by Rhys Bowen
“I was about to suggest that there was a very pleasant nursing home in my former parish in Cambridge,” Father Patrick said.
“I didn’t know you had a parish in Massachussets, Uncle Pat,” Terrence said.
“No, not Cambridge, Mass,” Father Patrick said. “A little town in the Hudson Valley. I was also once in Salem, New York—not a witch to be seen.” And he smiled.
I had taken a mouthful of tea but couldn’t swallow it. I forced it down, burning my throat. Now I remembered. On the night when Daniel was close to death and Father Patrick had chatted pleasantly to distract me from my worry, he had mentioned his little church in Granville.
Thirty-five
It was all I could do to sit there, my expression composed, sipping tea with them when every fiber in my being wanted to leap up and do something. I studied Father Patrick’s innocent serene face. Why had Brian Hannan written a list of the parishes in which he had served just when he was summoning Daniel and his family to the estate in Newport? It might be quite innocent, of course. He might have been talking with his brother and asked, “So how many parishes have you been in now?” and jotted down the list as Patrick dictated them. One does that to remember. But it was the only clue I had from Brian Hannan’s office.
I found my gaze going up to the tower. Could Kathleen really have pushed Mrs. McCreedy through an open trapdoor to her death? I had to conclude that it was possible. What if Mrs. McCreedy had taken away her favorite doll, or stopped her from doing something she wanted to, and the trapdoor was open? I had no idea why that would be, when there was obviously a proper staircase that led to the tower from the lower levels of the house. I stared at the ivy, wondering if I dared risk climbing up that way again, and if I made it undetected to the window, would I find the door guarded by a policeman?
I decided I couldn’t risk it and compromise my husband’s integrity. Prescott might jump to the conclusion that Daniel had sent me up there to snoop. Even as these thoughts passed through my head, I saw the front door open and Chief Prescott himself emerged from the house. He headed straight for us. “I’m afraid the girl is completely unresponsive,” he said. “She’s lying curled up under her bed and refuses to come out. I have left one of my men and the two young women who have experience with the language of twins with her, but I’m not sure…”
I rose to my feet. “Chief Prescott,” I said. “I happen to know a doctor in New York who is a specialist in diseases of the mind. He studied with Professor Freud in Vienna and might find a way to communicate with the girl. If you and the family agreed, I could send a telegram to New York, asking him to take a look at her.”
“That’s very kind of you, Mrs. Sullivan,” he said. “Unfortunately I think there is little anyone can do. In the eyes of the law she is a menace to society and will have to be locked away. We’ll try to make it as humane as possible, but as for reaching into that troubled brain … I just don’t think it is possible.”
“It would be kinder not to,” Eliza said. “One would not wish to bring her back to face the reality of what she had done.”
Chief Prescott came over to me. “I wondered if your husband might be feeling well enough for a visit today? Although I fear that the case may have solved itself in the meantime.”
“Yes, I think he might wish to hear everything that has transpired since his sickness,” I said.
“Then if you’d be good enough to accompany me,” he said. “I don’t want any unpleasantness with his mother, who seems to be guarding the door like a watchdog.”
“Of course,” I said. “Please excuse me.” I nodded to the company and left.
When we were out of hearing I asked the chief, “Do you know if my friends have made any progress in being able to interpret her language?”
“I don’t believe she has spoken a word since the body was found,” he said. “She is curled up like a wounded animal, poor little thing. One can’t help feeling sorry for her, even if she does possess this monstrous side to her.” He leaned confidentially closer to me. “I’ve only just been told that she killed her sister. One has to wonder if she also found a way to kill her grandfather. Sometimes these diseased minds can be fearfully cunning and clever when they want to be.”
“I presume you found no evidence that anyone else had been near that trapdoor and could have pushed the housekeeper?”
“Nobody else knew of its existence,” he said scornfully. “The family members were all shocked to find out that the child was in the house.”
“But it might not hurt to dust for fingerprints,” I suggested. “If anyone was up there…”
“Remember that the murderer of Brian Hannan left no obvious prints,” he said. “If anyone else was up there, he’d have been careful.”
“He or she,” I corrected. “We can’t rule out that a woman was involved.”
“Since it appears that a frail twelve-year-old girl has managed to push a hefty woman to her death, I suppose we can’t rule out a woman as a murderer,” he agreed, “although I’m afraid this latest death is all too horribly simple. I suspect that the housekeeper was about to tell the world about her secret charge and the girl tried to stop her the only way she knew how. If only those two women experts can interpret her speech, maybe we’ll find out what was going through her troubled brain.”
We reached the cottage door. I led the way and again bumped into Sam in the hallway.
“Hello, my boy, what have you been up to?” Chief Prescott asked.
Again the look of panic on Sam’s face. “Just eating some cake, sir,” Sam mumbled. “I’m on my way back.”
He pushed past us and almost ran down the path.
“That boy has something to hide,” Chief Prescott said. “Maybe I’ll take him aside and put the fear of the law into him.”
Daniel’s mother came out of the kitchen. “Don’t tell me you’re back again,” she began to say to the police chief, then saw me. “Oh, Molly, it’s you. This man keeps trying to see Daniel.”
