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Post by Detective Emma Brook on May 29, 2012 16:23:03 GMT -5
So, I started writing a story about Emma. I feel as though it will be much easier for me to keep on writing it if I have feedback and an audience--you guys! So please leave comments and stuff! I'll post more periodically as I write.  1
Everyone in the house was dead, except for Lady Murphy. Rachel lie in her room, her father in the hallway, and their butler in the back stairwell. The lady of the house sat upright in bed, having been awoken by the gunshots, her eyes frozen on the bluish light of the hall, watching the shadows churn like some horrible dream.
Heavy footfall made its way toward the door of the room, which Lord Murphy had thrown open in his haste. His wife felt herself grow faint as they neared and neared and then stopped. A man stood there in the half-darkness, studying her trembling form carefully. They paused, staring at each other for what seemed like minutes... and then he turned back, slipping down the stairs and out the side door.
Only when he was gone did Lady Murphy dare shriek.
“Quite a night!”
“Rich gets the job done, as always.”
The two men sat in the corner of the grand dance hall, watching the crowd milling about. One of them held a flute of champagne, but the other just sat with his fingers laced over his fat stomach. At the epicenter of the party was Richard McPherson, his young green eyes shining through his spectacles as he talked to the young man beside him. The Irish-born doctor had made good for himself over the last ten years, and many couldn’t say the same. Rich gets the job done, as always.
The men shared a silent moment of agreement and then looked on critically as a mysterious woman swept into McPherson’s conversational sardana uninvited. “Pity about that one,” the fat man muttered, moustache twitching in disapproval. The woman stood very close to McPherson, muttering something half to him and half to her goblet. She was not an unfamiliar face to the two men with those famous, calculating green eyes and unruly strands coming out of her updo. Emma Brook.
“The Murphy girl is dead.” Only she and McPherson could hear it, but many noticed when their host stopped dead in his tracks.
“Tonight?”
“Just an hour ago. Her father too.”
The bespectacled doctor looked down at the woman in astonishment. “You must take me there at once.”
She looked up at him solemnly for a moment, and then a wry smirk graced her lips. “You know the way,” she said, and left the party.
“A shame that he’s cozy with those types,” the man with the champagne flute said.
“Yes, a damn shame,” the fat one agreed, watching her sashay out of the dance hall with a contemptuous curl to his lip.
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Post by Detective Emma Brook on May 30, 2012 14:02:59 GMT -5
Emma was already there when Rich finally arrived, and she was still holding the wine glass that she had presumably stolen from the party. “You’ve ruined my evening, yet again,” he mumbled.
She shrugged him off. “I didn’t kill them.”
He looked up at the Murphy’s house with a tired sigh. The police weaved around them, pretending not to notice Emma, and went in and out so often that it seemed the front door barely shut. The house was large, two stories but very wide with Roman-style pillars supporting a large balcony on the second floor, the balcony of Rachel’s room.
“How?” His voice cracked slightly.
Emma just looked at him and replied, “Shot.” How long had it been since Rich had spoken to Lord Murphy, or treated his daughter? It seemed only yesterday that he’d told Rachel her future looked short and grim, and now she had no future. “Honestly, McPherson, I wasn’t expecting you to be such an old woman over this.”
Rich rubbed his temples and gave her one last look before ascending the stone steps and slipping in after one of the police constables. He avoided the men who were carrying a body out to the coroner’s cart, instead following a few policemen up the stairs and into the hallway. Someone grabbed his arm, pulling him aside, and asked, “Are you supposed to be here?”
Rich frowned and yanked his arm from the man’s grip. “Yes, Grady, I’m supposed to be here. I’m... supposed to look at one of the bodies.” Sergeant George Grady gave him a rather skeptical look.
“You know what happened last time you were caught snooping about for your girlfriend, Mr. McPherson...” he hissed reproachfully, smirking.
The doctor waved his hand in dismissal and rounded the corner. Girlfriend. The thought! He found himself in the the hallway of the second floor, which was congested with lawmen. Rich managed a few glances over their shoulders and recognized Chief Inspector Spratling in the middle of it all, and Lord Murphy.
The police inspector looked up at the officer beside him, brow furrowed in annoyance. “Where is my medical examiner?”
“He’s in Miss Murphy’s room, Sir; he was the only doctor we could contact.”
“Nonsense! Get me someone now--who ‘ad ‘im check the butler first, for Christ’s sake?! This is Lord--just get me the doctor!”
“Sir.” The unexpected voice caused most to turn their heads toward Rich McPherson. “Can I be of some assistance?”
Inspector Spratling rose to his feet. “Damned right you can, Dr. McPherson. Come on, you lot, let ‘im through.”
