Front Page Affair

by Radha Vatsal

  Kitty sympathized with the widow. From her years abroad, she knew what it was like to feel like an outsider.

  Mrs. Henderson stared in from the dining room, but Aimee turned away from her. “This morning, the detective asked why I didn’t go looking for my husband when the fireworks began. I said that Hunter often went off on his own and that he liked his privacy. Was I wrong in remaining where I was, Miss Weeks? Would you have gone if you had been in my shoes?”

  Kitty glanced at the frumpy blue slippers on Mrs. Cole’s feet. They matched her dark blue housecoat. “No,” she said. It made no sense to add regret to the widow’s grief. “How could you have known what would happen?”

  “Hunter had very little patience for society and no interest in fireworks. He must have decided to see the horses just to amuse himself.” Aimee’s voice cracked. “Sometimes, I think he loved them more than he loved people. You’ll hear people say that Hunter went too often to the races, but I never faulted him for it, Miss Weeks.”

  In the background, Kitty could see Mrs. Henderson shaking her head.

  “He grew up riding,” Aimee Cole went on. “What else was he to do?”

  “Aimee’s too generous.” Mrs. Henderson couldn’t hold back any more and rejoined them in the living room. “I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but I’ll tell you this: my son-in-law was no good either as a man or as a husband. He went to the racetracks, frittered away whatever little fortune he might have had, and even though we heard so much about the great Coles of Connecticut, his people never helped my daughter one bit. Whatever they have, Aimee brought to the marriage. People like to say that she connived to get him, but that’s a lie. My girl didn’t do anything underhanded to win his affections. He met her, he fell in love, and he asked her to marry him. She said yes, and that was the problem.”

  “Mother,” Aimee protested, but Mrs. Henderson wouldn’t be silenced.

  “It’s true, Aimee. He got the better half of the bargain. What were you ever but a good, decent wife to him, and what did he give you? Nothing!” Mrs. Henderson waved an arm across the room. “Even this apartment is rented. Now, if you’d accepted that nice Padrewski fellow like your father and I told you, you’d be lording it over everyone in a mansion, and he’d be smothering you in furs from head to toe.”

  “Paderewski, Mother.” Aimee smiled unguardedly for a moment, her watery blue eyes lighting up, and Kitty thought she might have caught a glimpse of the spark that had attracted Hunter Cole when he met her. “And I never married in order to be smothered.”

  “He still wants to marry you, my dear.”

  “Mother.” Aimee’s tone turned sharper.

  “I’m just saying, Aimee. I’m just saying.”

  A dwarfish maid brought tea on a tray, and Mrs. Henderson poured three cups.

  “I hope I don’t seem like I’m prying,” Kitty said delicately, “but did Mr. Cole have an occupation?”

  “Hunter didn’t really work,” Aimee replied. “But we got by. We always managed.”

  Mrs. Henderson pursed her lips. “It’s nothing like what you’d have had if you’d married the furrier. And you’d be living just down the street from us in Brooklyn.”

  Kitty took a sip of her tea. It was probably time to leave mother and daughter to each other’s company. “I should be on my way.”

  “Can I show you around the apartment?” Aimee said.

  “Of course.” Kitty put down her cup and rose.

  The tour didn’t take long, since all that remained for Kitty to see were the dining room, the bedroom (to which Mrs. Cole didn’t open the door), and Mr. Cole’s study.

  To Kitty’s surprise, she felt most at ease in the dead man’s private room. It had been sparsely yet tastefully furnished with a rolltop chestnut desk, swiveling chair, rich Persian carpet, and curtains that reached the floor. An antique clock with a mother-of-pearl face sat on his desk. An eye-catching canvas of a muscular stallion posed against mountains hung on the wall above low walnut bookshelves.

  “Is that a Stubbs?” Kitty stepped in to take a closer look.

  “Hunter’s grandmother left it to him in her will. I don’t know much about art, but I do know that it’s the one good piece we have from them.”

