by Byers, Beth
While she put things away and helped the children into what things she’d thought to bring, she saw that two of the little ones didn’t end up with new clothes. One, the smaller of the girls with freckles, saw that there was nothing for her, but she didn’t let out a peep.
“Charles,” Severine said, “we need more things.”
She made him a list and sent him on his way. She turned the food they’d brought into a hearty stew. This family needed more than just a one-off delivery of food and clothes. Severine wished there was something she could do to help, but what could she do?
Hating herself, she asked the oldest of the children, “Did you know Mr. Sidney next door?”
The child nodded, any defensiveness having faded in the light of food and gifts. “He was nice. Helped Mama. Helped Papa find jobs.”
Severine smiled at the girl and squatted down low. “Do you know when your mama is going to come back?”
The girl shook her head. “Papa didn’t come back last night. Mama went to get him.”
Severine closed her eyes and then said, “Do you know Mr. Sidney’s kitty’s name? I took her home.”
The girl nodded and then whispered, “Socks.”
“Socks?” Severine said brightly, hating it immediately.
“Socksies.” The girl rubbed the back of her hand across her nose and then asked, “Is Mr. Sidney in heaven?”
Severine nodded solemnly.
“I wish he wasn’t.”
“Me too,” Severine told her. “Do you know that I was coming to see him because he knew my papa?”
The little girl shook her head.
“I was. I wanted to know about my papa. He died.”
“He did?” The girl frowned and then whispered, “Mama said we’d be better off if Mr. Sidney were next door and Papa was in heaven, but I wasn’t to tell.”
“I won’t tell,” Severine promised and held out her pinky. “Pinky promise.”
The girl hooked her finger and then she frowned after they nodded. “Mr. Sidney gave Papa something for you.”
“How do you know?” Severine asked, her heart suddenly in her throat.
“He gave Papa paper and asked him to send it and he’d get a pack of cigarettes, so Papa did.”
“He did?” Severine gasped. “Was it mail? An envelope?”
“Papa posted it for Mr. Sidney and then got some cigarettes and I went with him.”
“How do you know it was for me?” Severine asked.
“Cause Mr. Sidney said it was for a girl who was coming to ask about her snake father, and he’d be crushing hearts and souls. Said it left him sick, but that if you were that man’s child then you were smart enough to figure out the truth on your own.”
Severine leaned back on her heels, staring at the little girl. Those big eyes were honest and bright. “Were you eavesdropping?”
“I was listening,” the girl said. “At the window.”
“Do you do that a lot?”
The girl nodded. Severine felt a flash of fear for the little girl. What if she’d heard more than she should have? What if the man who killed Mr. Sidney realized that he’d had an audience of little ears, little eyes, and ready mouths?
Severine wanted to help, but if the police realized that she swept in and moved the family, surely she’d become a suspect of great interest. Severine took the girl’s hand. “What do you think about keeping that a secret between us?”
The girl nodded readily, but Severine could guess what would happen if someone else were smart enough to recognize the wit in the little thing. She took a deep breath in and returned to the stew, letting the girl help her put the potatoes and the carrots in the pot. Severine fiddled with her hand and wished that there was some way to help that wouldn’t land them all in more trouble.
“Did you see what happened the day Mr. Sidney went to heaven?” she finally asked.
The girl nodded solemnly. “Mama was peeking out the front door,” she whispered, instinctively knowing what she had seen or heard was terrible. “A man came.”
“A man?”
“A big man,” the girl said. “He hurt Mr. Sidney and made him cry.”
Severine shivered before she whispered, “Did you see his face?”
The little girl nodded.
Severine put her hand over her throat as she asked, “Did he see you?”
A quick of shake of her head had Severine feeling a little better. She reached out and squeezed the girl’s hand. “It’s going to be all right, little one.”
Severine continued to take care of the children until Charles returned. “Where is their mother and father?” she asked in a whisper.
He shook his head, and they finished fixing the clothes for the little ones that hadn’t been so lucky the first round. Severine hadn’t realized that Charles had taken the measurements of the children’s feet, but he’d come back with coats and shoes for all of them. They fed the children dinner, working together, and then Charles laughed.
“What?” she asked, seeing very little humor in the fact that reasonable bedtimes were fast approaching and the children’s parents hadn’t arrived. The baby had been fed from a bottle of milk that little Lettie had known how to heat and feed. The girl, who had to be less than eight years old, changed two sets of diapers and kept the children in the house. They played with sticks as if they were tin soldiers and Severine marveled at their creativity.
“Who’d have thought that we’d spend the day caring for children this way?” Charles shook his head. “Or that you, Miss DuNoir, would be quite so excellent at doing things like changing nappies, making simple meals, and seeing to normal things. I can assure you, Severine, that your cousin Florette would not have been able to do what you did today.”
Severine shook her head, not caring. She took Charles to the back of the house and told him about what Lettie had seen. The other three children watched Severine as though they were afraid she’d take back their shoes. Lettie rocked a doll in the corner of the room, singing low, and her siblings played with the little things they’d gotten so far.
