Murder on Black Friday

by P. B. Ryan

  Her face was as hot as a pan of coals, but he didn’t tease her about it, as he normally would. He just looked at her, very quietly, waiting for her answer.

  “I don’t—” She looked away and cleared her throat. “I don’t think that would be very wise.”

  “Wisdom is overrated.”

  “I’m a married woman, Will.”

  “Are you honestly trying to tell me you owe fidelity to a man who once nearly killed you? You should have divorced him years ago.”

  “My fidelity isn’t to Duncan, it’s to the Church. If I were to divorce him and remarry, I’d be excommunicated.”

  “From the Catholic church.” Will closed a hand around her arm, leaning in close. “Not from God.”

  This was the first time she’d heard him speak of God as more than an abstract, somewhat archaic concept.

  “The Church...” she began. “You don’t understand. When I was at my lowest point, it helped me to remake myself into the person I wanted to be. It’s been my bulwark.”

  “It’s been your crutch, Nell. Perhaps it’s time to set it aside.”

  “You want me to turn my back on my faith?”

  “I want what’s best for you, and what’s best is to divorce Duncan. Then, if you ever choose to remarry, and you are excommunicated, it will be the Church turning its back on you, not God.” In a low, earnest voice, Will said, “God would never forsake you. You must know that.”

  Nell was stunned into silence not just by the content of this speech—Will Hewitt sounding almost like a believer—but by the passion with which he’d delivered it.

  Looking down at his hand on her arm, he apparently realized how tightly he was gripping her, and released his hold. He stood, dragged his hands through his hair, and said, “I’ve distressed you. I didn’t mean to. I apologize.”

  Will walked down the path to the house, pausing in the doorway with one hand on the jamb. He stood there with his back to her for a moment, then turned, and with a somber little smile, said, “You’re probably right about this kiss. I’m a selfish cur, or I never would have asked. Please forget I did.”

  Chapter 9

  “Miss Sweeney and Dr. Hewitt to see Mrs. Wallace,” said Will as he handed his card to the young parlor maid who answered their knock at Sophie Wallace’s Pemberton Square townhouse the following morning. The maid invited them to wait in the imposing, marble-and-mahogany front hall while she went toward the back of the house fetch her mistress.

  She retreated down a long, dimly lit corridor toward a man whom Nell took to be the butler, clean-shaven as he was, and dressed all in black, save for a gray silk cravat. As she was about to pass him, he halted her with a softspoken, “One moment, Colleen.” He took the card from her, withdrew a pair of spectacles from inside his coat, and read it.

  Looking up, he removed the spectacles and regarded Nell and Will curiously for a moment, then strode toward them, Colleen close on his heels. “I say, have we met? I’m Frederick Wallace.”

  F. Wallace — 3:30

  He moved out and initiated divorce proceedings...made quite an ass of himself in the dining room of the Parker House night before last....

  Freddie Wallace was middle-aged and of average build, with smallish eyes, a candlewax pallor, and wetly oiled hair somewhere in that dreary borderland between brown and gray. He had a slightly nasal voice pitched high, making him seem younger than his appearance would suggest.

  Extending his hand, Will said, “I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure. William Hewitt.” With a nod toward Nell, he said, “And this is Miss Cornelia Sweeney. We’re looking into the circumstances surrounding the death of your late client, Mr. Philip Munro.”

  Wallace’s eyebrows quirked, almost imperceptibly; otherwise his bland expression remained unchanged. “Terrible thing. Ghastly. He, er... I was under the impression Munro...put an end to himself.”

  Choosing his words with obvious care, Will said, “The matter must be investigated before a final determination can be made. As I was the surgeon who performed the post-mortem on Mr. Munro, it falls to me to make the necessary inquiries.”

  Wallace nodded slowly, his eyes, like beads of blue glass, trained on Will. “And your purpose in calling on my wife?”

  Will hesitated, clearly at a loss as to how to answer that. We understand she’d been banging the deceased would be a bit indelicate.

  Leaping in with the first thing that came to her, Nell said, “Actually, Mr. Wallace, it was you we’d wanted to speak to, but, well, it was our understanding that you no longer reside here. We came here in hopes of learning your current address.”