  The widow put her hand on Kitty’s arm. “I hope I can trust you to be kind, Miss Weeks. The public will say cruel things about me. They may even point fingers in my direction.”

  “Mrs. Cole—” Kitty pulled away.

  “Call me Aimee. After all we’ve been through, I think we might allow ourselves that.”

  “I just work for the Sentinel.” Kitty hoped to avoid the invitation to be intimate. “I’m not in charge of what they print.”

  “I understand.”

  “I do hope the police will apprehend the culprit—”

  “You have a lot to learn, Miss Weeks,” Aimee Cole burst out in anger. “Where I’m from, we know what the police do and what they don’t, how they pin the crime on whoever happens to be convenient. What I want is justice for my husband.” She spoke with force. “I’m not interested in watching them haul away some poor sod just so that they can cross the case of their list.”

  Kitty took her leave of the widow shortly afterward.

  Mrs. Henderson walked Kitty to the landing and waited with her for the elevator. “We’re supposed to go to Connecticut on Friday for the funeral, but none of them will come here to see my daughter.”

  The rattling machine arrived, and the operator pulled open the fretwork grille. Kitty stepped inside.

  “The Hendersons may not have come here on the Mayflower,” the older woman continued as the gate shut between them with a clang, “but Aimee will be so much better off without Hunter.”

  With a jerk, the elevator lurched downward, slowly erasing Kitty’s view of Mrs. Cole’s bitter parent.

  • • •

  For once, the typists’ incessant clacking didn’t drive Kitty to distraction. She filled two sheets of paper with neat script and brought them upstairs to the sixth floor, where a glass wall partitioned the newsroom off from the rest of the hallway. Behind it, the real reporters, all men, went about their business. Some spoke on the telephone; others sat at their desks, writing or chewing on their pencils; still others smoked cigarettes or chatted with their colleagues.

  Kitty knew she wasn’t allowed to enter, so she tapped on the glass, caught the attention of one of the reporters, mouthed the words “Mr. Flanagan,” and then, acutely aware of sidelong glances in her direction, waited until Flanagan emerged from within.

  “Not bad,” he murmured, glancing over her notes. “I can do something with this.” He looked up. “You’ll speak to a third party tomorrow?”

  “Yes, Mr. Flanagan. First thing.” Kitty planned to telephone Mrs. Clements to set up an appointment.

  “All right then. You’re free to report to Miss Busby.”

  But the Ladies’ Page editor still seemed miffed by Kitty’s disloyalty, and when Kitty went in, she said that all she needed was the result of this week’s home cookery contest.

  “Did Mr. Flanagan like your work?” Jeannie asked when Kitty returned to her desk.

  “I think so.” Kitty sifted through the entries and picked a recipe for breaded mutton cutlets with onion sauce. It didn’t sound too appetizing, but she was in a rush. She dropped it off on Miss Busby’s desk.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, Jeannie.” Kitty left the hen coop without looking back, so she didn’t notice the typist staring after her.

  Chapter Seven

  Kitty hurried home and changed into her leather boots, a split skirt, and a linen shirt. Then she telephoned Mrs. Clements before calling for her Stutz Bearcat, the sporty yellow roadster that her father had given her for her birthday. Like riding a horse, Kitty drove for pleasure. She went downstairs, hopped into her car, and covered the distance to Durland’s Aca
demy on the west side of Central Park at top speed, only to find Amanda Vanderwell already mounted on Lucky Number 7, waiting for her.

  “Sorry I’m late.” Kitty parked the car. A lad brought Damsel forward, and she hoisted herself into the saddle. Kitty and Amanda had met the previous summer and struck up a conversation over the rose garden plantings at the Botanical Gardens. Kitty had been dazzled by Amanda’s beauty and effortless confidence; what Amanda admired in her had been less obvious—perhaps it was Kitty’s freedom to move about the city, which was so foreign to Amanda’s rarified and tightly controlled experience of New York, although the Vanderwells and their set had been on the island for generations.

  “I hope you have a good excuse.” Amanda flicked Lucky with her crop, and the horse trotted along with Amanda poised elegantly sidesaddle.

