Shoe eased his hands up. Even if she was a terrible shot, the odds were not in his favor at this distance. “Tatum Shoemaker, reporter for the Evening Star,” he said, slowly rising. “Where’s my brother?”
“His name?”
“Rudy Becker, freelance journalist. And my brother. Where have you tak—” He stopped, his attention suddenly drawn to a diminutive woman in a head shawl hanging back in the doorway. He tried to make eye contact with her, but she looked away and cast her eyes down.
“Go get Mr. Becker,” Ophelia said over her shoulder.
Shoe took a tentative step forward. If she was going to put them in the same room together, she wasn’t going to shoot anybody. “I think you can come out now, Miss Weathersby,” he said, addressing the shrouded woman.
“Mena?” It was Rudy, slightly blue but apparently unharmed. He spun the woman around, a look of joy on his face, which was immediately followed by one of confusion. “You’re not Mena.” He let her go. “What’s going on here?” he asked, creating a unified front in the middle of the room with Shoe.
The woman slid the covering from her head. ““My name is Charlotte Sewell. Please get me out of here, Mr. Shoemaker.” She burst into tears.
Ophelia slipped her gun back into a hidden pocket and wrapped her arms around the sobbing woman. “Sorry for the gun, but I had to be certain who you were. We’ve been hiding Charlotte since . . . since the unfortunate events on the wharf.”
“What’s your association with Wilhelmina Weathersby?” Shoe asked.
“I was her travelling companion,” Charlotte whispered.
Shoe’s gaze shifted to Rudy, who shrugged. “I had no idea Mena had someone with her. Honest.”
Shoe nodded. “Your companion was brutally murdered and you didn’t come forward to talk to the police? Didn’t it concern you that they were unable to identify your friend?”
When she spoke again, she had regained some of her composure. Her voice was quiet, the voice of someone who naturally took to introversion and solitude. Shoe craned forward to better hear her.
“It was all so fast, but I looked right into his eyes and I’ll never forget that face. I’m a loose end, Mr. Shoemaker, and whoever did this is searching for me. If it weren’t for Ophelia’s . . . ladies, I’d be dead by now. They’re a tightknit group and they understand what desperation is.” Charlotte buried her face in her hands and burst into tears again.
Shoe immediately regretted his brusqueness. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound so unsympathetic. I’m sure you’ve experienced a most horrible ordeal.”
“Most horrible,” Rudy said, nodding. Shoe could almost hear the poor man’s heart pounding out of his chest. “As soon as we can get out of here, we have work to do. This is far from over. Sit here in the chair, take a step back, and tell us what led you here to Nevis with Mena.”
“No, no time,” Ophelia said. “You need to change your clothes and get out.”
“Uh uh,” Rudy said, shaking his head. “And have her bolt as soon as she thinks she can? ’Fraid not, sister. We’re not going anywhere until I know what happened to Mena.”
Ophelia gave him an exasperated look. “All right, but make it quick, Charlotte. They’ll be back soon. Stand right here and make it quick.”
Charlotte pulled a lace handkerchief from a sleeve, and after she had patted her eyes dry, she began her tale.
“I met Mena in New York—a runaway of sorts, just like her. Not the same kind of problems—I had an intolerable husband—but circumstances that I could only change by removing myself from the situation. I never would have made it in the Bowery without her. The sharks there were already circling. They’re good, Mr. Shoemaker, at finding the weak and exploiting them. Especially women,” she said with a shudder.
Rudy shook his head and muttered something. She gave him a solicitous look and continued.
“When Mena decided to leave the Bowery, she said she couldn’t leave me alone to that. She was determined that I come too. A new start, that’s all either one of us asked for. I was excited and she was so, so happy. She promised to help me get established where my husband could never find me. I stayed with her at the Bayside Hotel.”
She turned again to Rudy. “But don’t think for a minute, Mr. Becker, that I attached myself to her because I wanted more. Mercy, we were fast friends before I learned she came from a wealthy background. How would I know?” She looked at him for some sort of affirmation.
