by Marlowe Benn
They swerved to avoid the returning Aunt Arlene, who took a sip of her husband’s brandy and told him he had to the count of three to get off his duff and dance with her.
Jack murmured something as the couple departed, and Philip answered with a canny smile. Off the two men went, just like that, down that private rabbit hole Julia had at first found alarming. Now, after witnessing the mundane drift of those conversations, they seemed simply tedious and rude. She cupped her brandy in both hands and held the fumes close to her face. Her thoughts wandered elsewhere until Philip reached over and prodded her. “Nothing more? My theory leaves you dumb with astonishment?”
Julia tipped her head, feeling the heavy swing of her aquamarine earrings. “Thinking. Of my friend’s dead sister.”
She had formulated the scheme last evening in the taxi heading uptown after their dubious brandy. Glennis readily agreed, telling Julia to come to the Rankin home before ten this morning. One way or the other, she’d insist Chester meet with her to discuss some urgent detail of her monthly allowance.
He’d rumbled in surprise when Julia followed Glennis into his private office, a book-lined room at the back of the house, overlooking the river, but accepted the story that she’d dropped by to borrow a bracelet for the gala. After quickly glancing around for a typewriting machine—and seeing none—Julia moved to the window, according to plan. While Glennis wheedled her brother to check the receipts, adamant that some dressmaker’s charge had been paid twice, Julia gazed out over the back lawns. They spread downhill, toward a brick wall that ran the length of the riverbank. Someone had been raking there recently, clearing the season’s first litter of leaves.
“At least look, Chester,” Glennis pleaded, her voice ascending to a whine.
“For pity’s sake.” He dug in his pocket for a set of keys, then unlocked and jerked open a deep drawer. He pulled out a file folder and dropped it on the desk.
Glennis glanced over: now. Julia yelped astonishment, pressing both hands against the window glass. “No!”
Chester turned. Glennis ran to the window.
“A man, down there, by the wall, and he just went over. Like that.” Julia snapped her fingers. “He was stretching to clip a branch, and then—whoosh. Heels over head. Gone!”
“Henderson!” Glennis’s cry raised the melodrama quotient far higher than necessary. “He’s been working there all week. Chester, do something!”
He rushed out, bellowing for help. Pounding footsteps disappeared down the corridor as Julia quickly closed the door behind him. Glennis ran to the open desk drawer and pulled out another folder bulging with papers. “I knew hers would be twice as fat as mine.”
She spread it open on the desk and pawed through the sheets, disturbing their pristine orderliness. Julia saw Naomi’s obituary neatly cut from the Times, pinned to a carbon typescript, and a series of receipts, including one from the Oak Grove Crematorium on Long Island.
“Look.” Glennis held up a document with two signatures across the bottom, Chester’s and Alice Clintock’s. A quick scan confirmed what Alice had told them: his payment (termed a donation) of $500 in exchange for Union workers’ refusal to speak to reporters about Naomi’s death.
“It’s got to be here,” Glennis said, pushing deeper through the pile. “He’s such a tidy old wart. Hey!” She pulled out a single sheet covered on both sides in distinctive script, a bold Naomi E. Rankin penned on the verso. “That’s it. That’s her writing.”
The writing sloped acutely, hunkering forward across the page. Long narrow ascenders and descenders jutted into adjacent lines like ribbons in a wind. It would not be easy to read under the best circumstances, even with the specs Julia was loath to produce in public, and the note had clearly been written in haste, or perhaps in pain. Glennis tried to puzzle out the words.
“Esteemed readers,” she read aloud and looked up in surprise. Had Naomi hoped the note would be published? Was there an envelope with instructions, or had she assumed Alice would find her body and understand her intentions? No wonder Chester intervened. There was no time to discuss it. Glennis squinted, sounding out words and phrases as they became clear, skipping over the rest. “Denied my birthright . . . outrage . . . under his feet . . . betrayed . . . cannot stop . . . justice . . . never defeat me . . . thousand righteous voices . . . this cruel abuse.