  Will graced her with a near smile that meant she’d impressed him, then turned to Wallace with an expectant expression—as did the parlor maid, who’d been following the conversation with poorly concealed interest.

  “Ah.” Wallace’s head bobbed slightly, as if he were a marionette whose puppet master had just a touch of palsy. “I, er, yes. I...well...I reside here now. Again. That is, I was away for a couple of weeks. Business, you know. But I’m back, so...” He twitched his shoulders, his lips pressed into a thin smile. “You need look no further.”

  “Excellent,” Will said. “Then if you could indulge us for a few—“

  “Unfortunately,” said Wallace as lifted a black bowler and a walking stick from a console table next to the door, “as I have an eleven o’clock meeting at the State House, this interview will have to take place at some more convenient time. If you’d care to make an appointment with my secretary—” he produced a card and handed it to Will “—I suspect I can accommodate you before the end of the week.”

  “I’m afraid our inquiries can’t wait that long,” Will said. “If you could spare a few minutes right now—“

  “Punctuality is a virtue that I have cultivated with some effort over the years, Dr. Hewitt. I’m sorry, but—“

  “Are you always punctual?” Nell asked.

  Wallace looked affronted, or perhaps merely surprised, by the question. “Yes. As a matter of fact, I am.”

  “You were on time, then, for your three-thirty appointment with Philip Munro Friday afternoon?”

  Wallace looked down, plucked a pair of gray kid gloves out of the derby, and donned the hat, adjusting it just so. “That appointment, as you are no doubt aware, never occurred. By the time I arrived, Mr. Munro had already—“

  “We know,” Will said. “You were the one who found him on the front steps. According to his calendar, you were due at three-thirty, but his body was actually discovered ten minutes later, at three-forty.”

  Wallace tucked the walking stick under his arm and pulled on one of the gloves, scowling. “If I were prepared for this conversation, perhaps I could have the information you seek at my fingertips, so once again, I urge you to contact my secretary and—”

  “If you had been on time,” Will persisted, “I imagine you would have climbed the service stairs to Munro’s office, where you would have found him waiting for you. You would have...done whatever it was you’d gone there to do, and left as you came, through the back door. But suppose you’d then returned to your buggy, which you would have parked, say, in an alley off the kitchen yard, and driven ‘round to the front of the house—only to encounter Mr. Munro’s body on the front steps at about three-forty.”

  “I’m not quite sure I know what your point is, Dr. Hewitt, and I’m not sure I want to.” Pulling on the other glove rather jerkily, Wallace said, “It’s a four minute walk to the State House. If I leave immediately, I might still be there on time. Miss Sweeney...Dr. Hewitt.” He bowed curtly to Nell and Will, then turned toward the front door, which the maid scurried to open for him.

  Will said, “Do you recall the incident Thursday night at the Parker House, Mr. Wallace?”

  Wallace glared at him from the open doorway, clearly at a loss for words.

  “I’m asking whether you recall,” Will continued, “because, as I understand it—”

  “I’d had a bit to
o much wine with dinner,” Wallace said tightly. “As I’m unused to strong drink, it went to my head. Surely, Dr. Hewitt, there have been times in your own life that you would prefer not to be forced to relive.”

  “More than you can possibly imagine. I understand you accused Mr. Munro of...indiscretions with Mrs. Wallace.”

  Colleen’s eyes widened as she held the door open; there would be no end of whispering and giggling in the servants’ quarters tonight.

  “I was inebriated,” Wallace said. “And...laboring under a misapprehension. To say I regret the incident would be the height of understatement.”

  Nell said, “By ‘misapprehension,’ do you mean—”

  “This conversation is over. Good day.”

  Nell and Will watched from the front stoop as Wallace half-walked, half-jogged south, toward Beacon Street and the State House. As soon as he was out of sight, they turned back and knocked on the front door.

  Handing a second card to the befuddled Colleen, Will said, “Mrs. Wallace, if you please.”

