Death on Beacon Hill

by P. B. Ryan

  If she could clear it. How would Brady take it, Nell wondered, if it turned out Fiona Gannon was just as guilty as she seemed?

  Chapter 3

  “Wish I could help you, Miss Sweeney, I surely do,” said Detective Cook that evening after Nell had filled him in on the reason for her visit. “But Chief Kurtz assigned that case to Charlie Skinner. I got nothin’ to do with it.”

  Cook, leaning back in his chair with his feet on his desk, held his palms up to underscore his point. He had gigantic hands, in perfect proportion to the rest of his hulking frame. A black Irishman who’d come to this country, like Brady and so many others, during The Hunger back in the late forties, Colin Cook had a deep-chested voice seasoned with just a hint of a brogue. Brady’s accent was much stronger, probably because he’d been an adult when he left Ireland; Cook would have been but a youth. As for Nell, she’d been but a year old, right before the famine. Her speech bore no trace of the old country, and over the past few years it had acquired the cultivated intonations of the class in which she’d found her home.

  Nell said, “I don’t suppose you attended the inquest this afternoon.”

  “It was before my shift started, and if you think they pay me enough to come in during my off hours for cases that aren’t mine...”

  “Surely you must have heard something after you came to work this evening.” Nell sat forward in her chair, gloved hands gripping the edge of his big, cluttered desk. “Isn’t there some overlap in the shifts? This is an important case—the whole city’s talking about it. You must have heard something.”

  “What I heard was that it was an open and shut case of robbery and murder by the maid.” Grunting, the detective lowered his big feet to the floor and straightened his rumpled sack coat. “Sorry—I know it’s not what you want to hear, but that’s how the inquest shook out.”

  Trying to master her disappointment, Nell asked, “Did Detective Skinner happen to share any of the details with you?”

  Cook snorted as he reached for his teacup. “All Charlie Skinner ever shares with me is how he can’t stand the sight of us uppity micks that steal good jobs from real Americans by playing the bootkisser to Chief Kurtz.”

  It was pretty much what the Hewitts’ servants thought of her, Nell mused—that she’d somehow tricked Viola into hiring her for a position ludicrously far above her station. “Try as I might,” Nell told the detective, “I can’t imagine the likes of you puckering up to anybody’s shoeleather, even that of the Chief of Police.”

  Cook chuckled as he sipped his tea. “Sure you won’t have some of this?”

  She shook her head. “It would keep me from sleeping tonight.” Though she’d probably lie awake anyway, trying to figure out how to tell Brady that his dead niece had been officially branded a thief and murderess.

  Cook said, “Skinner and his pals—which is to say just about every detective here—they won’t so much as give me the time of day. Same goes for the rest of ‘em in this office—the deputy chief, clerk, truant officers, superintendents... No, that’s not true. The Superintendent of Pawnbrokers is all right—fella by the name of Ebenezer Shute. Him and me used to share a pint now and then, before I married Mrs. Cook and went off the drink. But I hardly ever see him anymore, ‘cause he works days.”

  “Chief Kurtz must think well of you,” Nell said, “or you wouldn’t be here.”

  “Sure, but don’t you know that only makes the rest of ‘em hate me more. Ah, the devil take ‘em,” he said as he lifted his teacup. “They’ll get their comeuppance in the next life.”

  “Was Detective Skinner still here when you came to work this afternoon?” she asked.

  “Yeah, for about an hour. His office is that one right next door.” Cook nodded toward the wall to Nell’s left, which was thoroughly papered over—even the door in the middle—by a patchwork of photographs, marked-up maps, leaflets, yellowed newspaper articles and Wanted posters. “The walls here aren’t as thick as they look,” he said, “so voices travel through, which makes it hard to concentrate when Skinner’s in there with somebody.”

  She sat up straighter. “You mean you can hear what’s said in there?”

  “Only if they’re talking real loud, havin’ a row, something like that. Otherwise it’s too muffled to make out—but it’s still damnably distracting.”

  “Did you notice if anyone came to see him this afternoon?” Nell asked.

  “Sure. His office door’s got a window on it, just like mine. When I first got here, he was in there with that law sharp that represented Mrs. Kimball.”