“Sounds like Naomi, all right.” Glennis waved the note with unseemly glee. She rolled it into a tight straw and pushed it down the center of her bodice, right into her cleavage. Julia itched for a crack at deciphering it herself, but there wasn’t time. “This proves I’m right,” Glennis said. “Why would he take her note if he didn’t have something to hide?”
Julia glanced out the window. Chester and a maid had reached the wall and hoisted themselves up to balance awkwardly on their waists, calling the gardener’s name.
“He’s concerned about scandal, Glennis,” she felt compelled to say. “That’s been clear from the start. It’s possible he took the note only to persuade Dr. Perry the suicide was an accident and avoid inquiries. Shady behavior, I agree, but hardly nefarious.”
“He’s covering up his own guilt. I bet anything he sent those threats too.” Glennis began to dig through the file again, searching for some evidence to further damn him.
Julia didn’t like or trust the man any more than Glennis did, but rash accusations only weakened their position. “That’s an awfully big leap.”
“Not if he found out she was going to run for senator. Seeing Naomi in the news for months on end would positively destroy him. Oh!” Glennis’s eyes widened. “I just remembered. Nolda and Viv are pals with Senator Wadsworth’s wife. They’re muckety-mucks in some big organization against the vote. Plus I think they’re on the board of the Woman Patriot. They’d be almost as mad as Chester.”
Julia agreed. Naomi’s Senate campaign would be a powerful cause for family apoplexy, but sending her anonymous threats? It seemed rather draconian for a family that valued dignity and decorum above all else.
“Uh-oh.” Glennis pointed to a man in belted overalls rushing across the lawn to where Chester and now three others were thrashing about in the riverbank’s brush. “There’s Henderson. You’d better scram.”
Glennis straightened the gaping Naomi file and shoveled it back into the drawer. Moving to the window, she waved both arms in sweeping gestures of apology and relief as Julia hurried out, nearly knocking over Nolda in the hall as she rushed toward the taxi waiting beyond the front gate. Glennis would no doubt construct a fabulous explanation for the mistaken scare. Shadows of branches, an empty stomach, all those silly adventure novels. “That Julia,” she’d say. “Such a goose.”
Philip cleared his throat. More loudly he said, “Naomi Rankin, you mean?”
Julia looked up, startled out of her reverie. He was studying her face. The temptation was powerful. She’d dearly welcome a chance to discuss events and discoveries of the past several days with someone less giddy and hell bent than Glennis. Of Philip’s quick mind and perceptive intelligence, there was no doubt, but could she trust him? Would he take her questions seriously or twist and distort them to suit his fancy? There was also the matter of respecting the Rankins’ privacy. Given their duplicity, she decided she was entitled to some of her own.
“I attended the family memorial service,” she said. “The situation is not as simple as you might imagine.”
Philip’s left eyebrow rose, and he glanced at Jack.
“Assure me you won’t breathe a word of this, especially to your police chums. It’s none of their concern or ever likely to be. Consider it merely, as you like to say, a conundrum. Promise me,” she added, as Nolda Rankin had neglected to insist.
Both men nodded and shifted closer.
“All right, then. It’s this. Naomi Rankin died of an overdose of morphine tablets. The family believes—or at least they assert—her suicide was accidental, and they managed to get the detail omitted from the public record. The tale in her
obituary that she died of a brief illness was fabricated to avoid a scandal.”
Philip sat back, cradling his brandy exactly as Julia had done. “And your reason for sharing this morsel?”
“There are differing accounts of the hours surrounding Naomi’s death. The going assumption is that she succumbed to chronic pain and despair.”
“Not to mention remorse for years of disturbing the nation’s peace. That alone would stagger a lesser mortal.”
Julia gave this remark the withering glance it invited. “Others think she was driven by malicious pressure. That she took the tablets but under coercion.”
“Murder, then, by consent? How civilized. Any chance the fatal dose was actually administered by another? Or that she died from some other cause?”
“Impossible to know. They had her cremated.”
Philip smiled.
Exactly. “So I find myself wondering how your precious theory might apply. Did Naomi freely choose to take her life, or was she, in effect, killed, manipulated by some powerful external force?”
