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What the Dead Leave Behind

Page 37

by Rosemary Simpson


  Blackmail was always tricky; victims tended to be unstable creatures to begin with, obsessed with keeping hidden the secrets that made them vulnerable. They could be dangerous, unpredictable, as volatile as a poorly mixed explosive. She’d taken the Judge from his blackmailer, and in so doing, blackmailed McGlory, too. Some people would say she’d written and signed her own death warrant, but here she was, three years after she began this scam, a free woman with more money than she could spend in a lifetime.

  There had been a few weeks of uneasiness after the Judge’s death, when she feared McGlory would come after her. After all, she’d stolen his crooked judge, then eased that judge into eternity when she no longer needed him, after he’d agreed to her demands. She remembered the exaltation she had felt seeing him sign the precious codicil to the rewritten will in Roscoe Conkling’s office. The realization that now she was done with Thomas MacKenzie; he’d signed his own death warrant.

  She was a little surprised that he succumbed so quickly, and worried that she’d wrongly estimated the strength of what she was giving him. But nothing happened. Dr. Worthington signed the death certificate. No one suspected a thing. Even the nosy Irish girl who’d been constantly underfoot in the sickroom obliged her by dying. After so many years of mischance, Victoria’s fortunes had taken a decided turn for the better.

  No stranger approached her in the street and no threat was ever delivered in the mail. She decided that when McGlory cut the Judge loose, he must have let her go also. The reformers were after him like ticks on a dog; he had to watch what he did, and who he did it to. Lucky Victoria had slipped past the dangerous time; all she had to do now was hang on.

  Why was she so edgy tonight?

  Still restless even after she’d taken a warm bath and finally gotten into bed, she heard the longcase clock in the downstairs hallway strike midnight then one A.M. By that time she’d allowed herself a generous dose of laudanum from the bottle left standing beside Prudence’s empty bed. They were right, everyone who said the magical elixir could soothe away a day’s troubles. Two or three additional swallows, no more. Just enough to smooth the rough edges of her anxiety and stop her eyelids from twitching.

  The last thing she heard was soft footfalls that stopped at her door. Damn Donald! She was just drifting off and in no mood to hear him ramble on drunkenly about his evening at the Haymarket. She took a deep breath and let herself sink under the warm laudanum blanket. Her brother could wait until morning; everything could wait until then.

  Victoria’s visitor carried with him in his pocket a small bottle of unadulterated tincture of opium, the base ingredient of the laudanum so popular in the treatment of everything from hysteria to loose bowels. He had mixed the tincture with honey and a sweet liqueur, but the taste was still distinctively bitter, making it difficult to swallow. Unless the lady had done some of his work for him, he would have to restrain her with what he carried in a black leather bag not unlike the ones doctors used. His directions had been unequivocally precise. The death must be believed to be accidental, a consequence of profound melancholia brought on by her widowhood. Therefore no marks on the body.

  She might not have drunk enough of the laudanum from the bottle on her bedside table for the effect to be much more sleep inducing than hot milk with a dash of sherry. There was no way to know for sure. Unfortunate, but he had come prepared for all possibilities. With a touch as gentle as that of a skilled nurse, he looped velvet lined restraints around her wrists and ankles, tethering her legs to the bedposts, carefully replacing each limb under the bedclothes as he worked. When he had finished, he spread a towel under her chin to protect the embroidered silk coverlet, then cradled her against his chest the way a mother does the baby she is about to feed. He laid a napkin near her mouth in case she should attempt to cry out, then unstoppered the tincture of opium and poured the first few drops between her lips.

  Victoria’s eyes opened in shock and disgust as soon as the bitter-tasting liquid pooled on her tongue. She tried to raise a hand to wipe it from her mouth, but found she could not. It was as if her legs and arms no longer belonged to her, were mysteriously unresponsive to her commands. In her panic she did not at first feel the man’s arm around her, nor see his face bent solicitously over her own. When the napkin was jammed into her mouth to muffle her outcry she bit down hard, but succeeded only in grinding her teeth together through the linen. Tears sprang into her eyes and she shook her head vigorously to stop them. There had never been a situation, no matter how apparently hopeless, that Victoria had not managed to escape and even turn to her advantage. She simply had to get control of herself, still the frantic beating of her heart, and figure out what in God’s name was happening. What was being done to her?

