Chapter 9
Nine
Massacre of the Innocents
Oste clasped his hands in front of his waist and stood; light reached out a claw underneath the door to the morgue and tried, hopelessly, to illuminate the dim.
He didn’t know how many hours had passed, only that morning had come and stayed a while, and he’d not set his head on a pillow for any of it.
One moment he was in the alley with a dead woman, and the next, cutting her open on a cold table.
He’d hoped to only have to use his tools and tinctures to save her, but they had another purpose now for her wounds, which somehow seemed loud when he looked at them.
Five deep penetrations from a blade that had relieved her from her blood and her soul.
Five cruel strokes that robbed any chance of faith.
Some part of him felt truly wretched for having stripped her and inspected her so closely, sterile and practiced.
Every cut he made or bare inch of skin he surveyed felt like a violation.
She’d been innocent. She’d been young. He said she was safe, and then he took her into a dim room and cut her some more.
He’d always managed to keep his duty separate enough, like a cloak he’d put on and take off.
His job. His trance. But Frances gnawed at his psyche like she was still alive, every bit a person, a failure, a loss.
Not a subject. Not the planes of anatomy he treated like a puzzle.
The dead were cases. They were supposed to be cases.
His eyes stung, and his mouth was dry, but experiencing it all unfold had pushed aside any notion he had of sleep.
When he coughed harshly into his fist, he realized that Lieutenant de Filhou, on the opposite side of the body, had been trying to get his attention again.
“Docteur,” he repeated in a deep voice. “Docteur, I won’t keep you. You’ve been exemplary.”
Exemplary for providing the obvious conclusion that she’d perished from the blood loss. Exemplary for working through the night. He thought ‘exemplary’ ought to mean not having let anyone die at all.
Oste hung his head and uttered, quietly: “This was the work of the same man.”
“It was a different method.”
“And remarkably similar victims. I know it. I feel it in my gut.”
Jehan smiled weakly. “I hadn’t realized they taught that in medical school.”
“I didn’t learn it there,” he said, catching himself swaying once on his feet. “Jehan, you haven’t arrested anyone. It’s the same killer.”
“Not for lack of trying. We’ve had leads; they just haven’t gone anywhere.”
“How many officials could possibly be traipsing around Cordeliers at night?”
“More than you’d think. Obviously, everyone we question denies any involvement in anything, and unless we find evidence, or catch them in an act…” Jehan shook his head. “It’s difficult, and we’ve not enough manpower on account of—”
“Our penchant for killing each other,” Oste drawled. “The war never ended.”
“No,” Jehan agreed, “it didn’t. If you ask me, the fighting will start up again soon. I think people are taking stock.”
“I heard the same. Your killer has smart timing.”
“Perhaps my superiors will pin this on Protestant riffraff and call it a day.”
Oste didn’t have the energy to laugh. “Where have I seen that one before?”
“This girl—”
“Frances.”
“Frances—Frances had some of their leanings from what we heard from her landlady, so I don’t think the viguerie has that in the cards.”
Oste turned his head to regard Jehan. The lieutenant looked like the opposite of how they both doubtless felt; his uniform was impeccable, and his dark brown hair was styled and groomed beautifully beneath his feathered hat.
Which really was something, Oste thought, because he’d been roused from bed.
He set his preliminary papers on the edge of the table for Jehan to take.
Notes, conclusions, and his weary sketches of the injuries.
Light illuminated the smallest details that he chose to focus on as something.
The cuts had almost imperceptible serrations.
Some effect from a tiny imperfection in a blade, Oste figured.
The hours had also made Frances’s bruises bloom, and when the blood was washed away, there, on the sides of the punctures, was a meager footprint of a sort—the ghostly shape of a dagger’s crossguards.
The faintest spidery trace of a diamond pattern on it, doubtless some kind of custom inlay.
Their monster must have driven his baselard in as far as it would go for it to have stamped her so.
Jehan gathered them up.
“This isn’t as much of a secret anymore,” said Oste quietly. “This killing had plenty of people see.”
“I know. It is what it is. The investigation will continue.”
Oste blew out an exhale and stepped closer to Frances. He traced a finger over her white wrist where she’d worn a banded bracelet. “How many resources will the viguerie spend on two dead prostitutes?”
