“So that I won’t be afraid of you.” It ended up sounding like a question.
He smiled again. “Unless you are a rare work of art hanging neglected on a wall somewhere, you have no reason at all to be afraid of me.”
He took a step closer and shoved up the brim of his hat so I could see his eyes more clearly. They pulled me in. When I let myself stare into them, I saw something I didn’t want to see.
My mother.
“Cecilia and Benjamin haven’t told you about me, and I’m not surprised. I’m the reason they were forced out of Boston,” he said. “The reason they’ve stayed away all this time.”
I shook my head because it was all I could manage. This man, this self-proclaimed thief, was my grandfather? My parents had lied to me?
“When I heard you were coming to visit with Benjamin’s mother, I …” He sighed and twirled the end of his walking cane into the air. “I couldn’t stay away. I had to see the granddaughter I’d never had the chance to meet.”
It was all too much to take in. I didn’t want to believe it. And who had told him I was coming?
“So you’re the one who’s been stealing the art from the Horne warehouses,” Will said when I couldn’t open my mouth.
Matthew Leighton grimaced. “I can see how it might appear that way. I am a thief after all, and an art thief at that. But arson is not my modus operandi — it’s simply not the way I work. I am not the one stealing the Horne collection.”
His chin. The pointed, bottom-of-a-heart shape to it … my mother had the same chin. The same genuine smile and dark gray eyes. But I wanted more proof than just a similar geography of the face.
“Why should we believe anything you say?” I asked. He twirled his cane around once again. He looked dashing and intellectual, and the sharp edge to his words, the perfect enunciation, told me he had a quick mind.
“I don’t have any proof to hand you at the moment,” he said. “And if I presented you with anything less than solid evidence, you would surely dismiss it. If you want answers you can trust, don’t go to your grandmother. She’s too stubborn. Bruce is more likely to tell you everything if you push him far enough.”
I found myself nodding obediently and stopped. As if I was going to take advice from him!
“I’ll find the answers my own way, thank you,” I said.
Leighton tugged the brim of his hat down and bit back an amused grin.
“Of course you will,” he replied, and turned to walk deeper into the cemetery. He looked over his shoulder as he walked away. “Take care, Suzanna. And try not to get into too much trouble, will you?”
He slipped behind another grand headstone and promptly disappeared.
We found Adele at her house. Apparently, following Dr. Philbrick hadn’t proved dangerous — or valuable. It didn’t matter. By the time Will and I reached June Street, my anxiety had found a new topic on which to dwell: Matthew Leighton.
Adele refused to come with us to the funeral reception. Will and I sat in her father’s library for a good ten minutes trying to convince her, but she detested the customary reception after a funeral almost as much as the funeral itself, she said. At her mother’s, she had endured countless sympathetic hugs and pats on the cheek, and promises of “life going on” and “all that rubbish,” as Adele had called it.
I’d considered telling Adele about my encounter with Matthew Leighton, but every time I almost opened my mouth to do it, I stopped. He was an art thief. How could I admit I might have found the person stealing her father’s collection, and that he claimed to be my grandfather? So Will and I eventually left for Grandmother’s without a word of it. Carriages, buggies, and even a few motorcars lined each side of the street. Grandmother’s brownstone seemed to be sucking in and belching out mourners clad in black and brown.
“Thanks for not telling Adele about what happened in the cemetery,” I said to Will. We’d hardly spoken the whole way back to Knight Street. Will had seemed to know to stay mum about the grandfather/art thief topic, at least while my head was still spinning with the news.
“Are you going to ask your uncle about Matthew Leighton?” Will asked.
I knew I needed to, and as soon as possible. But what was I thinking? Uncle Bruce wasn’t going to speak to me unless … well, unless I did as Leighton had said and pushed him to.
I needed to use the element of surprise.
Sat., Sept. 26, 6:30 p.m.: Sitting inside Uncle Bruce’s carriage, waiting for him to exit funeral reception. Planning ambush. Hoping he doesn’t startle easily … and that he isn’t armed.