Philip’s cigarette smoldered close to his fingers. “Intriguing. Does my theory work in reverse? Can the nature of the crime—as the law insists we regard suicide—be deduced from the identity of the criminal? Well, let’s think. What do we know of the so-called criminal? In this case we know plenty.” He ground out his expiring cigarette and lit another. “Naomi Rankin reveled in drama. She flung herself in the way of every billy stick and handcuff she could find, and yammered loudest when she could cry oppression. Just the sort of self-destructive traits that point to suicide. Afraid I’d put my money on that.”
“But she endured great pain and degradation,” Julia said. “She survived weeks of force-feeding during the hunger strikes. Doesn’t that show a great tolerance of pain and a fierce will to live?”
“Or she resisted in order to spotlight the jailers’ mistreatment. Classic suicidal psychology—dramatize others’ abuse in the most graphic fashion possible. Naomi Rankin was nothing if not pleased at the maelstroms she kicked up.”
This sounded like Winterjay’s self-consoling eulogy. “That’s vile, Philip. She could as easily be praised as heroic. The trouble with your theory is that it’s all semantics. You see what you wish and label it to suit your purposes. Psychology, my foot. I don’t know what particular menace coerced her, but it must have been frightfully powerful to defeat her will to live. So strong, in fact, that I suspect Naomi’s death was closer to murder than suicide, regardless of whose palm carried the tablets to her mouth.”
Julia paused. What had she just said? Did she suspect that? Hadn’t she repeatedly cautioned Glennis against racing to that very conclusion? They were a long way still from knowing the true cause of Naomi’s death. Chester’s subterfuge to obscure that truth was hardly grounds for assuming she was murdered. Neither, though, did it preclude the idea. At this point all was still speculation, and as such, well then, yes, she stood by her words.
“Horsefeathers.” Philip’s face was radiant with delight. “You’re merely back to the motives claptrap. Motives for suicide abound no less than for murder. We’re all awash with motives for crimes of every stripe. Naomi Rankin’s array must have been stupendous. What varies is how we respond.”
“That’s blaming the victim,” Julia said. “It’s appalling, the worst sort of—”
“I propose a wager.” Philip set his brandy on the table. “If you can show she was murdered, I will abandon my objections to your inheritance. If not, if indeed she took her life willingly—with or without a collaborator—you cede it to me. Just between us. What say you?”
Jack launched himself forward. “You’re mad! That money’s nothing to joke about. You can’t do this.”
“What do you say, sister?”
“I’m thinking.”
“Stop!” Jack hissed, bringing glances from nearby tables. His cheeks flooded to the beet-dark color of his hair. “Both of you. This is folly. Philip! Julia! Have some sense.”
“Julia?”
“I accept.” How could she not meet Philip’s bravado with her own? Jack might be easily panicked into squeals, but Julia could match her brother’s mettle ounce for ounce—that they were made of the same stuff was the whole point—and would deny him the satisfaction of so much as a blink. Another bluff move in his absurd game of sibling tug-of-war wouldn’t faze her; she could sustain the farce as fearlessly as he. She had him dead to rights by law (yes, Jack, she knew); why cower from yet another facetious jest? This time she would play the game too, eye to steady eye.
“God Almighty!” Jack jumped up with more vigor than Julia thought him capable. He pulled her to her feet in the direction of the dance floor. “That suit’s a legal matter. You can’t simply wager it away. Before you slay each other like perfect idiots—” The thought sheared away as the Kesslers returned.
“At last, Jack!” Aunt Arlene exclaimed. “Thought I’d have to stick a pin in you.”
She guided into view a young woman in a frock every bit as revealing as Julia’s, but who had cleavage to speak of and a dress that did so eloquently. Mrs. Kessler nudged her forward. “Look who I found, Philip. You remember George and Clara Swetnam’s youngest, Brenda?”
He graciously escorted Brenda Swetnam away toward the dance floor, hesitating not one jot about where to place his hand.
Jack was a different story. “The partners will never recognize this insanity,” he said as he commenced a staid two-step.
“No matter. Philip and I have agreed.”
The muscles in Jack’s jaw twitched and stammered. His guiding hand hovered just above her back. Poor man. He couldn’t quite bring himself to touch her dos magnifique.
