Lady Vigilante (Episodes 16 – 18) (Lady Vigilante Crime Compilations)

by Hayley Camille

  “And what about George?”

  “He knows, of course. He married Betty when Nancy was two. He took the child on as his own. He’s her real father, in all the ways that count, and gave her what I couldn’t. Safety. Security. A clean slate and a good life. George didn’t care about Betty’s past or the fact she had an illegitimate child. He was the father Nancy needed, not some school boy without a clue. I don’t even know what I am to Nancy. Or what she’ll want me to be. Probably nothing if that display was anything to go by.”

  Jacob and Adina faced each other on the frosted grass, resentment poised like arrows.

  “How did Nancy know?” asked Adina. “She must not have known the truth before tonight, her reaction said it all. No one said anything. What happened?”

  Jacob drew back his shoulders. They were on dangerous territory.

  “I can’t tell you how she knew.”

  “Why on earth not?!”

  “Because it’s not my secret to tell. Nancy’s a child. It’s her business so you’ll have to ask Betty.”

  “Ask Betty?” Adina cried, incredulously. “Ask Betty?! More secrets and lies! I’ve had enough of it, Jacob! She’s your child too. You tell me. Now! Or I’m walking away forever.”

  “I’m telling you everything I can.”

  “You’re telling me half-truths!”

  “Because it’s not a conversation I’m willing to have on a front lawn, in the middle of winter, in the dark!” His words sliced the frozen air.

  “Is that right?!”

  “That’s right!”

  They glared at each other.

  Moments ticked by. Their bodies frozen. Hearts cold.

  “Alright. You know what,” Jacob growled, his eyes locked onto the woman in front of him. “I will tell you. I’ll tell you the truth and see what you make of it. I’m tired of your judgement.”

  Adina raised her eyebrows. Her chin was high, arms folded.

  Jacob stepped forward. His tone frigid. “Nancy can read minds. There.” He threw his hands in the air. “That’s how she knew. She read my mind as I stepped up to the front door. Now you know the truth.”

  Adina’s mouth turned down. Her jaw tightened. Her eyes unblinking.

  Silence. His words stuck to them like sleet, wet and heavy.

  Adina watched him breathe, staring, as if she were finally seeing him in some strange new light. “After all of this,” she uttered, “you come up with that? What kind of fool do you think I am to believe a story so ridiculous –”

  “It’s the truth!” Jacob threw his walking stick on the grass and ran his hands through his hair, feeling as though he might tear it out. He turned away, escaped a short distance, then rounded back. “She reads minds. So does Betty. I know what that sounds like, but it’s true. They’re both strong too. Incredibly fast and agile. You can’t even imagine. They have a –” Jacob stuttered, grasping for words that sounded stupid before they were even spoken, “– a sixth sense on how people are going to react, because they can read their intentions. Betty can fight with it – she fights like a demon.” He swung his face to the non-existent stars again, hoping one might come and swallow him up. “They’re not normal people. It wasn’t my secret to share, but there you have it! That’s how Nancy knew I was her father. I forgot to hide it. She read my mind.”

  Adina’s mouth was agape. Her crossed arms had fallen limp. She blinked. Tears spilled from her lashes, falling from her cheeks onto her furry collar.

  When she spoke again, the venom was gone.

  “You need help, Jacob. What you’re describing, doesn’t exist. Making up these ridiculous stories and –” she stared at him, bewildered, “and actually believing them? The thing is, I like Betty. She’s been good to me when no one else would. But putting her on this pedestal in your mind and claiming she can do these ridiculous things? You need to let her go, Jacob. She’s got some kind of hold on you that I just don’t understand. And you know what - I pity you for it. And I pity myself for loving you. You’re not the man I thought you were.”

  Adina turned away. She crossed the lawn, letting her gloves brush away her heartbreak as she disappeared inside Mrs. Porter’s house next door.