THE DRIVER SHOOK THE CARRIAGE AS HE GOT up out of the box, and I shoved my pencil, notebook, and pocket watch into my cloak pocket. The inside of Uncle Bruce’s carriage was so dark I’d barely been able to see what I was writing. The early dusk and pulled curtains added to the gloom.
Will had successfully diverted Uncle Bruce’s driver’s attention with false concerns over the lead mare’s front leg, and I’d been able to slip inside the carriage to await my uncle’s return. It had been nearly a half an hour since.
“Good evening, Detective,” the driver called. It was finally time. “Are we waiting for Mrs. Snow?”
My uncle’s answer came out gruff and weary. “No, she’s staying with Mrs. Grogan tonight.”
The door opened. Uncle Bruce shook the carriage as he climbed in.
“To the Copley,” he directed.
I was in the seat opposite Uncle Bruce, and apparently drenched in shadows. He didn’t see me until the driver had slammed the door.
“Who the —” Uncle Bruce slid forward onto the edge of his seat, looking ready to pounce.
“It’s just me!” I cried. “Zanna!”
He sighed and fell back into his seat again. “What the blazes are you doing in my carriage, Suzanna? I could have shot you!”
He tucked his hand into his coat and I heard the distinct sound of steel coming to rest inside a hard leather holster. So he had been armed.
“I need to ask you some questions,” I said as the horses pulled away from the curb and into the street.
Uncle Bruce twisted in his seat, preparing to shout for his driver to halt.
“Please, it’s important!” I quickly said. “It’s about Matthew Leighton.”
Uncle Bruce stared back at me, his shout dying on his lips.
“How do you know that name?” he whispered instead.
I had him. The element of surprise was mine. I took an extra moment to revel in it.
“Is he really a thief?” I asked.
Uncle Bruce struck a match and lit the carriage lantern beside him. The red chimney glass bathed his face in a menacing light, shadowing the deep creases between his eyebrows.
“Yes.”
I took a trembling breath. “Is he really my grandfather?”
Uncle Bruce’s shoulders dropped. He sagged back in his seat. I smelled the cigar smoke and brandy he’d been indulging in all afternoon to numb the pain from his loss. The smell somehow made him seem old and powerless. His palm swept slowly across his forehead, a tired gesture to match his tired appearance.
“How do you know about him?” he finally asked. It wasn’t a straight answer, but an answer nonetheless. Matthew Leighton was my grandfather.
“Why did everyone lie to me?”
Uncle Bruce suddenly leaned forward. “Because he is a thief!” The whites of his bulging eyes looked pink in the red lamplight. “And not just any small-time pick-pocket, Suzanna. He’s one of Boston’s most wanted.”
Those last few words shook me more deeply than the clattering wheels of the carriage. My own grandfather — my mother’s father — was a criminal. How could it be? For a detective-in-training, this was a scandal. I looked my uncle in the eye, realizing that for a seasoned, well-known detective like Bruce Snow, it was more than a scandal. It was a travesty.
“No one knows you’re related to him,” I whispered.
I recalled how he and Grandmother had both looked t
errified when I’d almost announced my middle name was Leighton.
“No,” he replied. “And no one ever can, Suzanna.”
“But why?”
A small, humorless laugh erupted from Uncle Bruce’s throat.
“I suppose I’m the one who has to tell you now,” he said with evident resentment. “Matthew Leighton was the mastermind behind the very first case I investigated thirteen years ago — the Red Herring Heists.”
I held my breath. Detective Grogan had told me a little about the unsolved case. To know that my own grandfather had been the mastermind behind it brought it much closer. I nearly felt guilty by association.
“Leighton left small clues to his identity at each crime scene, which we, of course, would then follow. Each time, the clue took us to nothing but a dead end. We soon realized they were red herrings, planted clues to lead us astray. To confuse the investigation,” Uncle Bruce explained. He’d never explained anything to me before. Right then my mind was torn between paying attention to what he was saying and the wonder of being in a true conversation with him.