“I think Daniel is now well enough for a visit,” I said, “and I’m sure he’ll want to be brought up to date with everything that has happened.”
“If you think so.” She gave me a look of resigned disgust. “You are his wife, after all.”
“Yes, I am. This way, please,” I said brightly and escorted the police chief up the stairs. As I had surmised, Daniel was pleased to see him. I decided that the police chief would speak more freely if they were alone.
“Don’t tire him out, Chief Prescott,” I said. “I’ll leave you two to talk.”
And I bowed out of the room. New York, I thought. I needed to go back to New York to find out about that list of place-names. But I could hardly leave Daniel again. Who could I send in my place? I wondered if any of the Hannan family clan could be considered an ally, then I remembered Eliza’s relieved face when she said, “It wasn’t one of us.” No. They’d want Kathleen to be guilty and this nightmare to be behind them.
I went into the drawing room and took paper from the desk, then I wrote a note to Sid and Gus. I need to speak with one of you on an urgent matter. Could one of you be spared for a while?
I blotted it and took it to the policeman at the front door. He agreed to deliver it and a few minutes later Sid appeared.
“Molly, you’re back. I suppose you’ve heard the news. What a sad, sad business. She seems such a sweet, gentle, pathetic little thing. And she’s inconsolable about the housekeeper.”
“I tried to persuade them to invite Dr. Birnbaum to examine her,” I said.
“What an excellent idea.”
“But they rejected it,” I finished. “I think everyone wants to believe her guilty.”
“And you still don’t?”
“I really don’t want to. I know all the evidence points to her, but something else came up when I was in New York. A list of place-names on Brian Hannan’s desk—and they seem to be places where Father Patrick Hannan has been a priest. I’d really like to go back to the city an
d check them out, but I shouldn’t leave Daniel again.”
“So you’d like one of us to do it.” Sid had a great way of reading my mind. “I’d be happy to. To tell you the truth, I’m finding being with that child most disturbing. Gus is so much better at this sort of thing and if anyone can get through to her, Gus will. So tell me what you’d like me to do?”
“I’m not quite sure,” I said. “I have a list of five place-names and I suspect they are all in the Hudson Valley. Could you check the archives of The New York Times and the Herald and see if these names turn up in any context in the last year or so?”
“I can do that,” Sid said. “What sort of context are you looking for?”
“I really don’t know,” I said. “But Brian Hannan wrote that list for a reason just before he came here.”
Sid nodded. “So any mention of these five places during the past few years? I’ve a good day’s work ahead of me then. And if I find anything I’ll telephone the house here.”
“Wonderful,” I said.
“I’ll go and tell Gus,” Sid said. “I’m sure she’ll understand.”
“And if she wants me to keep her company with Kathleen, I’d be happy to do so if the police will let me,” I said.
A flight of seagulls wheeled overhead crying. We looked up at the tower.
“You know what Gus and I thought before this happened,” Sid said speculatively. “We wondered if the child’s death all those years ago was an accident and somehow Brian Hannan blamed himself for it. How about this—the girls were in his care and he wasn’t paying attention and allowed the tragedy to happen. Perhaps it was a simple accident but in a moment of weakness he allowed the blame to fall on Kathleen. He’s lived with that guilt ever since and summoned everyone here to make a full confession and set things right.”
“That’s a lot to swallow,” I said.
“No, I think it’s quite logical,” Sid said. “And somebody killed him because they found out the truth and now knew he was really to blame. And then we thought what if they all decided to punish him for his negligence, so they lured him here. Do we actually know that he invited them and not the other way around?”
“No, I don’t think we do,” I said. “The excuse was a yacht race that Archie Van Horn was competing in, but I don’t think we ever knew who invited whom.” As I said it I remembered Archie’s bad behavior when he had called upon the alderman and made a note that it was his yacht race that had lured them all here. Maybe there was something to what Sid was postulating.
“There you are then,” Sid said. “The death of Brian Hannan was a joint affair, a family plot. They’ll keep it a closed family secret.”
“Do you still believe that, now that Mrs. McCreedy has been killed and all evidence points to Kathleen?”
“I’m not sure,” Sid said. “I can’t help feeling that an important point is missing. I can believe that Kathleen killed Mrs. McCreedy. I could believe that Kathleen pushed her grandfather off a cliff. But what twelve-year-old child of simple intelligence, who has been locked away all her life, would know how to put poison in his whiskey glass? That is the crime of a sophisticated person and one who knew Hannan’s habits.”
“That’s what I’ve been saying all along,” I agreed.
“So what do you think this list of place-names might have to do with anything?” Sid asked.
“I’m not sure. Maybe it’s nothing of importance, but they were there on his blotter and must have been written in the last days before he came here. They were the only words, apart from his signature, that I could make out. So they had to have some importance.”
“I’ll head back to New York then, and see what I can dig up,” Sid said with her usual confidence. “Then maybe we’ll be wiser. What do you suspect these place-names will tell you?”
“I’ve no idea,” I said. “We may be chasing straws, but Kathleen has nobody else on her side but us. We owe it to her to find the truth if we can.”