“You wouldn’t have,” he said, shaking his head. He turned to Shoe. “I didn’t know anything about Charlotte. Mena was to take a train and meet me at Washington Union Station. She never arrived at our prearranged time. Thinking she might have taken a later train, I waited long past the time she was expected. When it was obvious that she wasn’t coming, I went back to my lodging and found word she would be waiting on the dock for me. That was okay. Things didn’t have to run smoothly. They just had to run. I was on my way back to Nevis when Emerson intercepted me.”
Charlotte let out a deep sigh. “All she ever needed from me was friendship and I failed her.”
Rudy’s eyes flicked to Shoe and back to Charlotte again. “Our final plans were all set: time, mode of transportation, final destination. Why wasn’t she on that train, Charlotte?” His tone was flat, was neither accusatory nor forgiving.
“It was Emerson. Mena saw him standing outside the Bayside that afternoon. I don’t know how they found us, but we knew it was just a matter of time before he was knocking on our door. She sent you a telegram, and then we grabbed some things from our suitcases and fled. Spent the remainder of the day trying to look inconspicuous down in this section of the wharf, trying to blend in with the pilgrims interested in seeing another vision. I shared a seat with one on the train ride down. As it grew later, and you didn’t show up—”
“Didn’t you receive my post?” Rudy asked.
She shook her head. “When you didn’t appear, we considered taking a boat somewhere else. Not the steamboat, that would be too obvious. Something smaller. I inquired with several of the boat captains. There was a woman captain, and she agreed to take us to see Father McGee of St Raphael’s church at Parkers Wharf.”
“Muriel Fitzhugh?” Shoe asked. You booked passage on the Sunrise Pelican?”
She nodded. “I think that was it.”
“They did,” Ophelia interjected. “Muriel is my sister.”
Two hardscrabble women who spouted Shakespeare? Shoe didn’t doubt their relationship for a minute.
“When we arrived at the appointed time,” Charlotte continued, “she and the boat were out of port, and nobody could tell us when she was due back. If we had known what a rowdy section we were venturing into, I’m sure we would have reconsidered. But everything was in motion. We figured we could soldier through any inconvenience and unpleasantness if that’s what it took to shake the men Mena’s father had tailing us.” A look of strain and struggle pulled her face into a tight expression. “Men! Mena and I, not so different after all.”
Rudy looked like a broken man—head hung so low that Shoe wondered how he kept from tumbling out of his chair. Looking at the two of them seemed an intrusion. He walked over to his desk and seized upon the first object he saw—a millefiori paperweight sitting next to the pen set. He picked it up and ran a finger across its smooth surface. “I know it’s hard, but, did Hanner Mackall—uh, what exactly happened?”
“It was so fast,” she whispered. She paused a moment, twisting her entwined fingers. “The wharf was dark now. With the exception of the two young boys delivering telegrams and a boat unloading, there didn’t seem to be anyone else about. Even the religious pilgrims who we thought would stay all night had returned to town. We were at wits’ end. If we went back to town, Emerson would have us. So Mena decided to trade her necklace for passage on the boat unloading on the pier.”
“Smugglers,” Shoe mumbled.
Her eyes darted to him and then she continued. “I volunteered to go, but Mena w
as single minded. She got us into the situation and she vowed to get us out. I heard her talking to one of the boys right before . . . just before . . .”
“Did you see Hanner Mackall?” Rudy asked, his jaw set tight and fingers turning white where he clenched them.
“I . . . heard, uh, there were screams and scuffling. So fast,” she said, shaking her head. “Next thing I knew, Ophelia was dragging me out of the doorway, insisting I come with her. I didn’t protest.” And then she said, in a voice so quiet Shoe could barely make it out, “I heard they found Mena and a messenger the next morning on the boardwalk.”
Shoe looked at Ophelia. “But you saw, didn’t you? It was Hanner Mackall, wasn’t it?”
“As God is my witness, I was nearby and I’m not going lie to you. Hanner Mackall murdered them both—the woman and the boy. Miss Weathersby blundered into the middle of Hanner unloading contraband. Wrong place, wrong time. Nobody interferes with business. And as soon as he saw the flash of that green cross, I knew it would end badly. The women’s association with the pilgrims sealed your lady’s fate. Hanner Mackall, just like the rest of his family, hates all things religious. It’s a grudge that goes back hundreds of years, Mr. Shoemaker. Call it crazy, if you like, but he’s through and through a descendant of Moll Mackall Dyer.”