  “Work,” Kitty said, following a few paces behind, acutely aware, as always, how awkward she appeared in comparison astride on Damsel. But Mr. Weeks insisted. It was safer to ride in the mannish style, he said, for both horse and equestrienne.

  “I don’t know why you carry on with that nonsense.” Amanda turned and raised an eyebrow behind her veil, but her lips parted in a smile. Coppery hair glinted from below her hat.

  “How was your weekend?” Kitty asked as they headed toward the bridle paths that crisscrossed the park.

  “Lovely.” Amanda shrugged. “As was to be expected. Did you know that this was the first big party the Astors have held since Colonel Astor drowned on the Titanic? And then we found out about what happened to Mr. Morgan, and I can tell you, it gave everyone quite a scare. But”—a roaring sound from one of the automobile mowers trimming the lawns in the distance distracted her—“I did have a fascinating time at Saturday’s dinner.”

  “Did you meet someone?” Kitty grinned at her friend. Amanda had no shortage of beaus, all of whom she found some reason to reject sooner or later.

  “Not in the way you’re thinking, naughty girl.” Amanda laughed. “I was seated next to the most intriguing little man though, one of those newfangled psychoanalyst fellows. He regaled us with one story after another, the best of which was that the kaiser started the war in order to win his mother’s approval.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh yes. Of course, the kaiser, King George, and Tsar Nicholas of Russia are all cousins, related through their grandmama, Queen Victoria—”

  “Yes, yes.” Amanda sometimes treated Kitty like she didn’t know basic facts, as though attending boarding school in Europe had somehow stunted Kitty’s intelligence.

  “And Princess Victoria, Queen Victoria’s daughter who was married off to the German emperor,” Amanda went on, “had to have her son, the present kaiser, pulled out of her with forceps. He was born with a crippled arm as a result and had to undergo excruciating treatments to straighten it. They say he always felt like he was never good enough for his parents. When he was five years old, his mother decided he must learn how to ride. He had British royal blood, so it was unthinkable that he couldn’t. But his mother was determined that her son learn to ride like a British king. Of course, it’s hard when you have one arm that doesn’t work. And although he kept falling off and begged her to stop, she wouldn’t give up until he learned how to do it to her satisfaction.”

  “And that’s why he declared war on Russia, France, and England?” It was Kitty’s turn to be skeptical.

  “He wants to prove that he can keep up with the rest,” Amanda replied. “That neither he nor the German nation are to be trifled with. Don’t look at me like that,” she said to Kitty. “I’m just repeating what I heard.”

  “I thought you found your dinner companion fascinating.”

  “He was. You should have been there to hear him tell it in person.”

  “So no new beaus?” Amanda’s parents had their hearts set on her making “a good match,” which meant a wealthy match, since the Vanderwells, although they were descended from a distinguished line, had very little cash at present.

  “It was the same old boring crowd: Jerry, Potty, and Neville, prattling on as usual. But I did make a decision that I want to tell you about. I said it in front of everyone at our table, including Mummy and Daddy, so I can’t back down now.”

  “What is it?” Kitty turned to face her friend.

  Amanda’s cheeks were flushed, and her eyes sparkled. “I plan to enroll in a nurse’s aide course at the YWCA, and when it’s over, I’m going to go to Europe to tend to the wounded.”

  “You?” Kitty slowed down. The Amanda she knew barely deigned to tie her own shoelaces, let alone tend to others.

  “Yes! And why not? I’ll be twenty-four this year, Capability. I haven’t met anyone who suits my tastes and Mummy and Daddy’s requirements, and I won’t have people calling me a spinster. Besides”—she resumed her breezy manner—“nursing is terribly glamorous. Who knows? I may even meet a wounded nobleman who dies in my arms, leaving me his fortune.”

  “You mean debt, don’t you?”

  Amanda grinned. “All the best girls are becoming nurses these days, which is why I want you to give up the paper and come join me.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “That’s right. Give up the paper. You’ve been complaining about that Miss Busby since you started.”

