Metropolis Pt. 2, page 12
Nick followed suit. The whiskey did have a bite, but great flavor, smoky but not bitter.
“So,” Murphy said, “you’ve dreamed about my home, have you?”
Nick lowered his glass. “For a while, actually. And more lately. I mean, I know these old Victorian Queen Annes were popular in Metropolis a hundred years ago, so at first I thought I must have seen one on the news or in a movie maybe, but then the images got to be pretty specific.”
“Like what?”
Nick didn’t want to get deep into it yet. It’d make him sound crazy, especially if he started in with all the regression stuff. “I’d rather ignore it, to be honest. Just chalk it up to déjà vu and leave it alone. But it’s getting in the way of things at home. So, listen, if there’s anything you can tell me about your house that might help me put it to bed, I’d be grateful.”
Murphy sipped his drink and smacked his lips. “Okey dokey. But I’m an old man, so I don’t rush stories. Capiche?”
Nick chuckled. “Capiche.”
“First thing is, I grew up on Echo’s Hill. Four doors down, as a matter of fact. Great place for a kid. Hill to sled on in the winter and race boxcars in the summer. Plenty of trees for hide-and-seek. You get the picture.”
“Sounds idyllic.”
“Well, not always. Something happened here in 1928 that changed a lot of lives, mine included. Happened right in this home, and it wasn’t pretty.” He took another sip of whiskey. “A girl was murdered here. A young man, too. Whole thing was talked about for years, but my own connection to that night was more than talk and rumor.”
Nick sat forward. “You see it happen?”
Murphy shook his head. “Not the killing part, but the part right after the killing, yeah. I was ten. It was windy that night, and I’d got it in my head it would be fun for me and my pals to play capture the flag. You know, using the wind to cover the sound of us sneaking around the neighborhood. I could be clever at times.”
Nick sipped his whiskey.
“Anyway, I was out on the sidewalk in front of this house, and I heard a gunshot—four actually—like firecrackers going off in the upstairs room. I saw the muzzle flashes in the windows, too. I ducked behind a tree just before a guy came running out. He got into a brand-new Plymouth and sped away, front door still open.”
“You went in the house?” Nick said.
“I was a kid, so I was curious. Only light on in the place was upstairs, but I couldn’t hear or see anyone. So I went in, up the stairs, and down the hall to the frontside bedroom. The door was open there, too, and inside a lamp was shining over the grisly scene. A gal and a young man lay dead on the floor. Switchblade on the floor, too. Blood everywhere. Phonograph was still playing a record.”
Nick couldn’t help but wonder if the young girl was the woman he’d seen in the mirror. He gripped his glass to steady his fingers. “Must have been awful for you.”
“I’d seen a few picture shows,” Murphy went on. “The whole scene kind of reminded me of one of those. Maybe it was the yellow lamplight, or the wind, or the music playing, but it left an impression, is what I’m saying. I can see it today as clear as I did back then. It got inside me, and it won’t let go.”
“So how’d you come to live here, then?”
Murphy polished off his drink, stood up, and poured himself another. “Like I said, that night changed things. I spent the next ten years thinking maybe I could solve those murders someday. Give those young people some justice. So when I was old enough, I joined the Metropolis Police.” He stretched out his sweatshirt. “Got pretty involved with the Athletic Club, made connections so when I made a move for detective, I’d get some good recommendation.”
Nick drank down the rest of his whiskey and asked for a refill. Murphy told him to help himself, which he did, drinking a second and pouring a third before taking his seat again.
“Anyway,” Murphy said, “over the years, I kept an eye on the property and its owner. Guy by the name of Edward Baynes. When he died, the house went into probate. I leapt at the chance to scoop it up. Bought it for a song. And seeing as how it was a probate deal, it came as is—needed repairs and back taxes, but also with all the furnishing and appliances—the whole estate, really, at least where the property was concerned. All I had to do was move in and know how to sling a wrench.”
Nick finished his third drink. “You still trying to find the killer then?”