  “Orville Pratt?”

  “Yeah, and when Skinner saw me pass by the door, he got up and shut the blinds, like he thought maybe I would have stood there and tried to read his lips. Rat-faced little mutt.”

  “Could you hear anything through the wall?”

  “Nah, they were talkin’ real low. For all I know, it was a perfectly legitimate meeting. Pratt was the victim’s lawyer. But it did make me wonder, the way Skinner rushed to shut them blinds. If it was any other lawyer, maybe I wouldn’t feel that way, but Orville Pratt always did rub me wrong. He’s one of the richest men in Boston, you know—in the whole country, probably—so you got to wonder why he chooses to practice law. You ask me, it’s so he’s got a good excuse to throw his weight around. God knows he loves doin’ that.”

  “I know Mr. Pratt,” Nell said. “He’s a good friend of August Hewitt’s. So is his law partner, Leo Thorpe.”

  “The alderman whose son...?”

  “That’s right,” Nell said gravely. She still couldn’t think of Jack Thorpe without a stab of grief. “Jack was engaged to marry Mr. Pratt’s daughter Cecilia when he died, you know.”

  “Oh, yeah, I remember now. It was supposed to be some sort of grand dynastic merger.”

  “Something like that. Poor Jack, he would have been miserable with her. She’s the quintessential spoiled little Brahmin princess, and he was...well, he had his flaws, but he was a thoughtful person. He cared about things, about people.” If he hadn’t, he might still be alive. “He would have been better off with the older daughter, Emily—she’s much more his type—but she was touring Europe at the time.”

  Cook said, “I heard something about Pratt’s daughter and some German nobleman. That would be Emily, then?”

  “No, that was Cecilia, and he’s Austrian. Jack wasn’t even cold when she took up with him. He has some sort of title, and about seven names—I can never remember any of them. He gave her the biggest, gaudiest sapphires you’ve ever seen when they first started keeping company. They announced their engagement at the Pratt’s annual ball this past April” –she paused for effect— “exactly one year to the day from Jack’s funeral.”

  Cook grimaced and shook his head. “Don’t surprise me, knowing the father.”

  “The only people who declined the invitation were Mr. and Mrs. Thorpe. The Pratts’ ball is always the highlight of the spring social season. Funny thing was, Cecilia called off the engagement the very next day. And guess who started courting her almost immediately?” Nell smiled in anticipation of Cook’s reaction.

  He cocked his head as if to ask, Who?

  “Harry Hewitt.”

  “Good Lord,” Cook exclaimed through incredulous laughter. “That spoiled, insufferable—”

  “The same. It’s a match made in heaven. The only thing they might ever argue about is who’s prettier.”

  Cook chuckled and drained his tea, pondered the empty cup for a moment as if studying his tea leaves, then hauled himself out of his chair. “You sure I can’t pour you some?” he asked as he circled his desk. “There’s plenty in the pot, and it’s good. I made it myself.”

  “No, I’m fine, thank you.”

  When the detective returned to his office from the reception area, he shut the door and, to Nell’s bemusement, closed the blinds.

  “Don’t tell me there’s a lip-reader out there,” she said.

  Cook’s chair whined as he set
tled his bulk into it. He took a thoughtful sip of tea and set his cup down. Raising his gaze to Nell, he said, “After Pratt left, Chief Kurtz went in there, and this time I could hear almost everything, ‘cause Kurtz tends to roar when he’s on the warpath.”

  “On the warpath? Against Skinner?”

  “What I’m about to tell you,” Cook said evenly, “you didn’t hear none of it from me.”

  Nell raised her right hand as if taking an oath. “I’ll swear on a Bible if it’ll help,” she said, knowing Cook wasn’t the type to speak out of school and appreciating it as a gesture of respect. No doubt he was also motivated to some extent by Skinner’s contempt for him and the miserable working conditions this created.

  Leaning forward, elbows on his desk, Cook said, “Kurtz was all het up about some book of Virginia Kimball’s that no one seems to be able to find.”

  “A book? What kind of book?”

