A Rip Through Time(17)

“There were a few more of them,” McCreadie says. “Dislodged when we transported him.”

“Hmm. I don’t suppose it matters. I have no idea what they signify, but that would be your job. Lack of bleeding suggests they were also inserted postmortem.”

Inserted? Feathers? I’m barely able to stand still now, and I keep reminding myself that this has nothing to do with me. I’m a housemaid in this world, which I hope to exit tomorrow.

Forget feathers and beaks and bizarrely posed corpses. This does not concern me, and like Gray, I will deem it quite ordinary. Mundane. Not worthy of my attention.

So why am I still bouncing on my toes trying to see the body?

“That is enough for now,” Gray says. “Addington will be here soon, and we must play the game of pretending no one has examined the body. I shall perform a more thorough analysis in the morning.”

“Would you like to know who he is?”

“Who who is?”

“The poor lad on your laboratory table.”

“You know him?”

“Archie Evans. Came up from London a few years back. Fancied himself a proper journalist. Reported on crime for the Evening Courant.”

“Why the devil didn’t you say so? That could be significant.”

“I already considered that, Duncan. Evans may have covered the wrong story. Dug too deep where he ought not to. That has nothing to do with the manner of death, though.”

“The feathers belong to a pigeon. A pigeon carries messages. A scribbler spreads the message of the news.”

“There was also a single raven feather.” McCreadie takes a watch from his pocket. “Oh, would you look at the time? I must trot off to meet Dr. Addington.”

“Do not dare walk out now, Hugh. Where was this raven feather?”

“Oh, do not concern yourself with such an uninteresting murder, Duncan. I’m certain you have better puzzles to captivate that brain of yours. Off I go.”

McCreadie walks from the room as I scamper back into my hiding spot. I listen as his boots clomp across the floor, and Gray strides after him, audibly seething.

“Be sure to leave the door open for our return,” McCreadie says cheerfully. “No need to stay up. I’ll see you on the morrow.”

McCreadie leaves. Gray follows him, still asking about the raven feather. I should make my escape now. Get out while I can. But even as I fix my gaze on the back door, my feet take me to that “laboratory” door.

I sneak toward the door the men exited. It’s firmly closed. I slip into the lab and sidle up to the table for a look at the body.

I’ve seen mangled corpses and drowning victims, and other sights that made me wish I hadn’t eaten breakfast. This is horrifying in an entirely different way. There’s no blood. No gore. Not even stab wounds.

Gray called it a prop. That’s what it looks like. The prop from some avant-garde performance art meant to convey God knows what message. Except in art, it wouldn’t be an actual body. That’s where the horror comes from.

The young man has been staged to look like a bird. Legs bound up and feet broken into a perch pose. Elbows wide. Hands affixed to the torso so the arms form wings.

It all looks postmortem. That hardly matters. It’s still grotesque.

Rows of feathers protrude from the young man’s shoulders. They’ve been poked through the shirt and inserted into his shoulders.

Then there is the beak. It looks like a mask from an old play. By old, I mean old-fashioned, in the sense that it’s carved from wood rather than plastic formed in a 3D printer. There’s a string for fastening it, but when I nudge the beak with my knuckle, it stays fixed. Glued on? That makes me shiver, but then, morbid ghoul that I am, I can think of far worse ways to fasten a beak onto a person’s face.

This is what my detective brain seizes on. It’s what has my hands moving instinctively to my nonexistent pockets for my nonexistent phone, itching to snap a photo for later study. I see past the grotesquerie of the staging and must grudgingly marvel at the ingenuity and lack of mutilation. I grew up in the era of movies like Saw, which I walked out of. I love horror; I hate the torture-porn of body horror. The killer here has managed to capture the essence of that while refraining from true butchery.

That doesn’t mean I admire the killer in any possible way. They murdered a young man. The kid barely looks twenty and, yes, the death of anyone is tragic, but I will always feel an extra pang of grief for lives cut so short.

What did McCreadie say? Evans had been a reporter on the crime beat? This boy had accomplished something, and now he’s lying in a funeral parlor. What was done to him only makes it that much worse. It’s mockery. Using his body as a canvas, using his death as a message, as if his life was worth no more than that.

Staged to look like a bird. A pigeon, Gray said. I eye the feathers and consider taking one for study. McCreadie did say a few had fallen out, so another wouldn’t be missed.

I stifle the impulse. Not my circus. Not my monkey. Not even my century. I plan to be gone tomorrow, and I’m sure as hell not disturbing a murder victim’s body to satisfy idle curiosity. Because that’s all it can be. Idle curiosity.

Presuming they are pigeon feathers, the symbolism is simple. As Gray said, pigeons carry messages. A reporter spreads the news. As for the raven feather near the body, well, ravens prey on pigeons. Corvids have a reputation for being the smartest birds. That’s how our killer sees themself. They’re the smartest person in the room.