The Killing Machine by Ed Gorman Page B

I’m afraid not. Marshal Wickham asked me the same thing.”
    She looked sad and old in that moment. Even frail. “Now that I know that he was married—that he lied to me all this time—I don’t know what to think. About him or myself.”
    I reached out and took her hand. “You’re being too rough on yourself. Like I said, you didn’t know.” Then she did something that probably surprised both of us. She leaned down and kissed my forehead. It wasn’t a romantic kiss. It was a fond kiss. But it made me feel idiotically happy. She was such a clean, fine woman; the kind of woman who’d never paid any attention to me at all; the kind of woman my brother had gone through with ease.
    â€œMaybe I should’ve been curious. Should’ve asked.” Then: “I need to get to work. The chamber pot for one thing.”
    â€œYou get all the good jobs.”
    â€œI don’t mind. I like helping people.”
    But she lingered there. Thankfully. “It makes me feel as if I’m doing something with my life. Helping people. David used to laugh when I said that. And I suppose it does sound a bit too noble. But it has to do with my background, I suppose.”
    â€œIn England?”
    She nodded. “I spent my girlhood with servants. Then my father lost his money in some African diamond ruse and we were out on the street. My father had alienated everybody in his family while he was rich. He was a very arrogant man. I loved him without liking him, if you know what I mean by that. My sister, who got the looks, married a lord, and made the transition with no difficulty at all.” She laughed. “As near as I can figure it, Nanette was poor for about three hours. Father and I moved to London. He’d trained as a barrister but had never practiced in any serious way. My mother had died a few years before that. She was a very dear woman. I’m glad she didn’t live to see us lose our money. I went to nursing school and studied hard so I could graduate early. Father ended up working in a men’s clothing store in Carnaby Street. He had to wait on men he’d once been socially superior to. It wasn’t easy for him. We had a gas stove in our little flat. He used it to kill himself one winter’s night. I never even cried about it. I believe in an afterlife, so I believe he’s in a better place now.” That melancholy half-smile again. “If there was one man who was not cut out to be poor, it was Father. Believe me. I lost myself in my nursing. When you help other people you tend to forget about your own problems. So I suppose David was right. It’s not noble atall. It’s selfish. You help others so you can forget about yourself.”
    â€œI guess that’s true. But the point is, you help other people. It doesn’t matter why you do it.” I reached up and touched her slender forearm. “There’s one point in your story I had a little trouble with.”
    â€œOh? Which point was that?”
    â€œThat your sister got the looks.”
    She laughed, sounding genuinely surprised. “That’s very flattering. But believe me, if I was standing next to Nanette right now, you wouldn’t even notice me. I’m attractive in my way, but she’s beautiful. I was only half-joking when I said she was poor for only about three hours. Rich men were throwing themselves at her.”
    Then she was straightening my sheet, tucking me in. “Take yourself a little nap, then we’ll let you terrorize the hospital in that wheelchair.”
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    My people have always been crazed for contraptions. My father always had to be the first one to own just about any given contraption he heard about. We had the first player piano, the first typewriting machine, the first machine-made watch, the first safety lift, and the first internal combustion engine.
    What Jane wheeled into my room was the first true wheelchair