  * * *

  “We’ve reconciled, Freddie and I.” Sophie Wallace raised her demitasse to her mouth, pursing her lightly rouged lips to blow on it as she eyed Will over the rim of the diminutive cup. Reclining on a fainting couch in her drawing room, her morning dress of green silk gauze rippling onto the floor, pale ringlets framing a pretty if timeworn face, she put Nell in mind of Cleopatra on her barge.

  Unlike her husband, Sophie had been perfectly willing to speak to them. It didn’t hurt that Will had disingenuously asked her for “anything you might be able to tell us about your husband’s client who passed away Friday afternoon. Mr. Wallace was in a hurry to make a meeting, so we thought perhaps you might indulge us...?” It also didn’t hurt, Nell knew, that Will was a tall, darkly handsome, seductively charming Englishman.

  Nell and Will were shown to the drawing room, settled into deeply tufted chairs, and brought demitasse and lemon kisses. Their opening “small talk” had to do with their surprise at finding Mr. Wallace at home, having been told that he no longer lived there. Sophie had admitted their estrangement, but chalked it up to her husband’s “quaint and rather flattering jealous streak.”

  “A gentleman can hardly look in my direction,” she’d said, “without Freddie thinking he’s got designs on me.”

  And now the news that she and Freddie had reconciled.

  Nell said, “This reconciliation must be a source of great comfort to you, Mrs. Wallace.”

  Sophie merely sipped her coffee.

  “Especially,” Nell added, “in light of the circumstances.”

  Sophie fixed her gaze on Nell.

  “That dreadful scene at the Parker House Thursday night,” Nell said, wondering if Sophie had been told of it. “I’d say half of Boston knows about your husband’s jealous streak by now. Must have been terribly distressing for you.”

  Sophie drained her demitasse and refilled it. “I sent a note to Freddie the next morning, when I heard what he’d done, asking him to come here for lunch so that we could talk. I told him how distraught it had made me, knowing he’d bandied my name about like that in public—especially considering it wasn’t even true.”

  “The...accusation, you mean?” Will asked. “About you and Philip Munro?”

  “Freddie found a stickpin of Philip’s in my boudoir a couple of weeks ago,” Sophie said with a little roll of the eyes, “and jumped to the wrong conclusion. Stormed out of the house without giving me a chance to explain, and the next thing I knew, he’d moved out and sued me for divorce. I explained over lunch that I’d merely borrowed the pin from Philip so that I could have one like it made up for Freddie as a Christmas present. It’s a very smart pin—I’d always admired it.”

  “I see,” Nell said as she lifted her own dainty little cup and saucer. What she didn’t see was why it should have taken two weeks for Sophie to share this all-important detail with her anguished husband.

  “It was an emotional conversation,” Sophie said. “I couldn’t contain my tears, and Freddie, poor dear, could never bear to see me weep. He was quite contrite about that scene at the Parker House, couldn’t stop apologizing. I must admit, he wore me down. I forgave him, and we...” Her too-pink lips curved into a private little smile as her gaze flicked toward Will. “As I say, we reconciled.”

  Had Freddie actually believed his wife’s tall tale about replicating the stickpin? Were her tears, however practiced, really that convincing? Or had he accepted her version of things merely in order to reunite with his beloved Sophie, while still knowing, in his heart, that she’d betrayed him with Philip Munro?

  Sophie’s own motives in all this seemed no less pathetic. Nell wanted to feel nothing but disdain for the aging coquette, with her ringlets and her sheer gown and her flirty eyes always sliding toward Will. She might have felt just that but for Sophie’s final, degrading encounter with Phil Munro, as recounted by Harry—she begging him to marry her so that she wouldn’t be alone, then weeping while he used her for the only thing he’d really ever cared about.

  Sophie was telling Will that her husband had sent a footman to Munro’s house during lunch, requesting an appointment at 3:30 that afternoon. “Freddie wanted to bury the hatchet—apologize to Philip for his little display at the Parker House, and hopefully convince him to keep him on as legal counsel. Philip has been a lucrative client for my husband, as you can imagine. It would have been devastating to lose him.”