  Jacob stayed alone on the grass, immune to the snow that was now falling thick and fast. In the dark, his face burned with humiliation. He was angry. Not just with Adina, but with his whole life. Because despite her disbelief and cruel words, Adina had exposed his truth.

  “Nancy, darling?” Betty called. She turned her head as Nancy tried to sneak past the kitchen door unseen. The girl froze. “Come in here, please.”

  Nancy turned slowly and stood in the doorway, her face thunder with a dark cloud that followed her throughout the house. She hadn’t said a word to Betty all night. Her only response to her mother’s repeated pleas to open her bedroom door had been a shrill ‘Leave me alone!’ She had missed dinner, and then breakfast. Betty had been up early and had prepared Nancy’s favorite breakfast which had gone cold and uneaten. Betty knew the girl was too clever to starve herself over her own stubbornness, so she had washed up little Georgie and sent him outside to sled with his friends, then planted herself in the kitchen to wait out her daughter’s hunger. Her plan had worked. It was nearly lunch time and Nancy had finally come creeping to the kitchen, no doubt in the hope that she’d find it unattended, to grab a biscuit and scuttle back to her bedroom. Instead, she’d found her mother up to her elbows in pickling cucumbers with a welcoming smile, and a fresh plate of hot pancakes set on the table.

  “I thought you might like to eat something, sweetheart,” Betty said, nodding to the pancakes as she stirred a saucepan of vinegar, water and salt over the stovetop. “We don’t have to talk about last night if you don’t want to.”

  Nancy stood defiantly for a moment in the doorway with her arms crossed over her chest. Her eyes were red and puffy.

  “Sister Bernadette dropped by the other morning with a box of empty jars,” Betty continued, lightly. “They’re all out of our famous dill pickles at the orphanage -the ones you helped me make at the beginning of Fall. Apparently, the boys wolf them down, isn’t that nice? I thought we could make some more together.” She turned back to the stove as Nancy edged into the room and took a seat at the table. With a glare, the girl began eating pancakes as delicately as her hunger allowed. “We’ll need to wash the jars first of course,” Betty continued. “I’ve already washed the cucumbers. I picked up ten dozen at D’Agostino’s yesterday morning. The brine is on the boil, but I thought I’d leave the dill and peppercorn to your taste; you did such a wonderful job last time.” She beamed at Nancy, who decidedly ignored her. “So, what do you say, darling? Are you ready to get yourself in a pickle over pickles?”

  Nancy looked at her, shoulders slumped, brow furrowed.

  “I’m already in a pickle,” she muttered.

  “Better to be in one pickle, than a whole jar of them,” Betty winked.

  Nancy scowled at her.

  Betty turned off the stove and pulled out a chair opposite her daughter. She reached out to take her hand. “Darling, I’m not going to read your mind. You have every right to be upset and every right to privacy. But I do need you to understand one thing – whatever anger you have toward me right now, your father, George Jones, has been every bit your father since the moment he laid eyes on you. It makes no difference to him that you were born before he met you. You were barely out of babyhood when your father met me, and he thought you were the sweetest thing he’d ever seen. He’s loved you just as he would if you’d been born his.”

  “If he loved me so much, then he should have told me the truth, even if you wouldn’t,” Nancy said, her lip quivering and her eyes ablaze. “You lied to me. You let me spend my whole life thinking he was my father when all along it was someone else.”

  Nancy dropped her fork with a clatter and pulled her hand out of reach.

  “Neither of us wanted to hurt you, Nancy. I know how m
uch you love your father, why would I cast a shadow over that? Goodness, the two of you are like peas in a pod. That doesn’t need to change.”

  “I didn’t want it to change,” Nancy sniffed, “but you’ve changed it. And you weren’t even going to tell me! If I hadn’t read it in his mind, I’d never have known.”

  “I was going to tell you,” Betty protested, “but you’ve been through so much already this year that I just couldn’t find the right time. I was going to wait until your father was back home, safe and you were a bit older and able to understand –”

  “Understand?” Nancy’s eyes spilled over. “Understand that I’m illegitimate and that you’ve been lying to me?”