  “She’s not so bad…” Kitty began to regret anything unkind she might have said about the Ladies’ Page editor.

  “You told me she doesn’t give you any real work. Just makes you judge contests and open mail.”

  “Not any longer.”

  “Is that so?” Amanda flicked Lucky with her crop, and he broke into a canter.

  After a moment’s pause, Kitty urged Damsel forward and followed her friend down the empty path, free and fast on her mount with nothing but greenery around her and snippets of clear blue skies overhead.

  They came to a turnoff in the trail, interrupted by a low wall. It was against the rules to ride there, but many of the young bucks did, to get in a jump. Amanda sped up her horse some more, and one-step, two-step, she was in the air, soaring across the barrier as Kitty watched, her heart in her mouth.

  Her friend looked so precarious, perched there with both legs on one side of the horse—she could slide off or her skirt might get caught in the stirrups. A moment later, she was safely back on the ground.

  “So what’s changed for you at the paper?” Amanda called, exhilarated.

  Kitty gathered her reins, took the jump herself, and rejoined her friend on the path.

  “A man was killed at a party I covered.”

  “Hunter Cole at Bessie Basshor’s do?”

  “How did you know?”

  “Mama is a great friend of Bessie’s. The only reason we weren’t there was because we had been invited to the Astors’.”

  “I’ve been asked to help out with the story. I spent this morning speaking to Mrs. Cole and Mrs. Basshor.”

  Amanda snickered.

  “What’s wrong with that?” Kitty couldn’t fathom her friend’s response.

  “She was a dance-hall girl.”

  “Mrs. Basshor?”

  “No, silly. Aimee Cole. I bet she didn’t tell you that, did she? ‘Rising star of burlesque stage marries Hunter Cole, American blue blood and ne’er-do-well.’ It caused quite the scandal.”

  “I had no idea.”

  “She was called Fatima, or something of that sort, and performed exotic numbers with a serpent and veils. They say”—Amanda lowered her voice even though there was no one else around—“that she was half-naked when Hunter first set eyes on her.”

  Kitty couldn’t picture timid Aimee dancing on a burlesque stage—or any other stage, for that matter. “You’re teasing me.”

  “She was scantily clad.”

  “Oh my.” The description didn’t fit the drab woman Kitty had met. They had come to the end of the loop and
paused near the turnoff to the stables.

  “If you ask me,” Amanda said, “she’s the one who did it. Fatima Cole strangled Hunter with one of her scarves.”

  “He was shot,” Kitty corrected.

  “Shot, strangled, what’s the difference? He’s dead. She’s not and is probably waiting to collect what remains of the Cole bounty. Anyway, don’t forget: four o’clock next week at the YWCA on Fifteenth Street.” Amanda blew Kitty a kiss before she trotted off.

  Kitty watched her friend disappear around the curve. Then she gave a pull on her reins and began another round. She knew that Mrs. Vanderwell disapproved of their friendship. Amanda didn’t say as much, but from the hints she dropped, Kitty guessed that Mrs. Vanderwell thought she was a nouveau-riche upstart from the wrong side of town, which was why Amanda never came to Kitty’s place, and only rarely invited Kitty over. Mostly they met at Durland’s or out shopping.

  Kitty wondered whether Amanda wanted her company at the YWCA only to aggravate her family. Then she dismissed the thought as uncharitable. Stuck in her world of endless social commitments and obligations, Amanda needed a friend from outside her circle just as much as Kitty needed someone to talk to. She considered attending the introductory session to humor her, even though she had no intention of leaving the paper. Especially not at the moment.

  Damsel clopped down the turf in the dappled shade, and Kitty urged her to go faster. The horse’s speed matched Kitty’s galloping thoughts: Aimee Cole might have been a burlesque dancer who married above her station, but that didn’t make her a murderess. Still, the widow’s past would explain why others dismissed her. It would also explain why Mrs. Cole had seemed so worked up when she told Kitty that the police would pin the murder on someone convenient—after all, who would be more convenient than a dance-hall girl?