Devil by the Tail Read online

  DEVIL BY

  THE TAIL

  A Garnick & Paschal Mystery

  Jeanne Matthews

  Copyright © 2021, Jeanne Matthews

  Published by:

  D. X. Varos, Ltd

  7665 E. Eastman Ave. #B101

  Denver, CO 80231

  This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author.

  Book cover design and layout by, Ellie Bockert Augsburger of Creative Digital Studios.

  www.CreativeDigitalStudios.com

  Cover design features:

  Beautiful woman, portrait in retro style. The girl wearing black vintage dress in the winter's park By Leka / Adobe Stock

  decoration with golden lights By Gstudio / Adobe Stock

  Wiktoriańska ulica By Unholy Vault Designs / Adobe Stock

  Nature fog by Glebstock / Adobe Stock

  Falling real snowflakes, heavy snow by salman2 / Adobe Stock

  ISBN

  978-1-941072-97-4 (paperback)

  978-1-941072-98-1 (ebook)

  Printed in the United States of America

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  About the Author

  “The morning papers had heralded the melancholy and mysterious murder through the city…thousands of persons had already marveled over the boldness and success, the silence and suddenness with which the deed was done, leaving not a clue by which to trace the perpetrator. The public mind was busy with conjectures as to the motive for the crime – and it is not in the nature of a daily paper to neglect such opportunities for turning an honest penny.” The Dead Letter, An American Romance, by Metta Fuller Victor writing under the pen name Seeley Register, 1866.

  Chapter 1

  The man slapped the Cairo Daily Democrat onto Quinn Sinclair’s desk and stabbed a finger at the headline. Man Chokes Wife to Death and Escapes. “I didn’t do it.”

  He stood more than six feet tall and glared down at her with wary, hostile eyes. His hands were rough and powerful looking and he flexed them repeatedly, as if he didn’t know what to do with them.

  “What is your name, sir?”

  “Ned Handish.” He stabbed the headline again. “It’s a load of muck is what it is.”

  Quinn spared a moment to consider the aptness of his name and the fierceness of his denial. “Won’t you take a chair while I read, Mr. Handish?”

  “Where’s your boss man? Shouldn’t he be the one to hear my story?”

  “Mr. Garnick stepped out to lunch.” Quinn concealed her irritation. She and Garnick were equal partners in the detective agency. “I’ll just obtain the preliminary facts, sir, and Mr. Garnick will assess the case when he returns.”

  Handish folded his long limbs into the client chair and she commenced reading.

  The orgy of crime continues and this reporter’s pen must hasten to keep pace with the bloody track of the monster.

  She noted the date of the paper – January 3, 1867. It was now mid-July. The accused monster sitting across from her had been at large for six months.

  Ned Handish murdered his wife yesterday morning at the boarding house of Mr. Sullivan, on Nineteenth Street, by choking her to death. The murderer and his wife were comparatively little known in this city. He was irregular in his habits and mysterious in his movements. He had worked at the Cairo Docks, but it was conjectured by those who knew him that his real business was counterfeiting.

  Quinn frowned. The new agency wanted clients, but she expected them to pay in legal U.S. tender.

  On the night of the crime, members of the Sullivan family overheard quarreling between Handish and his wife, their difference appearing to be that he wanted to take a boat upriver to Mound City and she did not.

  A loud pop startled her and she jumped. Handish had clapped a mosquito between his big hands. He wiped a spot of blood off onto his trousers. Those paws looked as if they could crush a human skull, let alone a windpipe. Quinn wasn’t afraid. She kept a loaded derringer in her desk drawer and had no compunction about using it if need be. Still and all, she wouldn’t mind seeing Garnick drift back to the office.

  Handish said, “You need to put cheesecloth over these windows.”

  “I’ll mention it to Mr. Garnick. Would you like a fan?”

  He gave the offer the back of his hand and she resumed reading.

  It was supposed that she and Handish had sat together quarreling into the night while he nursed his murderous anger and devised his fiendish resolves. Later, when the world slept and there was no eye to see but that of the doomed and hapless victim and Him who sees all, he sprang with the ferocity of a wild beast at her throat and never loosened his fatal grip till the murderous work was completed.”

  “If I’d of done it,” said Handish, “I’d have headed south downriver, not north.”

  That didn’t seem to Quinn the most solid of defenses, but it spoke a certain ornery logic. He had managed to evade the law until now. Why come forward and introduce himself unless he really was innocent?

  He cracked his knuckles. “Florrie had a fancy man. What I want is, I want your boss man to find him and clear my name with those jackasses down in Alexander County.”

  Quinn laid the newspaper aside and regarded her prospective client with a mixture of fascination and mistrust. He looked to be about forty years old and judging from his weathered skin and callused hands, a lot of those years had been spent outside doing manual labor. The stink wafting through the windows from the befouled Chicago River didn’t quite cover the odor of rank sweat that enveloped him. “Florrie was your wife?”

