Chapter Fourteen
Five Days After the Murder
GRACE WANTED TO alight to Sam Whitcomb’s offices first thing the next morning, but Lillie had arranged for them to meet with Dr. May instead.
Grace tightened her hat as she stepped out into the cool morning breeze.
She locked the studio door behind her, her eyes narrowing.
She would have just enough time to speak with Dr. May that morning, meet with Walt for lunch on the fairgrounds, and then pay a visit to Sam Whitcomb’s offices.
But she startled a little when a carriage came around the corner.
Because it wasn’t the Carters’ carriage that she had been expecting.
It was Earnest Allred’s.
Her face promptly flushed, embarrassed about how badly things had gone last night. She braced herself as the carriage door opened.
“Grace!” Lillie exclaimed. “Earnest agreed to give us a ride to Dr. May’s on his way to a business meeting this morning. Wasn’t that kind of him?”
“Miss Covington,” Earnest said in greeting. His smile was brittle.
“Mr. Allred,” she said. She fiddled absently with the large flowers pinned at the throat of her blouse, hoping Lillie didn’t pick up on how noticeably strained things were between them.
“I wasn’t sure if I was even going to convince Mother to let me leave this morning,” Lillie said as the carriage trundled over the paved stone roads. “Her nerves are fraying. But with Earnest’s help, she finally relented.”
“Then we thank you for your service, Mr. Allred,” Grace said stiffly.
He tipped his hat sarcastically at her.
“Was Aunt Clove upset about the party last night?” Grace asked, turning to Lillie.
“Livid,” Lillie said.
They left the bustling streets surrounding the fairgrounds and drove to a place called Scab Row. The sunlight was weaker here, the smells stronger. The streets seemed glazed with something sticky and wet. It was not a part of St. Louis Grace had ever been to before.
There was a small, almost-hidden sign outside the building. THE EVENING DISPENSARY FOR WOMEN.
Earnest eyed the street. “Are you certain you’ll be safe here?” he asked, frowning as he helped Lillie from the carriage.
“We’ll be fine,” Lillie assured him. “We’ll hail a cab for the way back.”
Earnest turned to help Grace from the carriage. He gripped her arm perhaps a little tighter than necessary, fixing his blue eyes on her.
When she stepped to the ground, he drew her in close.
“It’s true. I remember now. I did order a drink for Harriet that night,” he said roughly, his voice low. “But I was having a conversation with someone before I could give the glass to Oliver. If someone put something in it, it was probably then.”
He dropped Grace’s arm and climbed back into the carriage. He shut the door, giving two smart raps on the carriage’s ceiling, without looking at her again. Grace fought an unsettled feeling as the driver pulled away.
She followed Lillie, climbing the brick stairs lined with rusting wrought iron, and Lillie knocked on the door. Grace covered the rumble of hunger pains in her stomach by feigning a cough.
“Dr. May and Dr. Baker opened this. They were two of the first female physicians in the state of Missouri,” Lillie said as they waited on the stoop.
“Remind me to tell you later how Dr. May tricked the all-male St. Louis Medical Society into letting her in by submitting her name with only a first initial.”
“Lillie,” a woman said warmly, opening the door to them. Her hair was pulled up into a chestnut bun streaked with the beginnings of silver. Her eyes were overlarge and soulful, and though her face was lined with wrinkles, something about her appeared strangely youthful.
“Dr. May! This is my cousin, Grace Covington,” Lillie said. “Thank you for agreeing to meet with us. I know how busy you are.”
“Of course, my dear,” Dr. May said. “Come in.”
Dr. May ushered them inside the clinic. It was dim, with the drapes pulled closed, but sparkling clean. They sat on worn chairs, surrounded by bookcases and glass cases of medicines and plants. There was a faint smell of woody tea and iodine.
“Dr. May opened the Emmaus House for young women who come to the fairgrounds and work long days with little or no family,” Lillie said as the doctor disappeared into the small kitchen. “She’s made her career seeing mostly working women and”—she dropped her voice—“prostitutes.”
Grace looked around the room and took out her small notebook.
“Does she treat addicts?” Grace asked.
At least the murder had something Grace could grasp and get her hands around.
It was information and clues and motives, and she would get down in the dirt of it all, feeling the grime of it beneath her fingernails.
It felt good, to chase down an enemy she could take on for Oliver.
Because it was something outside of him.
Not inside. Not something that became intertwined with himself that she couldn’t kill the monster of it without hurting him too.
