. The exterior appeared rougher than the men and women slumped against it, and twice as mean. It was a far cry from the dressmaker’s shop, which was filled with lighthearted warmth and decadence.
Reporters in black overcoats circled in front of the door, reminding me of vultures hovering over their next meal. I shot a glance at Thomas, noting the same dark look in his eyes. It seemed murder was the newest form of entertainment. Jack the Ripper had awakened a need in spectators that was almost as frightening as the crimes we investigated.
“Welcome to the East River Hotel,” Thomas said quietly. “We’re heading to room 31.”
Inside, the hotel appeared uninhabitable to anything other than vermin. Even the roaches and mice would probably seek better-smelling accommodations soon. Anyone who charged one cent for room and board ought to be sent directly to the workhouse. Rats scuttled under the stairs and crawled into the walls, unhurried and undisturbed by our presence.
Droppings were scattered everywhere. I took a careful step into the entry, trying not to think of disease clinging to my hemline as my skirts swished over the muck. Father’s fears of contracting illnesses were a hard habit to break. It was dark enough that I was either blessed or unfortunate to not know the full extent of the squalor. The only light in the entryway was from shafts of wan sunlight creeping between slats of rotten wood in the upper level.
Bits of graying plaster on the walls either crumbled on their own or were the unfortunate victims of angry patrons. It was hard to tell if they’d punched the wall or if they’d been shoved into it. Perhaps both scenarios were true. Wallpaper lay half ripped from the hallway, and the rest was stubbornly hanging on. It was dark like the rest of the interior. As dark as the deeds that we were about to investigate.
I made the awful mistake of looking down again and spotted drops of dried blood. Unless the victim had been attacked here, our murderer must have exited this way. My stomach gave an involuntary flip. Perhaps I wasn’t as anxious to study another loss of life as I’d imagined earlier. Maybe nearly a month free from the worry of destruction wasn’t enough of a respite at all.
Thick layers of dust and cobwebs gathered in the corners, adding to the crawling sensation along my back. Buckets of refuse attracted flies and other vermin I didn’t wish to inspect too closely. It was a horrendous place to live and an even more abysmal place to die.
“Which direction?” I asked, half turning to my