  “I put it to her, let’s go see this fly-by-night you’ve been trifling with. Let’s see which one of us you want to stay with. She acted all ruffled and insulted, said I could go eat horse apples if I thought so low of her. I said she could eat ’em herself since she never served a decent meal no how. I left her spitting mad and went to Hathaway’s Tavern to get drunk.”

  “You didn’t choke her before you left?”

  He leapt out of his chair, face contorted, fists clenched. “I said I didn’t do it.”

  Without taking her eyes off him, she opened her desk drawer and placed her hand over the derringer. “I beg you not to distress yourself, Mr. Handish. These are the same questions you’d be asked by a defense lawyer, should you ever be charged.”

  “Ah, nuts.” He plunked back down, cracked his knuckles, and stared into his lap.

  Quinn slid her hand off the gun but left the drawer open. “Was there no one in the tavern who could confir
m your whereabouts at the time of the murder?”

  “All blind drunk, if the lazy lawman down there took the trouble to ask.”

  “What is the name of the man you say Florrie fancied?”

  “Jack Stram. He’s the one that done it. Tell your boss just find him, he don’t have to do nothing else. I’ll beat a confession out of the twister.”

  Garnick walked in as Handish was speaking. “Those are strong words, sir. I can see you’re het up to settle accounts.” He tossed his hat onto his desk and lobbed a mischievous glance at Quinn. “Afternoon, Miz Paschal. Do the introductions if you will, please.”

  Quinn was still getting used to her alias, a name lifted from a novel she’d read. Her maiden name, McClellan, was too Irish to attract clients in anti-Irish Chicago, and her married name couldn’t be used until her claim against her deceased husband’s parents for her widow’s dower had been resolved. She had adopted the name Mrs. Paschal for business purposes but she couldn’t deny a small, transgressive thrill. Having an alias made her feel bohemian and raffish. She said, “Mr. Garnick, this is Mr. Ned Handish. He wishes to employ the agency to search out a man he believes killed his wife in Cairo.”

  Garnick held out his right hand. “How-do, Mr. Handish. I’m sorry for your loss.”

  Handish hove to his feet and gave Garnick’s maimed hand a quick pump. “It wasn’t no loss. Florrie needed killing but it wasn’t me. Like I told your secretary, it was a rounder name of Jack Stram. He’s here in Chicago. When you find him, I’m gonna kick his teeth down his throat.”

  Quinn said, “If it’s your intention to do violence, we can’t accept the job, Mr. Handish. We have a reputation to uphold and you wouldn’t want to give Mr. Stram grounds to have you arrested for assault, would you?”

  Handish scowled. “You let her talk up like that?”

  “Miz Paschal is a graduate of the Pinkerton Detective Agency,” said Garnick. “She knows all the latest methods. And as for the teeth kicking, best we leave it to the police. It’s legal when they do it.” He pulled a chair next to Quinn’s desk and gestured for Handish to sit again. “Let’s hear your story.”

  Handish repeated the gist of the news article with Quinn supplying a detail here and there. She said, “You must have lived only a short time in Cairo to be so little known and mysterious. Where had you lived previously, Mr. Handish?”

  He glowered. “Here and there. Florrie came from Moline.”

  “Where’d she meet Stram?” asked Garnick.

  “I don’t know. Next time they meet, it’ll be in hell.”

  “I’m guessing you’ve done a fair amount of looking before you came here,” said Garnick. “What makes you think Stram’s in Chicago?”

  “A female pal of Florrie’s told me. She’s seen him at Cap Hyman’s card house and some of the skinning places around Randolph and Clark.”

  The detectives didn’t need to inquire what Florrie’s pal did for a living. Any woman who walked inside Cap Hyman’s gambling den of her own free will had to be a prostitute.

  “Well,” said Garnick, “I reckon we can take on your case.”

  “How much?”

  “Our standard fee for locating an individual is twenty dollars, cash in advance. Delivering him to the coppers could cost extra, depending on how cooperative he is.”

  Handish pulled a roll of bills out of his pocket, peeled off a single bill, and dropped it onto Quinn’s desk. “I’ll be back next week. If you’ve found him, that’s good enough. I wouldn’t give you a button to drag his sorry carcass to the coppers.” He rubbed his palms down the front of his breeches and turned toward the door.

  “Wait,” called Quinn. “What does he look like?”

  He cracked his knuckles and squinched his eyes as if calling Stram’s features to mind required some effort. “Towheaded. Lanky. Likes to fiddle with a spent bullet on the end of his watch chain.”

  “Clean shaven or bearded?”

  “Horseshoe mustache.”

  “And Florrie’s pal,” said Quinn. “What’s her name and where can we find her?”

  “She ain’t around anymore.” He shot Quinn a surly look and strode out the door.

  “Disagreeable sort of a bub,” said Garnick. “I’d bet there’s a wanted poster with his face on it in police stations all across town. If we’re in luck, they’ll nab him before he comes back.”

  “Poor Florrie,” said Quinn. “She can’t have led a happy life. And what do you suppose he meant about her pal not being around anymore?

  “She prob’ly decamped for parts unknown quick as she could get away.”