“What would you like to discuss?” Dr. May said, appearing with a tray of tea.
Lillie accepted a steaming cup. “Thank you for your concern about my brother Oliver. We’re not convinced we have the full story, and we’re looking into it a little ourselves. We’d like to hear more about the kind of poison that was revealed in Harriet Forbes’s autopsy.”
Dr. May’s face was serious. “Go on.”
Lillie nodded at Grace, who took out an ink pen and cleared her throat.
“Strychnine,” she began. “We’re wondering, what does it look like, and how would it be administered?”
“Yes. Let’s see. Well, strychnine is sourced from the seeds of the Strychnos nux-vomica tree,” Dr. May explained.
She stood and pulled a book from the shelf, flipping through its pages.
“It’s a neurotoxin, a white powder that is odorless, and quite bitter.
” She paused on a page. “In fact, I’m surprised that Miss Forbes would have consumed it without noticing it, unless it was administered in a very strong drink. ”
Grace and Lillie immediately looked at each other. “Dubonnet,” Lillie said, her eyes wide with horror. “Oliver had recently begun drinking Dubonnet.”
The intensely bitter drink was another detail not in Oliver’s favor.
“And how would strychnine be sourced?” Lillie asked. “Would it have been difficult for the murderer to acquire?”
“Unfortunately, no,” Dr. May said. “It can be used as a rodent poison, which means it’s likely being used in abundance during the Exposition.
It’s also used as a stimulant for the heart and bowels, and it rapidly metabolizes in the human body.
Fatal doses cause severe muscular convulsions that eventually paralyze the respiratory muscles, causing asphyxiation.
The autopsy would have shown concentrations in the blood, liver, kidneys, and stomach wall. ”
Grace shuddered.
She remembered Harriet, so alive on the roller coaster as she laughed and screamed, clutching Oliver’s hand with delight. Singing at the restaurant with that fire in her eyes; thanking Grace that first night in the boat. Dreaming of her future.
Who did this to you, Harriet? Grace wondered.
“So there is no way to track the particular kind of strychnine?” Lillie asked. “No variants to help determine where it came from?”
“I’m afraid not,” Dr. May said.
“What about drug addicts?” Grace asked quietly. “Do they use it?”
“Not usually,” Dr. May said. “No. I’ve heard of some cases where strychnine can be used to adulterate drugs like heroin and cocaine, but then ingestion is accidental.” She paused thoughtfully. “Well. But then there’s the Keeley Cure.”
“The Keeley Cure?”
“It’s a treatment for addicts. Concoctions that contain gold, strychnine, and alcohol that are injected into those battling addictions. To be honest, I have my suspicions about it. I wonder if it does more harm than good.”
Lillie stole a glance at Grace, and the questions Grace had been prepared to ask suddenly died.
Other questions, the ones she most desperately wanted to know, rose up within her, coating her mouth like bubbles.
Could this woman tell her—were the truest, loveliest parts of Walt still safe and hidden away somewhere?
Able to be unfurled and reached again? To be coaxed back out and into the sunshine?
“My brother—” Grace paused. “He…”
“What can be done to help an addict?” Lillie asked, jumping in for her. “What resources are there?”
“Unfortunately, there are too little right now,” Dr. May said.
“I know of some doctors exploring treatment options in New York City. There are a few private options available for those with a substantial amount of money here in this city. But I’m seeing a need for a clinic or something to help those without as many resources.
It’s something I’d like to look into after the fair. ”
Dr. May’s eyes blinked at them behind her large glasses like a small, inquisitive bird. “I’ll need to get back to the hospital soon. What else?”
Grace watched the sunshine and shadows dance over her fingers. “Do you ever feel overwhelmed by all of the hurting people?” she asked.
Dr. May touched her hand gently. “Life often feels like one long, dissonant chord, waiting for release, doesn’t it?
” she said. “Well, I look for those places I can create a little relief for people. Brief moments of harmony.” Her face melted into a glorious smile.
“And what’s been most unexpected is that the notes end up playing a melody in my life as well. ”
Grace held on to that, as though Dr. May had given her a life raft, a rope made of light to cling to.
“Thank you for seeing us, Dr. May,” Lillie said, standing. They helped bring the teacups to the sink.
As Dr. May walked them to the door, Lillie asked, “One more question. Is it possible that the strychnine was administered earlier in the day? How long until the onset of symptoms?”