“They need tin soldiers,” Severine told Charles.
“They need more than blankets in the corner of the room, Sev. They must sleep like puppies in a pile.”
Severine winced. She hadn’t realized that they didn’t even have a cot. She hadn’t even considered where the children had slept. She slumped into the rickety wooden chair, feeling exhausted, before she said, “If the man who h-u-r-t,” she spelled, “comes back, I’m worried for their s-a-f-e-t-y.”
Charles nodded. “We’ll figure something out, Sev. We can’t make any plans until the parents arrive.”
Severine frowned and pushed her hair back. After another hour, Severine helped the children to bed in their blankets and she and Charles stared at one another. Where were the parents? How long were they supposed to wait? Severine stared out the window at the dead man’s house and idly said, “Now is probably a good time to make a search.”
Charles stared back at Severine and then hesitantly said, “Yes.”
He rose, and she stayed, though she wished she could join him. Someone had to stay with the five little children who slept in the pile though. They all slept peacefully, save Lettie, whose clever gaze never moved from where Severine sat at the table.
“Are your parents gone like this often?” Severine whispered so as to not wake the other children.
The child slowly shook her head and a tear rolled down her face. Lettie buried her face into the belly of her doll and silently wept. Severine wanted to cry with the little one, but it wasn’t a luxury she could afford.
Chapter 13
Charles returned an hour later and three hours after that, there was a knock on the door. Charles opened it, his gun ready in its holster, but then he stepped back, casting Severine a worried look. On the other side of the door was Officer Staubb and a woman in a Salvation Army uniform.
“Oh, no,” Severine said, guessing what it meant.
&nb
sp; “Oh, no?” the officer asked.
Charles gestured outside and they joined the two strangers outside, closing the door slightly. “We were afraid something had happened when the children’s mother didn’t return.”
“What are you doing here?” the police officer asked.
Severine answered, “I asked her if she had a telephone on the day Charles found Mr. Sidney. She told me where I could make a phone call, and I couldn’t help but notice the children didn’t have proper clothes and they looked thin. We stopped by today to bring some things.”
The woman squeezed Severine’s shoulder. “Kind of you, Miss DuNoir.”
“Kind?” the officer snapped. “Why are you really here?”
“The children were clearly hungry,” Severine told him.
“It’s true,” the woman from the Salvation Army argued. “We feed that family every night for soup. I told you that when you found the parents. I told you that I was worried the second I didn’t see them come through the line and then to find their bodies…”
“Quiet about that, Martha,” Officer Staubb warned. “These two—”
“Have nothing to do with hurting those children’s parents. There’s no way a posh woman like this lady would have been around the soup kitchen and not been noticed.”
Severine pressed her hand to her eyebrow and tried to push the headache back. She wasn’t sure her cup of coffee had been such a brilliant idea, or maybe it was because it was after 2:00 a.m., or maybe it was because two more people were dead and there were five orphans on the other side of the door.
Her eyes filled with tears, and she pressed her face into Charles’s shoulder. “Those poor babies—”
“We’ll take them until we can get them into an orphanage,” Martha said. “They’ll be safe enough.”
“Won’t they get split up?” Severine asked. “They put boys in one and girls in another?”
Martha’s face twisted with regret, but she nodded firmly. “It’s the best we can do. We’ll do what we can for them and try to find them places, so we can help more.”
“Do they not have family?” Charles asked.
Martha shook her head. “There’s a sister who’s just as poor. She can’t feed her own little ones let alone five more.”
Severine glanced at Charles and they were both thinking about Lettie and what she’d seen. There would be danger to every child in the same orphanage if the murderer realized that the mother wasn’t the only witness.
“Separating them is not the best I can do, however,” Severine said. “What’s the point of being well-off if we don’t help those who need it?”
“Are you telling me that you’re going to raise a pack of low-bred mongrels?” Officer Staubb laughed. “Stop pretending to be a saint, Miss DuNoir. We know what you’re made of.”
“Officer,” Severine said quietly, “my father came from a home like this one. I’m a low-bred mongrel by all rights, just as you’re insinuating. Little Lettie has the fate that was mine until Father clawed his way out of a place like this.”
“Worse,” Officer Staubb snapped. “The DuNoir family—” Officer Staubb shook his head and said nothing more, his gaze lingering on Martha. Perhaps he didn’t want a witness from someone with a reputation of actual good. “You can’t really be thinking of taking them in, Miss DuNoir.”
“But I am,” Severine said firmly. “At least if we can’t find family who will take them. I can easily see them safe and educated.”
Officer Staubb’s lips formed a thin line to keep the response he obviously wanted to make to himself. Martha, however, nodded firmly. “The Good Lord gives so that we can share, Miss DuNoir. Doing right by those children is certainly why He gave you what he did.”
Officer Staubb scoffed. Charles eyed him. “What happened to their parents?”
The officer considered not answering. “Wrung necks in an alley near the Salvation Army.”
Severine shuddered. “Both of them?”
“Looks like old Clive and then Lucille. Where were you at 5:00 p.m.?”