  “Do you know whether Mr. Wallace was on time for that three-thirty meeting?” Will asked.

  Sophie couldn’t disguise a whiff of scorn when she said, “Freddie’s always on time.”

  “The reason I asked,” Will said, “is that Mr. Munro’s body was found by your husband at three-forty. Either he was late arriving for his meeting, or he’d already been there for ten minutes or so before making the discovery.”

  Sophie thought about it for a moment as she reached for a lemon kiss. “I’m not really sure when Freddie left the house Friday afternoon, because I was gone by then. He was asleep when I left, and I didn’t want to—“

  Nell said, “Asleep?” as Will said, “You left?”

  “He was, er, taking a little nap upstairs,” Sophie said. “I had some shopping to do, and I didn’t want to disturb him, so I just slipped out. I suppose I should have asked one of the maids to awaken him in time for his meeting with Philip, so if he was late, I suppose it’s really my fault.” She touched the lemon kiss to her tongue before closing her mouth around it.

  “That might explain the timing,” Will said. “Do you recall when you returned home from shopping?”

  Sophie looked thoughtful as the lemon kiss dissolved in her mouth. “Four-thirty, perhaps? Freddie was already back home, and halfway through a decanter of whiskey. He just kept saying, ‘He’s dead...Phil is dead.’ Poor thing, he was utterly beside himself. It was guilt—that’s what I think.”

  “Guilt?” Nell said.

  “Think about it. The last time he’d seen Philip was the night before, when he was drunk and screaming false accusations in a dining room full of people. And now that I think of it, if he’d only been on time for their meeting Friday afternoon, he might have been able to talk Philip out of jumping from that window.”

  “Mr. Munro didn’t jump,” Will said. “He was murdered, and his body thrown out of the window to make it look like suicide.”

  “Murdered,” Sophie said quietly. “Are you sure?”

  “We would like to be able to prove it,” Nell said, thinking the time had come to, as Will would say, lay their cards on the table. “It would help if we could get an idea of his state of mind in the days preceding his death. Can you tell us how he appeared to you when you visited him in his office Thursday evening?”

  Sophie stilled in the act of lifting her demitasse to her mouth. Her gaze shifted from Nell to Will. By the time it shifted back, her expression had grown hard and opaque. She lowered her cup without taking a sip, stood, and strode across
the room toward a bell pull in the corner, her filmy gown billowing behind her. “Colleen will show you out.”

  Nell said, “Mrs. Wallace—“

  “What you’re implying is outrageous, and if you think I’m going to sit still and listen to—“

  “There was a witness,” Nell said.

  Sophie froze with her hand around the bell pull.

  “Someone was listening from the fourth floor landing,” Nell said. “And...watching.”

  Sophie closed her eyes, looking suddenly much older than she had before. She removed her hand from the cord and lowered herself into a little hard-backed corner chair. “What do you want?”

  “Not to tell your husband, you mean?” Nell asked. “We have no reason to—“

  “It’s information we want,” Will said, with a furtive little glance at Nell. “You could help us a great deal just by answering a few questions, and in return, you have my word that we’ll keep these matters as confidential as we possibly can.”

  Sophie regarded them listlessly.

  “How long have you and Mr. Munro been...intimately acquainted?” Will asked.

  She drew in a breath and let it out slowly. “Twenty years, more or less.”

  “Did you love him?” Nell asked.

  Sophie shrank into the chair, staring blankly at the carpet. “I was a fool.”

  “Did he love you?”

  “The concept of love is foreign to him. Was foreign to him.”

  Nell said, “I can’t imagine how you must have felt Thursday night. I mean, the things he said...and did...”

  “I was shocked,” Sophie replied numbly, her gaze still on the floor. “Devastated. Enraged. I wanted to claw his face open, gouge out his eyes.”

  “Did you wish he was dead?” Nell asked.

  Looking up, Sophie said, “Wouldn’t you have?”

  “You knew him for twenty years,” Will said. “Who, among his acquaintances, might have grown to loathe him, or felt threatened by him?”

  “Who didn’t?” Sophie asked with a sort of weary bitterness.