“But you still pawned the necklace for him, didn’t you? O.S. Ophelia Shakespeare.”
“Mr. Shoemaker, I would be the last to say I’m proud of things I’ve done. It’s hard to understand the level of rage Mackall is capable of unless you’ve seen it.”
“You despicable whore,” Rudy said. He launched himself at the madame.
Shoe slid in between them, shielding her with his body. “Stop! It’s done. And this doesn’t get us out of here. Ophelia, what’s the best way to get out of here without causing a stir?”
“There’s a car in a garage on the land side. You can climb the slope behind the house and head out that way. It’s a barter, but it’ll get you somewhere else.” She detached a key from a ring of them and gave it to him. “For the lock. Now get out of here.”
She led them back down the narrow stairs and out a rear door. “That way,” she said, pointing up the hill. She hugged Charlotte and then hurried back up the house steps.
“Come with us,” Shoe called after her. “When he finds out—”
She didn’t answer, but continued into the house and closed the door.
Shoe started back after her.
“Her choice, Shoe,” Rudy said. “Let her go.”
It was. They grabbed Charlotte and they fled.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Making Hal Roach Proud
Over the rise of the hill, they found a tiny garage sitting beside a narrow lane that seemed to run parallel to the wharf and back toward town.
“Train?” Shoe asked as he popped the padlock and swung the door open.
Rudy stopped halfway through the door. “You tell me.”
Before them sat a stripped-down flivver: an engine, a chassis, and nowhere to sit but a pitiful plank seat over the gas tank.
Shoe pushed past him. “Criminy! Do you think it will even start?”
“Oh, it’ll start,” Rudy said. “And I bet it can fly. You drive, right? Climb up there. Flip the spark lever up. Push the throttle lever down. Turn that switch key.”
“You drive, right?” Shoe mumbled, mimicking Rudy’s swagger as he climbed behind the wheel. The key was still in the coil box. “Flip, push, turn,” he called out as he performed the simple tasks.
Rudy cranked the heap up. It shuddered to life and then abruptly conked out. They tried again. Same result.
Raised voices were now floating over the hill from the direction of Ophelia’s. Shoe pulled the key out, flipped everything off, and slid down off his perch. “We can get farther on foot. Leave it, Rudy. Unless they have another key, they’ll be on foot too.”
Rudy pointed him back to the car. “One more time. It’ll catch. I can hear it.”
“Perhaps you’re not hearing what’s over there,” Shoe said, hearing the distinct bang of a door and scuffling feet.
In a flash, Charlotte snatched the key out of his hand, scooted past him, hiked up her skirt, and planted herself on the fuel tank. “Flip, push, turn,” she said, repeating the steps.
This time the beast sputtered to life and kept right on chugging.
“Move over,” Rudy said to her, springing up into the vehicle. Then with the finesse of an Indianapolis Motor Speedway driver, he mashed the left floor pedal down—Shoe still scrambling aboard—and eased the car through the narrow doorway. Shoe swung up beside Charlotte as three pursuers cleared the rise.
Rudy eased up on the left pedal and sent the car barreling in a wide circle around them as he aimed for the country lane. Two of the men launched themselves at the lizzie, attaching like hitchhikers to the skeleton of the car—one to Shoe’s side and the other to the rear. The Model T fishtailed and sprayed loose gravel as it gained the unpaved lane, sending any other pursuit ducking for cover.
Shoe dispatched his adversary with a well-placed kick to the chest, while Charlotte screamed and struggled with the second one trying to pull her over. Shoe grabbed a handful of his clothing and yanked him sideways and off balance. The man released Charlotte and head-butted Shoe. The two men teetered back and forth on the chassis rails, trying to dislodge one another from their perch.
“Slow down!” Shoe shouted at Rudy. His brother, in typical Rudy fashion, ignored the request. Instead, he slid forward and curled himself around the steering wheel like Tommy Milton trying to set a Daytona land-speed record.
