to the knowledge. Given that there are only twenty or so doctors in the city, it greatly narrows our window of suspicion.” He swiped at a clump of grass with his walking stick.
“You seem almost disappointed.”
“It’s too easy,” he complained. “This afternoon we’ll go into the city. I’ll pose as an uncle searching for medicine to mollify his niece’s sick headaches. You’ll meet me in the offices shortly after my arrival. If our killer fits the mold for intelligent killers, he’ll be socially capable with men, at least—as he’d have to be in order to get through medical school and hold a practice. But if he’s incapable of touching a woman who isn’t unconscious, with women he’ll be quite awkward.”
“It does seem simple,” Grace had agreed. “Why involve yourself at all if the ether so clearly indicates a medical man as the culprit? Can’t the police deduce that themselves?”
“One would think,” Thornhollow said, a muscle in his jaw ticking. “But George’s report at the station identified the smell as alcohol. He claims the girl drank herself into a stupor in the park, got herself roughed up—his words, not mine—and then expired in a coma. The death of a migrant kitchen worker is less than interesting to the police in a city such as this. Their police force isn’t large enough to investigate too deeply anything that isn’t potentially lucrative.”
“Lucrative?”
“Certainly. Expired liquor licenses, tax evasion . . . anything that actually brings revenue to the city you’ll see carried out to the letter of the law. Digging into a murder with few clues—again, their words, not mine—requires time, something policemen want to be paid for.”
“But not you,” Grace said, stopping to rest under a maple near the banks of the pond, its wide leaves red with the arrival of fall.
“No. I do it for the experience. The science of the matter.”
Grace had been silent for a moment, watching the ripples of the pond as fish fed on the early morning insects. “What was her name?”
“I’m sorry?”
“You said she was a kitchen worker, so she must have been identified.”
“Ah, yes. Uh . . .” Thornhollow’s brow creased as he tried to recall a fact less imperative to him than others. “Anka. Anka Baran. She was Polish. Something we’ll want to keep in mind as we move forward. Assuming we don’t catch our man today we need to make note that there may be some racial motivation. Perhaps a dislike of immigrants.”
“I don’t think so,” Grace argued. “There was nothing to show hatred. The method he used to kill, it’s almost as if he specifically did not want to hurt her.”
“A very good point. I’ll amend it to add that perhaps he only wanted to hurt her in a very specific way and did not have the time. Or was physically incapable. Either way, we’ll know soon enough. I imagine we’ll be face-to-face with him within a few hours.”
Grace remembered Thornhollow’s prediction as Mrs. Beem’s comb passed near her scar, the feeling of the teeth fading as it touched the numb skin there, then reappearing as it trailed down her cheek.
“Hold still now. No jumping when I work around your face. Don’t want to mar you any more, do we?”
The last delicate clips were done, her hair dried and curled, Mrs. Beem’s fingers expertly twisting a pile of curls complete with pins holding a few in place to hide the damage at her temples.
“All right, Miss Chancey,” Mrs. Beem said. “Take a look. Doesn’t my pretty quiet one look as good or better than any of the fancy ladies that walk the shops down below?”
“Better,” Miss Chancey said around a mouthful of pins as she worked with Nell’s heavy hair. “With those scars covered she’d pass for normal easy as the rest of us.”
Grace glanced in the mirror and silently agreed. She was ready to go to work.
“You’re turning into a regular criminal,” Thornhollow teased when Grace produced the hairpins she’d lifted from Mrs. Beem’s sink stand.
“A planner, for sure,” Grace agreed, looking at herself in the mirror of his office. “I knew you’d have all the details right when finding me a dress. It’s fashionably cut so that I don’t look out of place, but not too distinctive of a print so as to attract undue attention. You’ve matched the hat, but completely forgotten that I’d need pins to hold it in place. Unfamiliar with women’s garments, indeed.”
“Perhaps I’ve taught you a little too well,” he said, holding out his arm for