CHAPTER 12
As their third dance slowed to an end, Jack’s feet grew more cumbersome and his manners more noble. The poor man’s energy was depleted, at least for Julia’s company. She spotted the Rankins’ table beside the central dais, where Glennis looked to be drowning in a squall of black silk and feathers. “Please, Jack. I must visit the ladies’. You should get back before Mrs. Kessler thinks we’ve eloped.” At this he stumbled outright, and Julia turned to join the Rankins.
Weaving through the crush of couples, Julia saw Glennis twine her arm through Russell Coates’s and move with him toward the refreshment alcove. She slowed, uncertain whether she should follow them or contrive some other errand, when she heard a low “Miss Kydd?” It was Edward Winterjay, beckoning from the Rankins’ table with a two-fingered wave.
Vivian sat beside him, her back to the table, absorbed in conversation with three young women standing behind her. Nolda Rankin was seated at his other side, bent over his arm as if sharing some secret. At his abrupt rise to greet Julia, she stood too. Winterjay’s invitation seemed an amiable courtesy, but Mrs. Rankin’s coldly narrowed eyes as Julia neared made it clear she was, once again, not welcome. She eyed Julia’s bright dress and shining, fresh-cropped hair. “Glennis is not available, Miss Kydd. I’m sorry to disappoint you,” she said tersely, “but we’re in mourning here. You young people may not fully grasp the gravity of our bereavement.”
“I’m sure she understands, Nolda,” Winterjay said. “I merely wanted to thank her for helping Glennis cope this past week. I believe we owe Miss Kydd no small measure of gratitude.”
Nolda conceded with a brittle smile. “Yes, of course. We are grateful, Miss Kydd, for your comforting Glennis and respecting our privacy. You brought us up short last weekend, as you must know, and—”
“There’s nothing to worry about, Nolda,” Winterjay said. He wrapped an arm across her shoulders. She covered his hand with hers—acknowledgment? gratitude?—before moving away to settle beside Chester at the far end of the table, where in their solemn finery they resembled minor royalty receiving condolences from the long line of sympathizers.
Winterjay guided Julia into Nolda’s empty chair, his hand warm against her skin. How refreshing, the confident touch of a man not the least flustered by the cut of
her frock. In fact, he paid her the perfect compliment of an appreciative gaze. Neither leering nor fatuous, his was the sort of reassuring smile most young women might count on from an affectionate older brother or cousin.
“Glennis just left with Coates,” Winterjay said. “She’s dying to dance, but a stroll’s the best she can do under the circumstances. I’m afraid I’m bound by the same stricture, or I’d have cut in on Van Dyne some time ago. I must be content merely to say you look lovely tonight, Miss Kydd.”
Winterjay was handsome in the clean-jawed, clear-eyed way Julia preferred. He was roughly David’s age: past the urgency of grasping, hot-breathed youth. When seen at close range, threads of gray showed behind his ears, and the grooves beside his eyes remained after a smile had passed. As with most men, evening kit became him enormously. Julia noted the smooth muscles of his neck and shoulders and smelled the bracing scent of shaving tonic. A skilled lover, she thought. She felt the twitching antennae of nearby females in the crowd; curious gossip—Who is she?—would fly soon amid the lipstick and powder in the ladies’.
“I meant what I said about the family’s gratitude,” he said. “Glennis tells me you’ve been a good friend to her this past week.”
Did he know of their outing to Naomi’s Union headquarters? Julia answered cautiously. “I think it pains her to realize how little she knew her sister.”
Winterjay nodded. “For years Naomi was so busy with her work that none of us saw her much. She was rarely in New York and then seldom at home.”
“I understand she was a woman of great passions.”
He smiled. “Naomi was nothing if not passionate. She loved arguments—she invited them, relished them. As you may know, my wife disagreed profoundly with her, though in many ways their objective was the same. Most people failed to recognize that, unfortunately including Naomi.”
He explained. “They’re both great champions of women. As am I. My wife is as fierce an opponent of those who disparage women’s gifts as Naomi was. They simply differed on what they thought the best course to pursue.”
