Free Ripper by Stefan Petrucha

were real, too.
    He looked around. The hissing came from an iron radiator. The clacking was Hawking, his clawed right hand jabbing slowly at the typewriter keys.
    “I know you’re awake, boy,” he said. “Take a moment to gather your thoughts, but no more. Must’ve gotten cold last night. The heat seldom makes it up here. Means an early winter.”
    His mentor seemed lighter, as if all the travelingyesterday accounted for most of his foul mood. Still, Carver remained quiet as he slipped on the ill-fitting pants and shirt he’d worn for Prospective Parents Day. Was it really only yesterday?
    “Like puzzles?” Hawking asked. “Here’s one. Look at the typewriter keys—
QWERTY.
Ever wonder why they’re arranged that way?”
    Carver repeated what he’d heard. “The most common letters are next to each other to make the typing faster.”
    “No. That’s what most think, and most people are fools. Christopher Latham Sholes designed the layout in 1874 to
slow
the typist, to prevent the keys from jamming. The patients are at breakfast. You can shower privately. Get cleaned up and bring us back some food from the cafeteria.”
    Carver made for the stairs, relieved, despite Hawking’s slightly improved disposition, to be away from him. In daylight, the asylum didn’t look quite so awful. There was less moaning, and the showers on the floor below were, as Hawking said, empty. He wished he had different clothes to change into, but the towels he dried himself with were clean.
    The narrow second-floor dining room was packed and loud. He tried not to stare, but the swollen brows and tiny eyes of some patients were freakish. Even their laughter seemed off. The only patient he spoke to was a woman in front of him in line. When he accidentally stared at her too long, she explained she was the wife of Grover Cleveland, president of the United States. Carver had no idea how to react. He worried she might get violent if he disagreed, or, if he stood too close, he might somehow inhale her madness.
    Could he ever get used to this place? He had to. Hawking and the New Pinkertons would help find his father and make him a real detective along the way. That was worth a little discomfort, no?
    Back upstairs, the lukewarm tea, gray oatmeal and bread tasted so dull, Carver missed Curly’s cooking. Hawking didn’t mind it. With a bowl next to his typewriter, he alternated between striking keys and taking spoonfuls of mush.
    When the bowl was empty, Hawking said, “Ask me what I’m working on.”
    “Is it about my father?”
    “No, that’s your job. These are notes about Hunter and Smellie, the fathers of British midwifery. Their work, hundreds of years ago, saved the lives of countless women. Does that sound noble to you?”
    “Yes,” Carver answered. “Sure.”
    “Don’t be so dull. Say, good heavens, what saints! Or, frankly I care more about a wart on my ass! Better yet, ask why a detective should even be interested.”
    “All right. Why—”
    Hawking cut him off. “Because they were murderers. They needed fresh corpses for their research, so they ordered the deaths of scores of women, some pregnant. Still noble?”
    “No,” Carver said. “They were criminals.”
    “Define
criminal,
” Hawking said.
    “Someone who breaks the law.”
    “The men who founded the United States broke British law. Benjamin Franklin said, we must all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately. Was he a criminal?”
    “No… well, yes, but… those were unfair laws that had to be broken.”
    “So, to be a man like Franklin, you sometimes have to break the law?”
    Carver hesitated. “Yes.”
    Hawking wiped his lips and tossed the napkin into the bowl.“I was too harsh last night, boy. I forgot your sense of right and wrong comes from dime novels. The lines aren’t as clear in the real world.”
    “I’m not stupid,” Carver objected.
    Hawking narrowed his eyes. “I didn’t say you were. Put words in my mouth and