Jehan bit his bottom lip and shrugged. “Two souls, from a lieutenant and a civic physician, at least.”
“I’ll pay for a decent burial.” Oste nodded down at Frances. “Al-Anezi embalms the best. He’ll see to her today. Just let me know what to send. I’d like for there to be flowers.”
He smiled sadly. “You’re a better man than most.”
“I want to stay on this case. I can do more than cut open dead women. Saint-Mitre can keep eyes and ears open. The Aixois defense doesn’t know me like they know you; someone could let something slip around me.”
He shook his head and walked over to the same side of the table as Oste. “Not today. Not even tomorrow. You look like you’re about to fall over.”
“But I…” Oste began. His mind and his heart were at odds. He wanted to run into the middle of it and subsequently run away.
“You’ve barely been back. Believe me, you won’t want anything to do with this; it’s mostly a lot of paperwork and questioning smelly constables. But if I think of something that would suit you, I’ll let you know.”
Oste frowned deeply at that. It was a rejection in more words. His body tightened like a coil and angled over towards Jehan; the lieutenant instinctively moved back a step.
Jehan raised his hands and spoke, hushed. “What I learn, you’ll learn. Alright?”
He nodded once, but their conversation was interrupted by the door to the morgue swinging open and crudely bouncing off the wall.
A tall, grey-haired figure entered in black garb that looked as aristocratic as his face, high in the cheeks, austere in the eyes.
Directeur Balac—doctor, professor, and director of the hospital—fidgeted with his sleeve and looked straight at Jehan, his cold and indifferent eyes narrowed.
“Will you tell me why you’ve continued to accost my physician even at this hour, Lieutenant?” Balac quipped in a nasally drawl. “Surely your viguerie business is concluded?”
Both Oste and Jehan jumped. Oste never had any reason to fear the director; he was reasonable in his teaching and grading, and seemed to dislike everyone equally.
Still, his body reacted like he had ample cause.
He’d come to bear the memories of Balac’s face in hazy light during those passing periods of awareness when he recalled cold metal digging under his skin, and how hard it was to take a breath.
“It is,” Jehan stammered, then gave a polite bow. “I am most grateful for your timely assistance, Docteur Lézin! Directeur Balac!”
“You’re welcome,” said Balac. “Now go off.”
The lieutenant did as directed. He’d been trained very well over the duration of his stint of needing autopsies carried out at this establishment.
When the director said ‘flee’, by God, he did.
With him gone, Balac stepped close to Oste and narrowed his eyes down at him from behind his scrutinous spectacles.
Oste wondered if he passed muster, but assumed he didn’t.
Standing straight was a challenge, and he felt another cough rising in his chest.
Balac relayed his judgement in an entirely unamused tone. “You look terrible.”
“It was a long night, Directeur.”
He narrowed his eyes another fraction, which Oste didn’t think possible. They were practically closed. “I underreacted. You look like a corpse. Where is that girl of yours? You need to be fanned. You’re leaking toxins.”
Oste blinked stupidly. “Dorotèa?”
“How familiar you sound. Is that what she’s called?”
“I presume she’s bringing my laundry over.”
“Very good,” said Balac. He crudely pressed his hand against Oste’s head, then withdrew it, which garnered another flinch from his former pupil. “Go home.”
“I have patients today.”
“Not anymore. You’ll take off tomorrow, too.”
“Directeur—”
“I’ll not have you perish on university grounds. One close call was enough.”
“Directeur, my apartment is on university grounds, by technicality.”
“You live above the bakery, Lézin. Don’t equate one with the other.
Now, I took a risk taking you on, and you’ve turned out to be a fine physician, so I’d be immensely bothered if you squandered the opportunity that’s sprung itself by, if I may be so crude, dying.
We’d be even more understaffed. I’d have to rely on more anatomists and surgeons with their juvenile skills. ”
“But have they not flourished here?” he asked inquisitively. Balac’s figure appeared hazier by the second as they conversed. A cough then did spring, and it felt tight in his chest.
“Yes, but they don’t have the same degree and expertise, come now.”
“You know, that does remind me. What do you think about classes for ladies?”