“Well, I looked into it for thirty years but never figured it out to my satisfaction.” Murphy clucked his tongue. “It wasn’t for lack of trying though, that much is for sure, but the trail ran dry. Eventually, I had to take retirement. But to answer your question, yes. It’s a cold case, and I’m not officially supposed to investigate. But since that night, it’s just been a part of me. I guess I’ll keep picking away at it until I follow Baynes down to dust.”
Nick’s mind raced with images and words from his nightmares. There had to be a connection with the girl he’d seen in the mirror.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Murphy said with a chuckle.
Nick forced a laugh. “No, just thinking of . . . something. After all these years, did you find out anything about the girl?”
Murphy sat forward again. “Young man, I think there’s something about these dreams you’re holding back. Tell me what it is, and I’ll try to help you.”
“Fair enough.” Nick shared a little about his dreams and what he’d seen in his first regression with Dr. Beadys.
Murphy stared at him, open mouthed. “Sonofabitch. Well, I guess you should know there’s also a damn sight more to my side of things than I’ve shared over a couple of belts of Murphy’s Law. And judging from this little meeting, I think maybe we can help each other. Though, I’ll warn you, I’m not one for hocus-pocus.”
“Me, either.”
Murphy stood and stuck out his hand. Nick stood and they shook.
“We’re agreed,” the old detective said. “And to set our sails, you and I will take a field trip. Day after tomorrow. I’d say tomorrow, but I help the sisters out with bingo down at St. Jude’s. When you get to be my age, you take your pleasures where you can.” He chuckled and walked Nick to the door.
“That’d be great,” Nick said. “Day after tomorrow. Nine a.m., okay, Mr.—”
“Just Murphy. Or Murph if you’d rather. Old bachelors like me only need one name. Nine a.m.”
Nick headed down the walk and across the street. By the time he reached his Bronco, his pulse was racing, his ears ringing, his fingers trembling. Something had gone horribly wrong in that house—he could feel it in his bones. He was about to help an aging detective look into a seventy-year-old murder, and there was at least a chance that the person who’d been murdered was him.
He still wasn’t sure if the regression Dr. Beadys had taken him through was anything more than coincidence, a parlor trick using scant details he’d shared with Beadys to create a believable narrative.
But there was also Billy’s drawing and the scrawl on his plastic binder.
CHAPTER 18
JULY 17, 1928
VICTORIA HURRIED down Twenty-Fourth Street, dodging beggars sitting against the rough-stone walls of the Metropolis Southside Police Station. It was a safe place to panhandle—muggers steered clear of the law—but sometimes the bums got grabby. Rain fell from a slate-grey sky. A salvation band played a brassy version of “If You Haven’t Got a Penny” near the doors to the bail desk entrance. She skirted the kettle and ducked inside.
Just past the door, she stepped over a spilled spittoon stinking of mint and gnawed tobacco. Hooded lights hung from twenty-foot ceilings, casting the area in a dim light. Benches along the walls were full of men, who, by the smell of them, hadn’t bathed in a month. They were “misdemeanor men”—they just needed someone to vouch for them and they could go.
A tired-looking fellow sat at a desk pinched between barred doors that led back to the holding cells. He was scribbling on a ledger with a pencil, his bald head catching a dull gleam from the hanging lights. Victoria headed straight for him.
A copper in a dirty uniform stepped into her path. “Hold on there, little lady. This ain’t no place for a dame. What’s your business?”
Up close, she could see and smell the vomit on him—his badge read, Perkins.
“Posting bail.”
He pointed at her paintbox. “What’s this?”
She opened it and showed him.
He pursed his lips and shuffled some of the paint and clay around with a dirty finger. “You any good?”
“You want to commission something, or is this your gallant way of propositioning a woman who’s desperate enough for her man that she’s willing to give her last dollar to post his bail?”
“Sheesh, lady, just making conversation.” He stepped aside.
It had been a long day already, and it wasn’t even ten a.m. “Officer Perkins is it? If you use a little club soda on your uniform, it’ll help get rid of the smell. If you’ve got cloves at home, put some in the soda. It’ll save your nose in a place like this.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” Perkins went back to his post, whistling.