  “Let’s hope so. Here, you’d better take a closer look at this twenty. According to the newspaper, Handish also dabbles in counterfeiting.”

  Garnick held it up to the light. “It looks genuine enough. Let’s go to the bank and pick out the teller with the feeblest eyes.”

  “Tomorrow’s soon enough. Mr. Micah Winthrop will be stopping by for a visit later this afternoon.”

  “That shyster invents a fresh excuse every few days to waste your time. How long’s he been hypnotizing you with his legal mumbo jumbo?”

  “Only since the end of March. He’s keeping me apprised of his progress negotiating with my former in-laws. He says that because Thom and I had no children, I may be entitled to one-half of his estate.”

  “He’s been apprising you for nigh-on four months and you ain’t, you haven’t received a dime. It don’t take a mastermind to see he’s either swindling you or courting you. All his smooth talk and superior airs give me the pip.”

  Garnick swept a film of dust off his desk with the sleeve of his shirt and moped. Two years soldiering in the Confederate Army and another two as a prisoner of war in the disease-infested confines of Chicago’s Camp Douglas had left him lean, wry, and susceptible to fevers and ague. He had missing fingers on his right hand from frostbite and a dashing, blade-thin scar across his left brow. Quinn suspected he hid less well-healed scars inside, but he had a dry sense of humor and on most days, he was tolerant and easygoing. She put today’s peevishness down to the heat and a dearth of cases. That was about to change.

  “It so happens Mr. Winthrop is bringing us a case. A big one.”

  “A big one, eh? What do you reckon it is? Somebody’s elephant gone missing?”

  Quinn wasn’t unconscious of recent changes in Garnick – his prickliness whenever Winthrop stopped by, the speculative way he looked at her when he didn’t think she was paying attention, a spruce trim of his previously devil-may-care dark hair and a subtle aura of Florida Water. He’d even begun minding his grammar.

  They’d met six months ago, the day after her father was murdered, when there wasn’t one person in the world she could trust. Garnick had become that one person. He helped her get through her ordeal and solve the murder. They felt a spontaneous natural liking for each other and emboldened by their success, decided to join forces to form Garnick & Paschal. Theirs was an unlikely affinity. Her husband died fighting to save the Union. Garnick’s wife died while he was interned at Camp Douglas. Quinn wondered what she had been like and whether he still missed her. Sometimes she wondered what it would be like to kiss him.

  Her husband’s kisses had been earnest and eager but stirred no reciprocal feeling. The only other man she’d kissed had left her breathless and craving more. To her chagrin, he turned out to be an accomplished liar with an ulterior motive. There had been no second kiss. Still, it had kindled an immodest desire for further experimentation. Over the last few weeks, she’d been thinking a lot about Garnick, whose way of walking and moving radiated a kind of virile competence. Like he was ready for anything. Like he’d be good at it.

  Of course kissing carried risks. If a woman liked it too well, it led to a dilemma. She had to choose between marriage and life as a chattel, or unsanctified carnal relations and life as a social pariah. Twenty-two now and independent for the first time, Quinn had no wish to remarry and she was too guarded, or perhaps too romantic
to become a Free Lover. However restrictive the bonds of marriage, intimacy outside of marriage was a spider’s web of complications and consequences, the most worrisome being an unblessed addition to the population. For now, wondering was the better part of valor. Besides, whatever lay behind Garnick’s speculative looks, he hadn’t broached the subject of kissing. Not yet anyway.

  She said, “Winthrop has been engaged to represent Elfie Jackson and he wants us to help him investigate.”

  “The girl who burned down the Kadinger place and killed him and his daughter?”

  “That’s right. Some charitable members of the First Unitarian Church are paying for the girl’s defense. Winthrop wants us to find out if there’s anyone else who could have done it. He calls it ‘reasonable doubt.’”

  “Shouldn’t be hard. There’s men in this town who’d set fire to their own mama for the next shot of red-eye.” He took his revolver out of his desk, broke open the chamber and began loading it. “I’ll leave you to yak with Lawyer Winthrop. He’ll want to apprise you about the Jackson case without me crowding in.”

  “But you need to be here. To hear the facts and ask questions.”

  “You’re the one good at thinking up questions. Good at ginning up business, too. Keep telling Winthrop what a wizard he is and maybe he’ll shower us with cases.”

  “I don’t curry favor, Garnick. But if Winthrop chooses to give us business, I will certainly welcome it and be nice.”

  “I’ll be nice as pie, but I ain’t got the energy for it today.” He raked a hand through his hair, tousling it in the old familiar way, and strapped the gun under his belt. “I reckon I’ll mosey over to Randolph Street, see if I can pick up the spoor of Jack Stram.”

  “Be careful,” she said to his back.

  Chapter 2

  Micah Winthrop ambled into the office at three o’clock sharp. Tall and broad shouldered with hair as yellow as Indian grass, he exuded robust health, four-square respectability, and the clean, medicinal scent of wintergreen toilet soap. He wore a starched blue linen suit and appeared impervious to the heat.