“But then he got sloppy — as criminals always do,” Uncle Bruce said darkly. “He made a trade on the underground market that one of our plainclothes traced back to him. We surrounded the building he lived in, and I went in first — it was to be my first big arrest, done single-handedly. But in addition to finding Leighton in his apartment, I also found a young woman I knew well: Cecilia Crocker, my brother’s fiancée.”
My heart skipped at the mention of my mother. It nearly stopped at what Uncle Bruce said next.
“She knew what he was. Not that he was the one behind the Red Herring Heists, but she knew her father was a thief. It was the reason she’d taken a different last name years before — to set herself apart should he ever be caught.”
The horses whinnied and slapped at the pavement with their shod hooves as the carriage slowed. We must have been nearing the Copley. Uncle Bruce was too wrapped up in his story to notice or care.
“I had but a minute or two to make a decision. I could arrest her father, expose her as a criminal’s daughter, taint my family name along with her own. Or I could let him go, granted that he disappear from Boston for good. Cecilia demanded he give us both his word.” Uncle Bruce set his jaw and looked me in the eye. “He did. And I let them go.”
We stared at each other in silence. My mother had known her father was a criminal. She’d known.
“You undermined an investigation,” I said softly. “You jeopardized your career.”
“I had to … for Cecilia.” He twitched his mustache and cleared his throat. “Can you picture the headlines had I arrested her father?” He stretched his hands out into the air for emphasis as he mocked the imagined headline: “‘Red Herring Heists Detective Soon Related to Culprit.’ I would have been a laughingstock.”
And he would have never grown to be the revered detective he was today. The best in Boston.
“How did they get out of the apartment building without getting caught?” I asked.
He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I distracted the other officers with a false chase toward another exit. Leighton was good to his word: He disappeared. Cecilia and Benny married and left for Canada, wary that perhaps Leighton would return and try to contact them. Or that someone Cecilia knew would somehow connect her to Leighton.”
My fingers ached from being clenched for so long. I uncurled each one, thinking of all the lies I’d grown up believing. Of the secret way my mother had given me a sliver of the truth through my middle name. She’d named me after her father — a thief she must have continued to love, despite his faults.
Uncle Bruce sat forward. “Now it’s your turn to explain how you learned about Matthew Leighton.”
Uncle Bruce had been honest with me, and so I’d be honest with him.
“He’s been following me around Boston.”
He sat back, startled. “What?”
“And I spoke to him today after the funeral,” I said. “In the cemetery. He told me who he was, but I didn’t believe him. He said you’d tell me the truth.”
I still couldn’t believe Uncle Bruce had actually told me all of this. Then again, he’d been holding the truth in for a very long time. It had to have been weighing on him.
“Are you telling me that Matthew Leighton is in Boston?” he asked, sobering up from his state of shock. He didn’t give me a chance to respond.
“Xavier Horne’s artwork. All those places destroyed, the art supposedly lost … stolen from the Philbrick home …” He trailed off, sounding like he was latching on to Adele’s previously dismissed theory. And then he recalled something else: “The red herrings have returned. So it was him.”
“But he isn’t the one stealing the Horne collection,” I said. “He said it was someone else. That he was trying to find proof to present to me.”
Uncle Bruce snorted as the carriage came to a halt. “Of course he’d tell you that. But think like a detective for a minute, Suzanna, and you’ll notice the connection between this and the Red Herring Heists. The warehouse fires are what?”
I expected him to answer his own question, but he didn’t. He was actually waiting for me to answer it. My mind worked furiously.
“The warehouse fires are …” I felt hopeless for a moment. And then it struck me. “Red herrings. They’re giant red herrings.”
He smiled and nodded, pleased. I wanted to be pleased as well, but if this was true, then that meant my grandfather had been lying to me.
I hated being lied to.