Victoria hurried up to the desk. “I’m here for Julian Baynes,” she said. “He was brought in late last night. Can you tell me why?”
The guy—whose uniform read, Cahill—didn’t even bother to look up. He was reading a Dashiell Hammett novel, and the rest of his desk was littered with books by Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie. Finally, he set his book aside and pulled over a ledger. He flipped a couple of pages and tracked down with his finger. “Charged with one count of violating U.S. Code 1691, wanton disregard of the Eighteenth Amendment on the prohibition of alcohol. Also charged with one count of violating Title 18 of U.S. code 1955, illegal gambling, as well as two counts of violating the Harrison Narcotics Act by use of cocaine—once at the place of arrest, and once an hour ago in the tank.” He looked up. “He had a folded pocket in his shorts. I tell ya, these guys.”
Victoria tapped Julian’s name in the ledger. “How much is bail?”
The bail clerk snapped his pencil. “I could hold him, you know. For all this, and prior arrests, I could hold him. You think I don’t know who he is? A Baynes? He’s born with a silver spoon up his ass, and I’m here pushing pencils for thugs and layabouts. Then his dame waltzes in here and disrespects me?”
She put her paintbox down on the edge of the desk. “I don’t know Julian’s brother well, but I know his father, and I can tell you Julian is nothing like that man.” She tried to get the clerk to look up, but he wasn’t having it. “I’m sorry if I disrespected you. And trust me, I know what Julian is right now, but I also know what he could become. He’s just lost.”
The bail clerk rolled his eyes. “Fine, lady. You can take him home for $35.50. Quite the bargain for a boozer and dice thrower.”
She dug out her pearl money and gave the guy thirty-six dollars. He fetched her change from a strong box below the desk and called over to Perkins. “Can you grab Julian Baynes, Block 24?”
Perkins tipped his cap, unlocked the door, and disappeared inside. The clerk never looked up at Victoria the entire time. A few minutes later Perkins emerged with Julian’s arm around his neck, practically carrying him into the vestibule. “He’s not ambulatory, ma’am. And we don’t deliver.”
She tried to get under his arm. “Julian? Julian, can you walk? Please, Julian, I need you to stand up.”
Julian mumbled something incoherent.
“If this doesn’t take the cake.” She looked over at the men waiting on the benches and spotted a stocky fellow with a wedding ring. Then she stepped back to the clerk. “That man”—she pointed to the guy—“I’ll vouch for him.”
The clerk still didn’t look up. “That’d be a crime, ma’am, since vouching for someone you don’t know is an infraction against Title 322 of the Bail Act, and you clearly don’t know any of these fine gentlemen. To boot, I’d caution you against signing your name next to a fella you’ve never met.”
Suddenly, Perkins was at her side. “Let it slide, Tommy. She’s okay.”
The clerk finally raised his head and looked from her to Perkins to Julian to the stocky guy on the bench. “I should have gone to college.” He shuffled the ledger around and stuck his finger down on the page twice, indicating where she should sign. He handed her his pencil and she signed in both places.
Before she could turn to go, the clerk said, “Seven and counting.”
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Seven and counting,” he repeated. “Mr. Baynes has been in seven times. It happens again, a warrant goes out for his arrest. And that means real prison, not this happy little oasis where laundering advice buys you grace with the Perkinses of the world. Get me?”
Officer Perkins leaned over the desk. “Go easy, Tommy. It ain’t nothing.”
Victoria glanced over the clerk’s desk and all his crime novels. “You’d make a fine lawyer, Mr. Cahill. I hope you get the chance to attend college.”
The clerk canted his head and stared at her a minute. Then he called out, “Larsen, front and center.”
The stocky man leapt up and came forward. Cahill explained that he’d been vouched for. Victoria offered the guy a dollar to carry Julian to her handcar at the east Metropolis rail switch. She could take Julian back to Stockton from there on her own. Perkins told Larsen to see it through or his name would come back up on the ledger even without an arrest. Larsen, only too happy to get out of there, hoisted Julian into a fireman’s carry.