  McGlory. The name came without conscious thought or invitation. Someone had dragged her name into a threat against McGlory, and this was his answer. She looked up into the soft brown eyes of the handsome young man who was holding her, and read in them the whole story of her doom.

  “It’s best to let me finish the job without fighting it,” he said. He smiled at her, brushed a wisp of hair from her forehead, eased a portion of the napkin from her mouth. “What happens is that you fall asleep. There’s no pain, nothing to fear. Just a longer and a better sleep than you’ve ever had before. You won’t be alone, I promise. I’ll stay with you throughout.” He picked up the brown bottle she’d brought from Prudence’s room. “We’ll start with a bit more of this, I think. It’s easier to get down. Then you won’t mind the other so much.”

  It happened so quickly she had no defense against it. The laudanum bottle slipped under the napkin as he jerked it from her mouth, the liquid poured into her throat, and to keep from choking, she swallowed it. By the time she realized what he had done, the napkin filled her mouth again and she could feel a warm, heavy languor beginning to weigh down her body and numb her brain.

  “There we are. See how easy that was. Now we’ll wait just a bit and do it again.” He sometimes thought of himself as a priest of sorts, sitting quietly beside a dying man or woman to ease the pain of this life and smooth the path to the next. Not that he believed there was another life. He just referred to it to ease the fears of his travelers. He liked that word better than any of the others that might describe the service he performed.

  “Time for another dose,” he said cheerfully. The lady’s mouth was slack, but her eyes told him she still understood what was happening. Quickly then, and back into her mouth went the napkin. Probably for the last time. He thought she was ready for the pure tincture of opium, which he’d have to ease down her throat more slowly than the laudanum. It was thicker, especially mixed with the honey, harder to swallow. But it did the job more quickly and more surely. She’d be gone before that clock downstairs struck the hour again.

  And so would he.

  CHAPTER 29

  Roscoe Conkling died a week after Victoria MacKenzie and Donald Morley were buried in Woodlawn Cemetery. The former senator had been pronounced well on the road to recovery just eleven days earlier.

  Before the press could write that Conkling was on his feet again, he suffered a relapse. His fever spiked, his mind wandered in delirium; the doctors drilled a hole into his skull to relieve the increasing pressure on his brain. He survived the operation, regained consciousness, tore the bandages from his head, and had to be forcibly anesthetized to keep him in his bed.

  On and on it went, day after interminable day, pain, fever, delirium, then spells of terrible coughing from lungs that were filling up with fluid. Finally, the great heart that was the essence of Roscoe Conkling failed; he lapsed into a coma from which death was a welcome release for those who were caring for him. His body was transported home to Utica.

  No one mourned him more deeply or more sincerely than Josiah Gregory, who sat for hours at Conkling’s desk, moving crystal paperweights around aimlessly, drinking cup after cup of the strong coffee that had fueled Roscoe’s tremendous energy. When the time came, he removed
a copy of Conkling’s will from the safe in which it had been locked, and gave it to Geoffrey Hunter.

  “This concerns you more than anyone else,” he said. He wore a black armband on his coat sleeve and had hung a large black crepe ribbon on the office door.

  “I’ll miss him,” Geoffrey said. “He saw something in me that I’m not sure I would have found without his conviction it was there.” He wasn’t sure he wanted to read the will with Josiah’s sad eyes looking on. He was afraid he knew what Conkling had done. When the grieving secretary handed him his employer’s silver letter opener, he knew he had no choice.

  “You can skip over the family bequests,” Josiah urged. “Everything that isn’t a part of his practice goes to Mrs. Conkling, with an additional bequest to Miss Bessie.”