  Cook twitched his shoulders as he sat back and lifted his teacup. “They called it ‘the Red Book.’ It was somewhere in her house, or should have been. From what I could gather, Skinner had torn the place apart looking for it—or claimed he did. Kurtz seemed to think Skinner might have it and be holding on to it for some reason, but he swore it wasn’t so. Kurtz asked him if the Red Book had anything to do with all the rich la-di-dahs that had been paradin’ in and out of his office all morning.”

  “Did he mention any names?”

  “A few. Maximilian Thurston, the playwright.”

  “He was a friend of hers,” Nell said, recalling that morning’s newspaper article. “He’s the one who found the bodies.”

  “Yeah, he was apparently waiting for Skinner when he showed up at work this morning. Then there was Horace Bacon...”

  “The Criminal Court judge? I’ve met him.” Nell had hand-delivered a sizable bribe to Judge Bacon a year and a half ago, on Viola’s behalf, to encourage him to overturn another judge’s denial of bail after Will was arrested for murder. The judge had accepted the fat envelope as if it were a routine part of his job. “Who else?” she asked.

  “Weyland Swann, the banker. And Isaac Foster. Dr. Isaac Foster—Harvard big-shot.” Cook rubbed his great boulder of a jaw. “I reckon that was it.”

  “And Chief Kurtz thought they were all coming to see Skinner about the Red Book?”

  “Either that, or they were paying him off to wrap up the case all quick and tidy, with nobody calling them in and asking them any uncomfortable questions.”

  “Which implies some measure of guilt on their parts,” she said. “Four men? All guilty? And then there was Orville Pratt this afternoon—that makes five.”

  “Like I said, Pratt may have been here on legal business,” Cook said. “But as for them others, one thing you learn in this job is almost everybody’s got something to hide.”

  Too true, thought Nell, who’d been no more forthcoming about her past with Cook than with Brady.

  “Kurtz said he assumed Skinner’s wallet was a good deal fatter after them fellas visited him than it’d been when he came to work this morning,” Cook continued, “but that he should remember he was on the city’s payroll, too.”

  “Did Skinner deny taking payoffs from those men?”

  “Nah,” Cook said. “He wouldn’t have insulted Kurtz’s intelligence—not to his face, anyway.”

  Nell bit back her opinion of Police Department graft. After all, Colin Cook held his hand out every now and again; it was the way of things.

  “Kurtz told Skinner to find that book, and fast,” Cook said. “Said he didn’t want it falling into the wrong hands and complicating things. Ordered him to go back to Mrs. Kimball’s house after work and search it again. Skinner said that wouldn’t be possible, on account of Orville Pratt had hired a crew of day laborers to go over there tonight and get the place in shape—clean it up, haul out the bloody carpeting, scrub the viscera off the walls...”

  “But it’s a crime scene!”

  “That’s what Kurtz said—or yelled. I tell you, he was in a regular lather. Skinner said it didn’t matter no more, ‘cause the case was solved, but Kurtz said it was too soon, and it didn’t look right, and the department had a bad enough reputation already, and Skinner had no business allowing such a thing, especially with such a notorious case, and...well, he was pretty much ranting at the top of his lungs. He wanted to know why Pratt had ordered the clean-up in the first place.”

  “I wouldn’t mind knowing that myself,” Nell said.

  “Skinner said Pratt told him he’s the executor of Mrs. Kimball’s estate, and he needs to sell the house as soon as possible, so as to pay off her debts. Said he could hardly put it on the market like it is now, with all the blood and what-not. Kurtz said Skinner seemed awfully eager to accommodate Pratt.”

  “What did Skinner say to that?”

  “Said he thought Kurtz would have wanted the same thing, given that he and Pratt belong to the same club and move in the same circles.”

  Nell said, “All those silk stocking types belong to the same club and move in the same circles.” It was a small and tight-knit world, that of Boston’s elite. The men talked business and politics over roast beef and whiskey at the Somerset Club. The ladies supported such noble causes as the Massachusetts Historical Society and the Perkins Institution for the Blind. Their children courted, married, and produced new generations of elite Bostonians, almost always among their own kind.

  “The argument seemed to impress Chief Kurtz,” Cook said. “It was quiet in there for a minute, then Kurtz says, ‘Ah hell, let him...’ Beg your pardon.”

