The Alchemy of Murder Read Online Free Page A

writing style, but what I had to say I said it right out regardless of paragraphs or punctuation.
    “I could tell you wrote that Lonely Orphan Girl stuff with your heart, not your head, and it’s just right, too.” He also added that with guidance, I could learn the newspaper craft quickly.
    “Miss Cochran, I am looking to bring something fresh to the new Sunday edition. Would you compose an article on ‘the woman’s spheres in life’?”
    I was rendered speechless. I’d never dreamed I could be a reporter, it being the consensus that newspaper reporting in general was not a fit job for a woman. However, I’ve always had the belief that nothing is impossible if one applies a certain amount of energy in the right direction. I believe this state of mind emboldened me to obtain a job reserved for men.
    *   *   *
    “T HE G IRL P UZZLE ,” my very first newspaper piece, was prominently placed at the top of page 11, on January 25, 1885.
    To make life better, I received five dollars— five dollars mind you, more than a week’s wages earned at the factory. I could only conclude my article was well received because Mr. Maddox not only asked me to write another piece, he suggested I choose my own subject.
    “Young lady, your grammar is still rocky, but you do manage to get your facts straight, so why don’t you select a subject that interests you.”
    I’m impassioned to write exposés of the terrible wrongs people suffer—especially women. That being said, I chose the subject of divorce.
    Not only are divorces rare and difficult to obtain, most people have no idea how awful it is for a woman to be trapped in an unhappy or even brutal marriage. After witnessing what my mother had endured with my stepfather, I became in favor of divorce, especially when there is abuse—physical or mental—in the household.
    At fourteen years of age I offered this testimony for my mother concerning her divorce:
My stepfather has been generally drunk since he married my mother. When drunk, he is very cross and cross when sober. He often uses profane language towards her and calls her a whore and bitch. My mother is afraid of him. He attempted to choke her. This was sometime after they were married. The next time was in the Oddfellows Hall New Year’s Night 1878.
    I decided to take my own experiences, along with my father’s old law books and case notes, and report on why I felt divorce was proper when the circumstances demanded it. The following week when the article appeared I became infuriated, to say the least, when no one believed a woman had written the article. Everyone thought it was a man using a woman’s name! Imbeciles.
    Mr. Maddox, however, decided I should have my own byline, but because reporting was considered unladylike, I had to write under a pseudonym. When he threw out to the men in the news room the question of what my byline should be, someone started humming and the whole gang sang a popular Stephen Foster song:
Nelly Bly, Nelly Bly, bring de broom along.
We’ll sweep de kitchen clean, my dear, and hab a little song …
    “Nelly Bly!” was shouted in the news room and Elizabeth Cochran from Cochran Falls, Pennsylvania, was laid to rest, R.I.P. But I spelled it Nellie, not Nelly. As Mr. Maddox was so fond of saying, my spelling and grammar were “rocky.”
    I bid farewell to my factory friends, but I would never forget them. I was determined to help them gain better working conditions and wages. To that end, I did a hard-hitting story on sweatshop conditions in the city.
    The day my story appeared, I was indoctrinated into how the system really works, and I didn’t like the taste of it.
    A delegation of businessmen paid a visit to Mr. Maddox and advised him that working conditions were too rude a subject for a woman. Just like that I was assigned to the society page to report: “On June 1st the Mr. and Mrs. Snot-Grass gave their daughter, Amanda, to Brian, the son of the Mr. and Mrs. Blue-Nose. The