Page 38 of Beyond the Grave
Lincoln nodded. "In the throat, with a gun and bullet I found in the drawer. I placed the gun near his right hand where it would have landed if he had fallen. A competent coroner will know he was shot after death, but an incompetent one might miss it and declare suicide. A corrupt one certainly will."
Estelle snorted. "The one from this jurisdiction is certainly corrupt. My death certificate says I suffered a heart attack. I lingered in spirit form long enough to hear Merton and his crooked crony planning it. For a fee, of course."
"Oh, Estelle, I am sorry." I laid a hand on her arm, gently so as not to disturb what was left of her decaying skin and wasted muscle beneath the layers of clothing. "Are we to understand that Dr. Merton killed you?"
She bowed her head, but not before I saw sorrow shadowing her eyes—eyes that weren't dead, but weren't quite alive either.
"Tell us how it happened."
She clasped her hands in her lap and lifted her chin, once more the no-nonsense woman I'd first met in spirit form in my sitting room. "Dr. Merton is the worst kind of man. He preys—preyed—on women, particularly the young and vulnerable. I was neither, so I avoided his notice until I confronted him over his misdeeds."
"He hurt the other nurses?"
"Yes, Miss Holloway, he hurt them. Two midwives under my supervision came to me after he'd raped them in that same basement storeroom where I came to my end."
"Bloody hell," Seth muttered. "The man deserved his death then."
"That's why the nurse didn't want to go to his office alone," I added. "She was happy for us to go with her rather than face him on her own."
"There were other stories too, of attempted rape and indecent acts," Estelle went on. "I brought them to the attention of both the hospital board and the local constabulary. Unfortunately, the poor girls were frightened of him and of the effect a trial would have on their reputations. They refused to testify, and it all came to naught." She shook her head. "It sickens me that they would have suffered if he was found innocent."
"How would he be found innocent if they testified?" I asked. "Surely a judge would believe their accounts."
"Your faith in our justice system is misguided, Miss Holloway. Dr. Merton would accuse them of being loose women and claim that they approached him in the storeroom, not the other way around. I knew he would stop at nothing to protect his reputation from this sort of scandal, but I had no idea that he would resort to murder. I was gathering evidence against him, you see. I talked to the girls and had almost convinced them to take the witness stand, but they only agreed to do so if there was an iron-clad case. That involved speaking to all the nurses at the Queen Charlotte, as well as those not associated with the hospital. It's possible there were other victims, you see, ones that we didn't know about. I checked inventory records for the storeroom, and cross-checked the dates and times of his signature in the dispensary book with the reported incidents. I was developing a solid case."
"So he killed you," I said, "then paid the coroner to cover it up by blaming heart failure."
"There's nothing wrong with my heart. My health was extraordinarily robust when I was alive."
"You appear to be alive again," Lincoln began, with his usual dark intensity. "How is that possible?"
Estelle bristled and regarded him down her nose. "I don't believe we've been introduced."
"My apologies," I muttered. "My manners are a little rusty. This is Mr. Lincoln Fitzroy and Mr. Seth Guilford. I work with them."
If Lincoln noticed me say "with" and not "for," he gave no sign. "Miss Holloway said you spoke some words in the cemetery before coming to life. Was that a spell?"
"You're an earnest man, Mr. Fitzroy, and quite unperturbed by the notion of spells, necromancers and the like."
"Answer the question."
Good lord, sometimes he had as much subtlety as a room full of dancing elephants. "We belong to an organization that wishes to keep the supernatural from harming the public," I assured her. "As you can imagine, having a corpse with incredible strength come to life is a worrying incident."
"Of course it is, and I'd like to assure you that I will return willingly to my afterlife." When Lincoln opened his mouth to speak again, she added, "Besides, I am not alive. Not exactly. I merely have the appearance of life. As to your question, Mr. Fitzroy, you are correct. I spoke a spell that my female ancestors have used for centuries to give consciousness to the dead, albeit for a brief time. It makes them act and look alive, but they are not. There is no air in their lungs, no blood pumping through veins, and the vital organs don't work. If there was, I would have died all over again when I fell from that drainpipe. In a way, it's similar to necromancy. I suppose that's why the spell overrode your orders, Miss Holloway. Perhaps you and I are two branches of the same ancestral tree."
Seth and I exchanged confused glances, but Lincoln's gaze didn't waver from Estelle's. "You're a witch."
"My ancestors were accused of witchcraft on occasion, so yes, I suppose I am. It's why I'm so good at what I do." At our blank looks, she elaborated. "Stillborn babies are common in my line of work, sadly, as is the death of the mother during childbirth. That spell allows me to buy them some time on this mortal coil. In some cases, only a few hours, in others, they continue on for a day or two."
"But…why?" Seth asked. "What's the point of giving a baby or mother a few hours of something that is not even a life? Why prolong the death and the pain?"
Estelle clicked her tongue and shook her head. "So that the mother can hold her child, Mr. Guilford. Just for a little while, and look into her baby's eyes, and know a mother's love. It's better to die in the arms of a mother than in her womb. On a more practical level, there is time to baptize the child and have other family members see the baby. In all cases, it's clear that the baby is sickly and will pass on, so I'm not giving false hope. The same in the cases of the deceased mothers. They know they only have a short time in which to continue, but I think they would all claim that is better than nothing. Some have older children they wish to hug one last time, and then, of course, there are burials or other matters to discuss with husbands."
"But you're playing God," Seth said. I was surprised to hear him say such a thing when he'd never shown much interest in religion. He never went to church, whereas Gus and I made the occasional effort on Sundays.
"If that is how you think, then I'm unlikely to change your mind," Estelle said stiffly. "I've never used my witchcraft on anyone outside childbirth until myself, this morning. When you raised my spirit, Miss Holloway, you unwittingly presented me with an opportunity for vengeance that I couldn't pass up. My decision to kill Merton was spur of the moment, but I don't regret it. Even if I have damned myself, I will face the consequences, not run from them. I do not shy away from my fate."
"I admire you for that," I told her.