  “It’s all right.”

  “He says to let Pratt go ahead and fix the place up, but he should wait a few days, just for appearances. And he said he still wanted Skinner to search the place one last time for that book. Told him to do it tonight, that Pratt would just have to reschedule his cleaning crew. And now” –Cook spread his hands wide— “I reckon you know as much as I do.”

  “I know that justice can be bought and sold in this city virtually right out in the open, and everyone just winks and goes about their business. I’m surprised they even went through the motions of holding an inquest.”

  “Didn’t have any choice. It’s required any time there’s a violent or suspicious death. You can read all about it in tomorrow’s paper. Reporters from the Daily Advertiser and the Massachusetts Spy sit in on all the inquests, and they’re usually given duplicates of the clerk’s transcript.”

  “Could I see the transcript for myself? I’d rather read what was really said rather than some reporter’s interpretation of it.”

  “I don’t have it,” Cook said. “It’s in Skinner’s office, and I can’t be seen letting you in there.”

  Glancing toward the door in the wall to the left, barely discernible beneath the clippings and maps tacked onto it, she said, “Can’t we get in that way?”

  Cook stared at the door for a moment. “I’d nearly forgotten that was there. I’ve never once used it. For all I know, it may be locked.”

  Nell rose and crossed to the door. She turned the knob, pushed it open, then smiled over her shoulder at Cook. “What do you know?”

  The detective chuckled through his groan as he heaved himself up from his chair. “If anybody finds out you’ve been in there, I didn’t have nothin’ to do with it.”

  Skinner’s office was unlit, but the window shades were raised, so there was enough moonlight to see by. The Venetian blinds on the office’s main door were still closed, which was fortunate. Two large pasteboard cartons, one marked V. Kimball and the other F. Gannon, sat on the floor against the wall that separated the two offices. A leather folder labeled V. Kimball Homicide lay on top of the unnaturally neat desk, alongside a smallish, nickel-plated pistol and something tiny wrapped up in brown paper.

  Nell unfolded the little paper packet and slid its contents—a spent lead ball—into the palm of her hand. It was hard to believe the squished little blob of lead, which felt much heavier than it loo
ked, had once been a perfect sphere. She refolded the paper carefully around the slug and replaced it on the desk exactly where it had been.

  Cook opened the folder and handed Nell the document on top—three pages inked with obvious haste by some poor fellow whose job it had been to record the gist of that afternoon’s proceedings. She brought it over to Cook’s office doorway so she could read it without straining her eyes.

  CORONER’S INQUEST

  A jury was impaneled one o’clock Wednesday afternoon, June 2, 1869, and witnesses were examined for the purpose of inquiring into the causes and circumstances attending the death of Mrs. Virginia Kimball.

  Maximilian Thurston, sworn:

  Was “intimate friend” of deceased w/whom he shared aft. tea daily. Knocked on her door at 4:00; entered house; found her just inside doorway of her 2nd floor bedroom, new hatbox and parasol next to her, blood on chest, her own Remington pistol inches from her right hand; pistol smelled of gunpowder; deceased kept it under pillow for protection, always fully loaded because she was a poor shot. Blood bubbled in and out of wound as she struggled to breathe. Mr. Thurston comforted deceased until she passed. In bedroom found body of Fiona Gannon shot in head, lying on left side in roughly east-west orientation; necklaces in hands; open jewelry boxes on bed bench. Diamonds were actually paste. Mrs. Kimball was visited the day before the murder by Mr. Thurston appeared greatly distressed.

  Det. Charles Skinner, sworn:

  Summoned to home of deceased about half past 4:00. Two dead bodies, “a gruesome scene” much as Mr. Thurston described it; bedroom window broken, otherwise nothing out of place except jewelry. Thoroughly inspected the premises. Mrs. Kimball’s Remington, recently fired and missing three rounds, was the only weapon in the house. Spent ball recovered from window frame; presumably a shot that missed its mark. “Clear enough what happened.” Fiona Gannon shot Mrs. Kimball in the chest, after which Mrs. Kimball, using the same gun, fired one stray shot into the window and a second into Miss Gannon’s head.