“Do you know where he’s living? Did he say anything at all to you about where you could find him?” Uncle Bruce asked from the edge of his seat.
I answered no but that perhaps he’d continue to follow me. Uncle Bruce burst into action, practically kicking open the carriage door. His driver, who had been about to open the door, leaped out of the way. Uncle Bruce jumped to the curb below.
“Return my niece to Knight Street,” he ordered the startled driver. “We’ll go to the station as soon as you get back.”
Uncle Bruce started to close the door, but stopped.
“It would be best, Suzanna” — he leaned in and lowered his voice — “if you didn’t mention Leighton in front of my mother. He isn’t a topic she fares well with.”
Uncle Bruce shut the door, and the driver cracked the reins. I jerked forward and then back again, slamming against the high cushion behind me. He was right, of course. I’d already seen Grandmother’s reaction to Matthew Leighton once before. She’d called him a scoundrel of the worst sort.
But what if Leighton wasn’t the thief this time? Uncle Bruce had said he’d been good to his word. He’d stayed out of sight for thirteen years. Why would he decide to break that promise now? And to burn down Detective Grogan’s home — to kill him. It didn’t make sense.
I rode back to Grandmother’s house, knowing I should have been writing everything down in my notebook before the details got fuzzy. But writing it would have made it real.
I didn’t want any of it to be real.
Sun., Sept. 27, 8 a.m.: Bad feeling brewing in stomach. Leighton is a thief, but not an arsonist. Not his “modus operandi.” Suspect Uncle Bruce is wrong — again.
MARGARET MARY HUMMED AT THE STOVE while flipping thick strips of bacon in a cast-iron pan. I’d looked forward to another Sunday breakfast all week. Margaret Mary made enough food to feed the entire Boston police department should they have all shown up at the door. But this morning, I could barely think about finishing the mug of hot chocolate in front of me, let alone the feast that she was busy preparing.
I’d been up for hours already, worrying and second-guessing. Uncle Bruce wanted to close this case more than anything and I’d practically handed Matthew Leighton over as a prime suspect. My own grandfather. Why would Uncle Bruce be fine with arresting him now if he hadn’t wanted to thirteen years ago? My mother had changed her name twice now, had moved far away and severed all ties wit
h her former life. Perhaps she couldn’t be reconnected to Leighton now, after all these years.
And back then the crime had only been stealing art. Arson and murder were crimes that Uncle Bruce could not turn his back on. Not even for family.
“Look lively, girl,” Margaret Mary said as she came toward me with a spatula heaped with crisp bacon. She set the bacon on a plate before me. “Little something to hold you over. Now, what’s this? The chocolate too rich for you this morning?”
I sighed into my mug.
“I’m sorry, I’m —”
The doorbell punctured the rest of my excuse. My pocket watch read five minutes past eight o’clock. Too early for visitors. Margaret Mary scowled, but I could tell she was happy for the chance to serve more than just Grandmother and me.
I got up, restless. “I’ll go see who it is.”
By the time I reached the foyer, Bertie had already answered the door and de-cloaked Grandmother’s early morning guest: Uncle Bruce.
“She’s in the kitchen, I believe,” Bertie was saying to him. Uncle Bruce started for the front receiving room but pulled up short when he saw me in the back of the front hallway near the kitchen door.
“Just the girl I needed to see,” he said, pursing his lips. It wasn’t a frown, though. He looked purposeful, as if he was on a mission.
“Me?” I asked.
“We have work to see to, Suzanna. The department needs your help this morning.” He was already reaching for his coat and hat.
My help? The department — the Boston police — needed me? The words sounded so glorious I wanted him to say them again.
“Tell my mother Suzanna has come with me on an errand,” he instructed Bertie, who stood by the front door, clearly perplexed by the whirlwind visit. “I hope to have her back in time for luncheon.”
Bertie rushed to take down my cloak.
“But where are we going?” I asked.
The Mastermind Plot Page 10
