The Bachelor Girl's Guide to Murder Read Free Page A

scalloped flora adorning the pillars and walls presaged its grandeur. Hundreds of painted twigs, birds, and fairy lanterns hung from real beech branches.
    â€œHow did you know this was up here?”
    â€œI heard it around,” Skip said vaguely.
    â€œWhat are you doing here, Ray?” A man’s voice came from the top of the grand staircase, the flights that wound down to the Elgin Theatre.
    The voice was familiar to Ray. It was his brother-in-law. “Tony?”
    â€œI asked what you’re doing here.”
    â€œOn a story.” He threw a look at Skip.
    â€œThere’s a corpse in the foyer,” Tony said. “Pretty freckled girl with red hair almost as bright as the carpet.”
    Ray’s eyes widened and Skip gasped.
    â€œDid you put it there?” Ray asked lightly.
    â€œVery funny.”
    â€œThen why are you here?”
    Tony’s face was in shadow. “Business for Montague.”
    â€œLet’s go,” said Skip. “If there’s a girl dead downstairs we don’t want to be found here.”
    Ray wanted to press further to determine what Tony’s business was, but he heard footsteps—probably the police—ascending the staircase from below.
    Ray and Skip exited the way they’d come in, agreeing on a time to meet later that evening.
    Ray made his way to the streetcar stop and hopped on, tossing a coin at the driver, making his way to the back as the winking sunlight spread like an outsretched hand over the wide glass panes. His mind was full of a new story idea—one that McCormick, editor of the Hogtown Herald , hadn’t even signed off on yet. St. Joseph’s Home for Working Men: living conditions subsidized by Tertius Montague and Thaddeus Spenser.
    The streetcar rambled on, a zigzag of telephone cables and wires overhead and a spark of wheels against the tracks underneath. To the sides the trenches were gutted, every street dug up, repaved, tracks hammered at a frantic pace, carriages squealing and almost colliding with automobiles.
    Ray hopped off north of Elizabeth Street where St. Joseph’s interrupted the sloping cottages and slanted houses of the Ward. Inside, light shone murkily through filmy windows and cracks snaked up the moldy wallpaper, exposing water-stained cement underneath.
    He was greeted by a woman with strings of greasy gray hair falling over a pasty face. He flashed her a full-on smile and spoke in Italian, playing the part of the workingman. She handed him a ratty blanketand listed off the rules of the establishment, not seeming to care whether he understood English or not as she walked him to the common bunkroom. She didn’t mention the fact that he had no belongings with him. He would learn later, watching men come in and out with nothing but the clothes on their backs, that this was customary.
    â€œYou’re free to do as you like, but curfew is eleven and you must leave by eight the next morning. Eight, you understand?” She held up eight fingers. “Don’t use the stove or the radiator or dry your socks there and never, ever entertain female company. Some of the men try to pass their sisters and cousins by me”—she turned to look at him pointedly—“but I know better.”
    He was left to settle in. As this required little more than flopping on his bed and removing his hat, he took the time to explore his surroundings. He peered through the window. The gated courtyard was more prison-like than Ray had anticipated. But prison or not, it was a place for men new to the country to spend a few nights, hoping there wasn’t a long list for an empty bed and hoping they could secure a job the next morning to pay for bed and board.
    Not long after, men shuffled in after their morning shift. It was a veritable Tower of Babel: All manner of languages sewed a tapestry of Yiddish, Italian, Chinese, and a few Nordic dialects. Ray creased open his journal, scribbling a few thoughts