  Geoffrey’s eyes skimmed quickly down to the signatures at the bottom of the last page. “He wrote it himself.”

  “Which makes it unbreakable. Mr. Conkling was a much more private person than people thought. He liked to keep what really mattered to him close to his heart.” Josiah smiled as if remembering one of Roscoe’s well-hidden tender moments. “I’ll leave you to read the rest of the will in private.” The door to the outer office closed quietly behind him.

  Conkling had left his law practice and its client list, the remainder of the fully paid up five-year lease on the office space, all of its furnishings, and his private law library to his great and good friend Geoffrey Hunter, with the request that Josiah Gregory be given the opportunity to serve him as well as he had served Roscoe. If Josiah, now a respectably rich recipient of the ex-senator’s generosity, cared to continue in his current position.

  Geoffrey read through the remainder of the will. As Josiah had said, it was simple, straightforward, and not the least surprising. Julia Conkling, who had made a life for herself in Utica, would not contest any of its provisions.

  Tucked into the folder containing the will was an envelope with Geoffrey’s name on it and the word private written in Roscoe’s distinctive script. In the lower left-hand corner was a date. April 5, 1888. The day that Geoffrey and Prudence had sat in Roscoe’s bedroom while Josiah read aloud the recounting of the famous walk up Broadway the night of the blizzard. Phrases leaped out at him as he unfolded the letter addressed to My dear Geoff. He smiled, remembering that Roscoe rarely shortened anyone’s name, usually only when he was attempting to hide some strong emotion. He read on.

  Brevity is not one of my talents, but I’m afraid that I’m not quite up to par at the moment. Suffice it to say that if you are reading this note, I did not survive the blizzard after all. Josiah will have given you a copy of my will; Julia’s lawyer has the original and will undoubtedly be contacting you.

  And now to you, my dear boy. Pinkerton knew it all along; you were one of his best operatives. That’s why he quarreled with you so frequently; Allan knew his time was nearly up and yours was just beginning. Jealousy can twist even the best of men. You were wise to get out when you did. The work you’ve done for me and for others here in New York has more than proved your worth.

  But you cannot continue indefinitely living in a hotel suite and taking only the occasional commission that strikes your fancy. A man has to devote himself to a cause, or he ends up cursing himself for the waste of his life. I wouldn’t presume to tell you what that cause should be, but I do presume to leave you an office to which to come every morning and a factotum par excellence. I speak of Josiah, of course. Whether it’s the law or detecting that calls you, and I feel it must be one of the two, you could do much worse than to have him at your back.

  Prudence. The Judge loved her too much, educated her as if she were not a woman, and left her alone in this world long before she was ready to make her own way. He thought to protect her in marriage; perhaps it is better this way though it cannot justify Linwood’s death. She has a fine mind and she is one of the bravest souls I’ve ever met. You will need to be her true friend for many years to come.

  The letter ended abruptly, a large, untidy R tilting its way across the bottom of the page. As if Conkling had used up the last reserves of the energy for which he had been so celebrated.

  “We’ll need to get the lettering on the door changed, Josiah,” Geoffrey said, walking from the inner to the outer office. “You’ll have to order new stationery, too.”

  “How shall it read, sir?” There was a lift to Gregory’s voice, a hint of the firmness with which he had ordered Roscoe’s professional life.

  “Hunter and Associates, Investigative Law.”

  “And Associates?”

  “And Associates.”

  “I’ll order the smallest amount of stationery possible.” Josiah wondered how long it would take Miss Prudence to demand and get equal billing.

  * * *

  Face your enemies and your worst fears. Go back to the place where you were defeated. Stare down the nightmares and the memories until you overpower them. Bring nothing of the hurtful past into the new future you make for yourself.

  Prudence had always welcomed the Judge’s reassuring voice, but now another man had slipped into her thoughts and she wasn’t making any effort to keep him out. Not since Geoffrey Hunter had caught her in his arms and carried her into Mrs. Dailey’s boardinghouse. They had been through so much together.