“Good day, gentlemen,” Victoria said, stepping over the spilled spittoon on her way out.
Victoria hooked her arms under Julian’s pits and heaved him up into the cattle car. They sprawled onto the manure-smelling floorboards, panting for air. Julian crawled back to their blanket bed. She fetched him a cup of water and some wet rags from the rain bucket, knelt down beside him, and pressed the moist towels on his head and neck.
Julian came clean about his conversation with Edward, the stake his brother had given him at Tobacco Road, the money he’d won and lost, the booze, the coke, and the raid.
“You could have cashed out with two hundred dollars and just left?” She rocked back on her heels. “Do you know how selfish you sound right now?”
Julian propped himself up on his elbows. “I wuzz trying to win it big,” he slurred. “Not just for a few weeksh, for a y-year, maybe more. Really get ush back on t-track.”
She lashed him with a wet rag. “Do you have any idea how I bailed you out today! I hocked my mother’s pearls. The necklace and the bracelets. I put my mouth on the lips of a salivating toothless old pervert to buy you this, too.” She grabbed his watch from her dress pocket and hurled it at him.
The watch hit the floor and broke in two.
Julian scampered around on his hands and knees, picking up the pieces. “God damn it, Victoria! You had no right to buy it back. I did that for you. And now you destroy it? Are you crazy?”
“No, but I’m getting there!” She picked up a sculpted bust of Babe Ruth and threw it at him. The brittle clay shattered against his chest.
He groaned and held up a hand. “Stop it!” He pushed himself to his feet and staggered toward her. “You’re being ir-irrational.”
She picked up another sculpture, this one of a child—she’d hope to have one someday but never told him so—and launched it at him. He deflected with his hand, but the clay splintered, tearing open his palm.
He lunged forward, arm up to protect his eyes, caught his foot on a floorboard and pitched onto his hands and knees again. “Enough, Victoria!”
“Look at yourself!”
He tried to stand, but couldn’t, just knelt there on all fours, his body trembling, staring at the cattle car floor.
She knelt down in front of him. “Do you remember the day you took me to see the Marx Brothers play The Cocoanuts on Broadstreet?”
“I hated it,” he said.
“Yes, but afterward, you took me to a second-hand haberdashery and bought me a Tyrolean hat and yourself a false mustache. We strolled the Theater District in the rain playing Groucho and Chico. You told me it was because you didn’t want me to stop laughing that night. Can we go back to that? Please, Julian. Can we go back?”
He looked up at her. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, I’m so sorry . . .”
“Julian, why? Why do you do this over and over again?”
He rolled onto his side, panting, his hand bleeding. “I won’t ever be good enough for you, Victoria. Any more than I was ever good enough for my father.”
“I love you, Julian. But you’re letting your father’s expectations rob our future.” She dropped her face into her hands. “And I don’t know how much longer I can take it.”
CHAPTER 19
JULY 9, 1999
“PRETTY IMPRESSIVE, isn’t it?” Nick said.
Billy stuck his head out the Bronco window. “It’s huge, Dad!”
The Metropolis Museum stretched a full block at the very heart of the city. On every side white marble steps ascended to limestone facings that rose eight stories off Fourth Street. It resembled a palace more than anything else. Massive red banners hung from ornamental stone gutters along the rooftop, announcing the first ever exhibition of the 1895 Metropolis Symphony performance of Symphony no. 1 by John Knowles Paine—typically considered the first American symphony.
He pulled around to the North Wing of the museum and parked in the service entrance. He and Billy jumped out, and Nick grabbed his audio go-bag from the back seat.
At the top of the steps, Vince, the security screener, did a two-step— like he always did—when Nick approached the metal detector. He bent over to Billy. “You gonna help your dad with that there cylinder today?”
“Yes, sir,” Billy said.
“Good boy.” Vincent laid out his palm and Billy gave it a slap. Then he took Nick’s bag for the X-ray machine. “Dr. Haliburton is on pins and needles, Nick. She thought the in-house team could get the sound off that old drum, but they might have broken it. I bet you can get double your normal pay if you can help her from having to cancel the Paine Exhibition.”