Charlotte cut loose with a bloodcurdling scream. Both men glanced her way and she sprayed the attacker’s face with an atomizer she had apparently pulled from her purse. With an equally powerful scream, his hands went to his eyes. He wobbled once and then toppled off the back of the car.
Shoe vowed to never question the resourcefulness of women again. “Thanks,” he said, heaving as he sat down and ran the back of his hand across his forehead, checking for blood. He found none, but he had one heck of a pounding headache.
Rudy kept the pedal high and they rocketed forward through a tunnel of tall cedars lining and overhanging the lane. The bucket of bolts let out a death rattle every time it hit a rut in the road. Shoe watched helplessly as they headed straight into a flock of chickens blocking the road. Most scattered, one smacked the radiator grill, and another landed in Shoe’s lap. Shoe tossed him back out, reached past Charlotte, and flicked the side of Rudy’s head.
“Ouch!”
“You’ve got to slow down, goof! There’s no more room and we’ve nothing to hang onto.”
“See anybody else?”
“Nobody.”
Rudy eased off a bit.
The tree line abruptly ended and the car flew out onto Bayside Avenue, narrowly missing Strathmore’s Milk Wagon and a truck full of logs. Rudy struggled a moment with the wheel but finally managed to swing it around to the correct side of the road. The only trouble was, well, trouble was right behind them—coming fast in another flivver. And another one behind that one too.
Shoe locked eyes with Mackall in the front car and then turned to Rudy and said, “Can you make this go any faster? Otherwise, we’re all dead.”
Rudy coaxed every bit of power out of the heap—or maybe they rode on angel wings—and they somehow managed to outpace Mackall. By the time they reached the depot, their ride was shaking apart at the seams and howling like a coyote.
Chickens, Shoe thought as Rudy sent an elderly couple scurrying out of his way. Then he appeared to set the car on a collision course with the departing Chesapeake Express train, and it became something entirely different.
“Uh, Rudy,” Shoe said, rising. “Only fools play chicken with trains.” Charlotte, who had been a trouper up until now, turned away. Shaking and whimpering, she buried her face in his pants leg.
At the last possible moment, Rudy swerved behind the Express and
moved up on the left side, even with the caboose. Shoe fell back in his seat and Charlotte’s whimpering escalated into panicked screaming.
Rudy eased ahead of the slow-moving caboose and guided the jalopy in perilously close—so close you could almost reach out and touch the accelerating train. “Jump it. Go on, jump it.” He gave Charlotte a shove. “Her first.”
“No! No, no, no, no, no, no,” she said. But before she could reach for her atomizer, Shoe launched her out of the car, arms and legs flailing. She landed in a heap on the rear platform of the caboose.
“Now you,” Rudy said.
“And leave you? Hell, no.”
“Jump, dammit. I’ll be right behind you.”
The great steel wheels of the train were clicking an allegro beat as the Express picked up steam. Ahead, the track curved and the right-of-way narrowed considerably with deep woods on either side. Shoe looked over his shoulder. Mackall’s car was right on their tail, with Mackall’s thug crawling across the car hood like Harold Lloyd. Even if Shoe didn’t jump, old Harold certainly would. It was jump now or not at all. “Promise?”
Rudy nodded.
Shoe jumped.
The rest unfolded in seconds. The thug jumped and landed squarely on the rear frame of their car. But Rudy jumped too. He let go of the steering wheel and in two quick steps launched himself, arms flying, at the caboose. His flight was short. He teetered on the edge of the platform a moment before Charlotte and Shoe yanked him to safety.
“Thanks,” Rudy said, looking both surprised and relieved.
“Yeah, you owe me,” Shoe told him.
They watched their jalopy veer left away from the tracks and head for the tree line, Mackall’s goon climbing over the seatback in a desperate bid to gain control of the car. Nobody needed to watch that. They hurried inside the train, walked through the first passenger car—which was nearly empty—and took seats in the fuller second.
Shoe leaned over the seat and said to the gentleman seated in front of them, “We might have hopped the wrong train. We’re headed to . . .?”
The Dame on the Dock Page 22