  “You’re loved.”

  “Understand that you humiliated me at the Christmas Fair and scared Bobby away forever, even though you did the exact same thing at my age, only worse?!”

  “I was not your age,” Betty said, trying to keep her voice even, “I was nearly sixteen.”

  “You were fifteen, and I’m nearly fourteen –”

  “You are not,” Betty said sharply, “And you’ve lived a far more sheltered childhood than I did, thank heavens for that.” Despite her words, Betty felt a sting of guilt. Nancy’s accusations weren’t entirely unjustified. “Alright, yes, I was only fifteen when I fell pregnant,” Betty conceded, “but it’s for that very reason I’ve been so strict with you. I don’t want you to repeat my past mistakes –”

  “So, I’m a mistake?” Nancy burst into tears.

  “No, of course not, that’s not what I meant at all!” Betty leaned across to take Nancy’s hand once more, but the girl recoiled. “You’re the most precious thing in the world to me, Nancy. I gave up everything so I could keep you safe! You can’t possibly imagine how alone I was in the world when I found out I was having a baby. I had to run away with nothing but a few trinkets and the clothes on my back. I had nowhere to go. No one to turn to. The persecution I faced for being an unmarried woman with a baby was terrible. A girl’s reputation is everything – once ruined, it holds influence over your entire life. Whether you can find a place to live, a job to earn money, find a husband – these things aren’t usually spoken about to children, but perhaps they should be. You’re old enough to understand what it’s done to poor Adina, and she’s a grown woman. Her reputation is in tatters. Until she marries and builds a new life, she’ll remain a tarnished woman in her church and in her family.”

  “I don’t care about Adina, and I don’t care about you!” Nancy’s voice hit fever-pitch. Tears were streaming down her face.

  “I know this is hard, darling, but give it some time,” Betty soothed. “George, daddy, is still your father in all the important ways. We both love you just as we always have. We can talk about this again whenever you like, I’ll tell you everything you want to know. You can talk to Jacob as well if you like, I’m sure he’s worried about you and feeling awful for the way you found out –”

  “And I especially don’t care about him!”

  Nancy got to her feet and raced from the kitchen. A moment later, her bedroom door slammed. Brushing off tears of her own, Betty went back to her pickles.

  Adina pulled through the gates of St. Augustine’s Home for Unwanted Boys and rolled to a stop to the left of the huge circular driveway. Across the lawn, two dozen boys played ball under the watchful eye of Sister Grace Evina. They were having a jolly time, shouting at one another and racing back and forth under the giant red oak, laden heavy with snow. She could see Teddy and Chester among the group, hovering near its trunk, picking at the bark. Adina smiled. No doubt some strange insect had stolen their attention, as it often did when gym class was scheduled.

  Adina reached back into the Chevy, pulled out her handbag and shut the door with a thud. She’d been a hair’s breadth from ringing Sister Bernadette on the telephone and requesting the day off again. Her eyes were red-rimmed and stinging. Her spirits were low, and her heart crushed. It had been three days since her argument with Jacob on the front lawn of Betty’s house, and she had not heard from him. Nor did she wish to. But the melancholy dragged at her and her mind was rarely far from it. Another day in bed, even with Mrs. Parsons bustling around forcing cups of tea on her, was tempting.

  But then Adina remembered the upcoming book fair, and her promise to Teddy that they would finish their book display. Inside the orphanage library, the bite of New York winter had been transformed into a tropical paradise, complete with paper vines and painted coconut palms stuck to the walls. A life-sized mural of Long John Silver and his parrot had been outlined on the library door, awaiting the paint that would lick it into life. Kindergarten boys had been tasked with scavenging tin lids to make pieces of eight, and the elementary class had been polishing garden stones into precious jewels for a week. Sister Mary Josella had turned her capable hands at helping the middle-school boys build a treasure chest to hold the booty. It was pirate day. So, despite her desperation to be alone in her heartbreak, Adina had risen, painted on a smile and pulled on her driving gloves so as not to disappoint the children. With bag in hand, she set off toward the main entrance. She pushed through the double doors, turned into the ground floor library she had come to love and collapsed into a chair. The normally tidy library was littered with the offcuts of paper palm leaves and coconut scraps. I need a coffee first. Adina got to her feet again and stuck her head out of the door, hoping to avoid the well-meaning platitudes of the Sisters on her way to the kitchen.