“Yes we do,” Sid agreed. She hugged me. “I’ll be off then. I’ll telephone you as soon as I find something.”
Then she went back into the house, leaving me alone with the sound of the surf and the cry of the gulls.
Thirty-six
Daniel seemed quite animated after Chief Prescott’s visit.
“It seems I’ve been missing out on a lot,” he said. “And I owe you an apology, Molly.”
“You do?”
“I didn’t believe that you’d seen a face at the turret window and it turns out that the girl was up there all the time.” He shook his head. “What a foolhardy thing to do—to keep an unstable child in such close proximity to her family all this time. Brian Hannan always appeared to me as such a sensible man, but he paid for this mistake with his life.”
I almost said, “If the girl did it,” but I swallowed back the words. No sense in sharing my doubts with Daniel at the moment. It would only mean I’d have to confess to doing my share of investigating and I didn’t want to upset him.
“I wonder if I’ll feel strong enough to get up and take a look at that tower for myself tomorrow,” he said. “I’d be most interested to see the child and the trapdoor.”
“You’re not to get up until the doctor says you can,” I reminded him.
“That old quack? What does he know about anything? I’ll get up when I feel like it, in fact I’m going to try walking a little now. Give me your hand, Molly.”
“Are you sure?” I held out my hand tentatively. Daniel swung his legs over the side of the bed, then pulled himself to his feet. “There, you see?” he said. He took a few steps across the room. “I’m doing splendidly. Back to normal in no time.” Then he swayed. “Whoops. Feeling a little dizzy. Room swinging around.” As I went to steady him, he went limp and collapsed to the floor.
“Daniel!” I shrieked and dropped beside him. My scream brought Mrs. Sullivan running.
“Oh, dear sweet Jesus, you’ve killed him!” she exclaimed, pushing me out of the way to reach him.
I felt a pulse. “No, he just fainted,” I said. “Help me get him back to bed.”
Together we lugged him with some difficulty. As we were finishing the operation he opened his eyes.
“What’s going on?” he murmured.
“You fainted,” I said. “Now I hope you realize that you’re not well enough to get up yet. You scared the living daylights out of your mother and me.”
“That’s interesting,” he said. “I don’t remember fainting before.”
“And I don’t want you to do so again.” I tucked bedclothes around him angrily. “You nearly died, Daniel. You have to take things slowly. First you sit in a chair for a while, then you try walking.”
“But if I don’t hurry up, I’ll have no chance to be a part of this investigation.” He sounded like a petulant child.
“Dang the investigation,” Mrs. Sullivan said. “You’re just like your father. He could never stop acting the detective, and look where it got him. Dead before he was sixty.”
“You can’t blame me for feeling frustrated,” he said. “I’m not used to lying still and being waited on while the local police need my help.”
“I’ll keep an eye on things for you,” I said.
This brought a chuckle, and a warning look. “I bet you’d love an excuse to get involved, but you’re not going to. You stay well out of it, do you hear? Old Hannan knew there was something wrong, didn’t he? And look what happened to him.”
I thought it wiser not to mention that Sid was on her way to New York, investigating on my behalf, and certainly not that I’d been up in that tower and seen the child for myself.
“I’ll see to your dinner, son,” Mrs. Sullivan said, patting his cheek. “How about my chicken and dumplings? You need to get your strength back.”
“And I should go and see how my friend Gus is doing,” I said. “Sid had to go back to New York in a hurry, so Gus may want to come and eat dinner with us.”
I put on my cloak and went out.
The night wind had turned cold, reminding me that this was indeed October. I needed to walk and to think. If Sid’s research tomorrow turned up nothing, then what did I do next? I couldn’t confess to Daniel that I had unearthed shady business practices at Hannan Construction, that I had found the identity of the man at the gate, or even the Tammany threats. Even if he were well enough to listen, I rather felt that they were meaningless. Maybe Sid and Gus’s theory about the family luring Brian Hannan to his death was not so outlandish after all. I wondered if that lawyer was already on his way back to New York. I would have dearly loved to know if Brian Hannan had been about to make any changes to his will.
I paused, listening to the sound of the wind in the pine trees and the underlying thump of the waves below. Why did one or more of them want him dead? Need him dead so badly that they were willing to take a terrible risk? And how could it tie in with Colleen’s death? It seemed to be now that there had to be some connection. The moment that Kathleen’s presence was revealed, someone had found it necessary to kill Mrs. McCreedy. Either that, or Kathleen really had killed her caregiver for betraying her presence.
I had to see Kathleen again, and I had a good excuse. I went to the policeman at the front door.
“I take it that Miss Walcott is still up with the girl in the tower?” I said. “Has anybody taken dinner up to them yet?”
“I wouldn’t know about that, ma’am,” the young constable said.
“I’d be happy to take them some food, if you’d allow me into the kitchen.”
He looked at me, weighing whether my motives were pure, no doubt.
“I am a guest here,” I reminded him. “Alderman Hannan invited me. I should be able to go in and out of the house as I choose.”
“That was before two murders,” he said. “Chief Prescott says nobody comes in and out and we’ve got to keep an eye on the family at all times. We even have a constable keeping an eye on their bedrooms at night.”