Severine and Charles exchanged glances and Charles answered. “We had lunch and then we went shopping for the children. I don’t think we got here after five.”
They all turned to the flashy car on the street. Officer Staubb snarled. “Someone would have seen you come.”
Severine nodded. A thought struck her. “Charles left me here to get more things for the children. We didn’t know how many there were, and we hadn’t brought anything for Melody or the baby. He went back and found shoes and coats.”
“They’ll remember you buying shoes for a pack of brats. When did you do that?”
Charles considered. “Around that time, I believe. They held the shop open for me. A little blonde,” he held his hand to his ear and added, “with short hair helped me. I don’t remember her name, but she’ll remember me.”
Officer Staubb look disgusted and then said, “You’ll have to sort those kids out legally. You can’t just take them.”
“It’ll be better if they do,” Martha said firmly. “I’ll come by your house tomorrow, Miss DuNoir. We can make sure they’re all right and go from there.”
Severine nodded and then asked Charles, “Do we wake them?”
“They might as well sleep one more night thinking they have parents.”
Severine saw Lettie’s little eyes in the window, but she said nothing. She couldn’t have Officer Staubb realizing that Lettie had been a witness. Severine didn’t doubt that the man was at least partially dirty and Severine wouldn’t risk the little girl. Instead, she drew attention to herself so that no one else would notice little Lettie watching them through the window.
The officer asked questions for a full hour never noticing, Severine prayed, little Lettie in the window. When he finally left, the deepest part of the night had arrived, and Severine’s head had moved past aching to a sort of thumping pain that she’d become accustomed to. She went inside and as Charles locked up the house and took a seat at the table, Severine took Lettie into her arms, curling onto the bed with the girl.
“Is Mama coming home?”
Severine shook her head and when the girl’s eyes filled with tears, Severine cried with her until they both slipped into sleep.
They woke with the crying baby and heated the little fellow some milk. Lettie finally asked, “What’s going to happen to us?”
“Would you like to come home with me?”
“Will you be my mama?”
Severine paused, swallowed, and then smiled gently. “What if I’m your big sister and my friend is your mama? Her name is Bernadette and she used to live in something that looked like a castle in the mountains!”
“Sev!” Charles hissed. “You don’t—”
“I do,” Severine replied. “I’m sure.”
“She’s brusque.”
Severine smiled and leaned down to Lettie, “Do you know that Bernadette helped to raise me?”
Lettie shook her head, her eyes wide. “Will we stay together?”
Severine nodded. “Of course you will.”
“Sev!”
“Bernadette will raise them, Sister Sophie will spoil them; we’ll pay for them. It’ll be fine.”
Charles frowned, but he stopped objecting, and they gathered up the few things that the children had to bring with them back to the house. Severine held the baby on her lap while the rest of them crowded into the back seat with Anubis curled up on the floor.
“We’ll need a bigger car,” Charles told Severine, who shook her head.
“Bernadette will need a car.”
“Does she drive?” Charles was the brusque one now, and Severine knew it was from worry, so she didn’t let it bother her. “Are we really doing this?”
Lettie was bright enough to throw a panicked gaze at Severine, who winked.
“Bernadette just hasn’t gotten to demanding a car yet,” Severine said. “We won’t have to do more than tell them that the children need help.”
When they went inside, Bernadette sighed. “I suppose I had assumed I would have a quiet life. I should have known better. Come now, children. There’s a nursery that has every toy under the sun, I’m sure.”
Charles stared after Bernadette, who looked back and said, “Don’t go anywhere. I’ve found all sorts of interesting things.”
* * *
“I’ll be visiting the aunt tomorrow,” Bernadette said. “It’s her duty, and you’ll be paying for them to be raised either way. Lettie says Aunt Rose is nice and a widow. She can use the help for her own, I’m sure. You’ll be saving two families and I’ll be saving my retirement.”
Severine lifted a brow. “That’s a lot of children for one woman.”
“I’m not saying we’ll abandon her. I’m saying those children will be better served by an aunt who already loves them and a connection to their birth family.”
“Later, perhaps,” Severine countered. “Lettie saw the killer of Mr. Sidney. Her mother saw just a form and was murdered for it. Lettie saw his face.”
Charles cursed, excused himself when Bernadette cleared her throat, and Severine laughed. She couldn’t help it. Poor Charles was beet red, and Bernadette would certainly be reminding him later of his language.
“Let’s set aside the long-term situation for the children for later,” Severine said, “and focus on the fact that we’ve made this house as safe as we can. They need to stay here until the police finds the killer.”
“Or we do.”
“Or we do,” Severine agreed.
“Your P.I. came by,” Bernadette said. “He’ll be back this morning to see if you’re dead. If you’re not, he said he has news.”
“We couldn’t leave the children,” Severine told Bernadette, wincing at the look on her face.
“Those children aren’t mine, Severine, but you are. You’re my girl, and I told you that you have to take care of yourself when you left the nunnery. What do I find? The headaches back. Your best friend is injured so it hurts to walk. You have been shot. Your house has been invaded. You are failing distinctly at the simple task I’ve given you.”