  “Hello?” Someone called out from behind her.

  Adina stopped. Turned. A young woman was walking up the hall, a figure of swathe elegance in a simple dress-suit. Her dark hair was twisted into a chignon at the nape of her neck. Startling blue eyes, almost violet in their intensity sought Adina’s attention as she drew closer.

  “Excuse me,” the woman said, “I’m looking for the administrator, but I’m not having any luck. Are you she?”

  “I’m afraid not. Just the librarian. Sister Bernadette is the one you want. Just a moment, I’ll see if I can find her for you.” With a polite wave, Adina hurried up the corridor and poked her head into the sparse office the head nun usually occupied. It was empty. She took the stairs, but only found those Sisters who were busily engaged in teaching their charges. She returned to the visitor, who was still standing outside the library door.

  “I’m afraid she’s nowhere to be found.” Adina smiled an apology, her thoughts on the coffee pot. “Can I leave her a message?”

  The young woman’s face fell. She looked around the corridor, blinking hard.

  “Oh dear, I can see I’ve disappointed you,” Adina said, her attention now fully diverted to the woman’s plight. She knew the sting of disappointment well herself.

  “It’s really quite urgent I see the administrator,” the blue-eyed woman insisted. “I only have half an hour before the bus returns, and I can’t make it back until next week.”

  “Perhaps Sister Bernadette could telephone you instead –” Adina began.

  “No, no. I need to be here, to see for myself.”

  Adina frowned. “I’m sorry, the Sister flies in and out like a peregrine falcon. There’s so much work in an institution this size with so many children to take care of. But if you make an appointment for next week, then she’ll certainly be here for it.”

  “I’m running short of time,” the young woman said. She seemed to be gathering her wits, her mind working hard. Adina was intrigued as to what could be so important that it couldn’t wait another week.

  “Perhaps I can help you?” Adina offered. “I’m only the librarian, so I have no real authority, but I do know how the Sisters run things well enough.”

  “The librarian, you say?” the visitor asked. Her tone had lost its soft edge.

  “That’s right.”

  “So, you know the children?”

  “Most of them. Some more than others, but they all visit during classes.”

  The young wo
man looked around, critically. She nodded toward the library door.

  “May I?”

  “Of course.” Adina led her into the library, stepping around the paper mess left by the elementary boys. “Sorry for the untidiness; we’ve traded our New York chill for the balmy delights of Treasure Island this week. I’m up to my ears in papier-mâché and cardboard swords. The library is the only room they can make such a mess in and get away with it. I don’t possess the level of discipline that the nuns observe – I’m a bit of a soft touch I’m afraid.” Adina turned around and was surprised to find the woman had stopped just inside the room. She was standing very still, staring at the offending mess with bright eyes. “Are you alright?” Adina asked.

  “It’s not what I was expecting, that’s all,” she said. “These places are usually so stark and uncaring.”

  “Oh, I know,” Adina nodded. “And so it was until Sister Bernadette had the authority to change things. A man, no, a criminal, by the name of,” Adina cleared her throat, willing herself to say the name without reacting, “Donald Pinzolo was the administrator, and he did the most unspeakable things here.”

  “What kind of things?” she asked, sharply.

  Adina hesitated. “Used the older boys to distribute narcotics. Had them packing and selling drugs, led them into trouble.” There was an inscrutable look on the young woman’s face. As if every word Adina said meant more to her than it should.

  “Only the older boys you say?”