  Jackson shot and running away. Kincaid and Danny Dennis hurtling toward the Brooklyn Bridge, Mr. Washington’s hooves beating a metallic tattoo on the cobblestones. A whirl of bright blue sky overhead when she began to fall. Geoffrey’s fathomless dark eyes and the anxious look on his face as he reached for her. The kaleidoscopic sounds and images had replayed themselves in Prudence’s mind until gradually the derringer’s sharp blast faded, the white horse ran in silence, and Geoffrey smiled. Strong, muscled arms held her; she was safe.

  Until she returned to the house on Fifth Avenue. Then the fight to regain her sense of self began anew. With it came the recurring temptation to surrender to the peaceful oblivion of laudanum. She could taste its bitterness, feel the rush of letting go that came with the first swallow. Sometimes, when the craving ambushed her, she wondered how much longer she could hold out. Thankfully, each attack was weaker than its predecessor.

  Face your enemies and your worst fears.

  She had freed herself from the bondage of physical dependence, but she needed a talisman against a moment of weakness. She found it in the emerald and diamond ring that celebrated her birth, that Victoria had ripped from her neck in this very library. Gift of her father to her mother. While she wore it, it was as though both parents girded her with their strength.

  She was fortunate, Prudence thought as she paced the Turkish carpet, surrounded by the hundreds of books her father had collected, now restored to their shelves. She had no memories to face down of how Victoria and Donald met their ends. Geoffrey and Ned Hayes had spared her the sight of Victoria dead in her pink silk sheets, and stood in for her at the identification of Donald’s pallid corpse laid out on one of Bellevue’s mortuary slabs.

  When propriety demanded she attend the burial in Woodlawn Cemetery, Geoffrey shook hands and received condolences on her behalf, murmuring the sad tale of Mrs. MacKenzie’s accidental overdose. It happened so often that no one questioned the account. Prudence said nothing and kept her mourning veil firmly in place to hide the tight smile she could not always bite back.

  Between them, Mrs. Dailey and Cameron purged every trace of both Morleys from the MacKenzie mansion. Mrs. Dailey found a new housekeeper to replace the murdered Frances Barstow, but Cameron would allow no one to occupy the position he had held for so long. Miss Prudence would need him more than ever, he explained to the disappointed Kathleen Dailey; reluctantly she agreed. Besides, he reminded her, she had the injured Colleen to nurse back to health. The girl would have to keep to her bed for at least another three weeks; recovery from a fall down a flight of stairs didn’t happen overnight. Prudence welcomed his return.

  Go back to the place where you were defeated. She h
ad done that. She had relived Victoria’s sudden attack, the sound and feel of glass shattering against her head, the horror of being locked in to await her fate. Stare down the nightmares until you overpower them. She had sat alone for hours in her father’s chair, fingers digging into the leather. Remembering. Rejecting. Defeating. One by one the nightmare memories drifted away and disappeared like smoke on the wind. The Judge’s library became her precious sanctuary once more. The hard-won battle with the horrors of what Victoria had attempted to do to her was over. She had emerged triumphant.

  Bring nothing of the hurtful past into the new future you make for yourself.

  One demon remained to be exorcised.

  Prudence knew the household staff was worried about her. She had grown thinner and more silent by the day, and she had to remind herself to smile her thanks for the many small services done without her asking for them. Geoffrey had stopped by several times; she’d seen the worried frown cross his handsome face when he thought she wasn’t looking. The last time he was here, she’d asked him not to come again for a while.

  “How long?”

  “I don’t know.” It was true. She didn’t know how long it would take to find herself again, but she sensed she could not hurry the search.

  Jackson had deserved the full measure of his end, as had Victoria and Donald. All three of them had blood on their hands. But Frances Barstow had not earned death at the hands of a madman. Kincaid maintained that the housekeeper stayed behind to divert Dr. Yarborough’s attendants from finding Prudence. Which meant she had died so that Prudence might live.

 

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