Louisa and the Missing Heiress by Anna Maclean Page A

there was no way that Dot’s stillness could masquerade as a simple sleep. The river had left moss and weeds in her hair and streaming over her bosom. Her little black shoes were slippery with slime and bursting at the lacings because the water had already begun to bloat the body. Her quilted silk and fur coat was now matted and stiff and of indistinguishable color, and her once white blouse was stained brownish yellow. Her hands—dainty hands that had once been declared her one beauty—those hands were blue and stiff and cold, the skin swollen tightly around her garnet-anddiamond wedding ring. There was no sign of Lily, the puppy. Of course, the city of Boston would not waste money on a simple dog. Its little body had probably been tossed into a dustbin for disposal. Poor Dot. She would have wanted Lily to be buried in the garden next to the puppies and cats of her childhood, with a proper marker and a memorial climbing rose.
    Preston Wortham looked so terrible I asked him, “Are you able to bear this? Shall I take you into the outer room?”
    He gulped and his eyes blinked, but he stood his ground.
    “I am . . . as well as can be imagined. Thank you for coming with me, Miss Alcott.” He turned away from Dot’s corpse and looked faintly about for a bench or chair, but there was none. There was nothing but death in the room, and regret, and those are not substantial enough for a man of weak character to lean upon.
    The morgue attendant was a small, mustachioed man whose eyes seemed not much brighter than those of the corpses resting on the marble slabs in the room. He wore a white apron much smeared and stained with ghastly substances that I chose not to contemplate. When Preston turned away, he moved as if to draw the sheet back over Dot’s head. Constable Cobban stayed his hand. He had removed his hat, so that his thick ginger-colored hair stood about his head like a halo, a strange effect for a man of his profession.
    “Well?” asked that young officer.
    “It is my wife. It is Mrs. Preston Wortham. Dorothy. Dottie.” Wortham’s voice was unsteady and low. “She slipped, of course. It was a wet day; she wore little leather shoes instead of sturdier boots. She slipped into the river. There is no question of suicide,” he said.
    I held my breath and would not look at him. Had Dorothy been so unhappy she had ended her own life?
    “I asked only for identification, not explanation,” young Cobban said. I realized then that death is never simple, especially when the dead person is young, healthy, and extraordinarily wealthy.
    “She will have a consecrated burial,” Preston murmured.
    “No one has mentioned suicide,” Constable Cobban repeated.
    Wortham once more bent over the body and placed a kiss on the cold white forehead. His task completed, he turned to leave this room of death.
    “Brownly? Was that her maiden name?” Constable Cobban called after him.
    Preston turned back in his direction. “It was. Come along, Miss Alcott; you appear overly strained.” Though it was he who had turned white and then green.
    “In a moment, Mr. Wortham,” I remember saying, bending over Dot so I could also give her a final kiss.
    How peaceful Dot looked. I hoped that indeed she was at peace, that she had forgiven all there was to forgive and been forgiven her own sins. What sins could young, kind Dot have ever committed? She had been goodness itself. But what had she said yesterday? There is so much sorrow here, so much worry, because of me. What had she meant?
    “May I?” I said to Constable Cobban, who stood next to her now, ready to pull the sheet back over Dot’s face since that identification had been completed. “I would like to keep her scarf as a memento mori. . . .”
    “Of course. I don’t suppose Mr. Wortham would object, so why should I?” Cobban said gruffly.
    I felt his strange pale eyes watching me, and my fingers grew awkward and could not undo the knot in her scarf.
    More gently, Cobban said,