Rich made his way through the small crowd and knelt down next to the body. Lord Murphy’s flesh was cold and pale. Rich looked at the entry wounds in his chest. “What happened here tonight?”
Spratling cracked his knuckles and said, “Well, we figure it was a robbery--the shooter must ‘ave entered from the side door and been surprised by Edgar Chatterly, the butler, then struggled with Rachel... and then when ‘e made ‘is escape, he fought with Lord Murphy and shot ‘im.”
“And how do you figure it was a robbery?”
Inspector Spratling knelt across from him and lifted Lord Murphy’s other hand, which was clutching something tightly. “He must ‘ave snatched ‘em from the killer. Pearls. Robber must 'ave took them from Rachel’s room.”
“A necklace?” Rich’s brow knitted together. The inspector nodded.
“Then it could not have been a robbery.” Heads turned again when the distinctly female voice cut through the tension in the hall. The two men by the body watched as Emma Brook pushed her way into the ring
“Oh, God,” Spratling muttered, and then sighed. “Emma, what did I tell you about showing up uninvited?”
“Detective Brook, if you please, Spratling. I’m not your maid. Don’t call me by my first name.” Emma took a sip of wine. “Look at how lost you are without me.”
“Oh, yeah?” The inspector sat back on his haunches, looking her over skeptically. “Then what do you suppose happened?”
“It’s painfully simple,” she said. “Dr. McPherson, did you not treat Rachel as a patient?”
“I did...” he replied slowly.
“And would you say she had a lot of medical problems?”
“Yes,” he said quietly, “she was very sickly.”
“And would you say her skin was sensitive.”
“Extremely, actually...”
Inspector Spratling interrupted. “What does this ‘ave to do with the dead man at our feet?” he demanded.
“Overruled,” Emma said dismissively, and then continued, talking to Rich: “Then I’d doubt you’d find her wearing cheap akoya pearls. I think you’ll find those are her mother’s.”
“And?” Spratling grunted.
“And so, they could not have come from her room.” There was a silent moment in the hallway, wherein the inspector stared at the body of the man. “Not a struggle... No, there was more of a... negotiation. It was someone who wanted money from him; he offered the pearls. But whoever killed Lord Murphy was clever--he knew those weren’t worth much.”
They looked on as Emma walked around the body. “And, clearly, he didn’t even bother to take them.”
Spratling hissed to Sergeant Grady, who now stood behind him, “Why aren’t you writing this down?”
“Inspector Spratling, Lord Murphy knew this man.” Emma looked over the hallway and approached a little china pot, lifting the cover a little. “In fact, he knew he was going to die long before it happened.”
“What?” This time, Rich was the one questioning her.
She tousled his thinning hair like he was a child. “Why else would he have even thought to bring the pearls? He knew what his killer wanted.”
“Then why did he kill the other two and not Lady Murphy?” Rich asked.
Emma paused, took a long sip of her wine, and then said, “I don’t know.”
“Oh, something she doesn’t know,” Grady mumbled. Inspector Spratling elbowed him into silence, and he went back to jotting down notes.
“But I will. Now, where’s Rachel?” And Detective Brook gave a wide smile.
Unlike her father, Rachel’s body was not resting peacefully. In fact, her room looked like a wild animal had been let loose in it. Her body was laid face-down on the edge of her bed, her arm hanging off of the bed. Rich hovered in the doorway uneasily, eyes filled with dread. Emma felt the bullet hole in the mattress, looking at the body. “So she was shot here, and then rolled over. Correct?” She looked up at the second doctor, Dr. Chols.
“Yes, Ma’am. You can’t tell through all the blood, not from here, but she was shot in the stomach at very close range.”
Emma nodded, looking around the room. “There was definitely a struggle... He was on top of her, and he shot her.”
“It’s a shame because she didn’t die quickly, Ma’am.”
She sipped her wine. “Dr. McPherson, was Rachel what you would call a rambunctious girl? Fiesty?”
“She was slightly suicidal, if that’s what you mean,” he managed.
The detective looked around the room, eyes narrowed shrewdly. “I think she tried to stop him.”
It had been a month since six of the girls at The Nest had been poisoned, and business had been doing very poorly. Ada Clark didn’t mind. In fact, the less business they had, the more she did, and she did need bread on her table.
She hadn’t lost any friends at The Nest; she didn’t befriend those girls. The girls in the nice places thought they were so fancy just because they got real feather pillows and whatever perfumes they wanted. The Nest was especially famous for treating their soiled doves with the utmost affection. Ada didn’t like a whore who thought she was a duchess.
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