CHAPTER 18
Throughout the night, Hamish could sense her—on the other side of the door. He wondered what she looked like in sleep. If her lips curved a little or she sighed every time she moved. Reggie kept his thoughts from casting out to Luca like a line to water when he drifted in and out of sleep. And the corpse. Of course, the corpse. No. Mary. The giggly, bubbling girl: flirtatious, pretty.
It wasn’t Luca who ended her life, of course. Luca could never shove a woman down the stairs to her death. It was Schultze. He was sure the papers would confirm it. All of the evidence lined up. It was his walking stick. The one with the rattlesnake, dormant and convicting. His fingers trembled a little. But he had nothing to worry about. Nothing. Or maybe it wasn’t Schultze. That Mark Suave fellow knew how to press a stick against one’s neck to cut off the circulation and damage the windpipe. Maybe it was him? Hamish yawned, but his mind was racing. Even when his body was tired, his brain found new levels of worry to exercise. But he would reserve the worry for sleep. He would train his mind to focus on the facts of tonight’s events while he was alone, the door barring him from the office and from her. He would use this time to revisit every last detail, because once the morning came and Reggie awoke, he would be what she needed.
When he finally opened his eyes to the sunlight, Nate was standing over him. “What have we here?” he asked with a smile. “You look like a lost puppy.” He reached down and helped Hamish to his feet. “It was all over the wireless this morning,” Nate said brightly. “You hiding from the police?”
“The papers?” Hamish’s voice cracked sleepily. He focused on the noise of the long line on the floor below. The Temporary Employment Agency must have opened. “What time is it?”
“Eight o’clock. I figured I’d better get here early in case Reggie needed a shoulder to cry on.” He looked over Hamish’s rumpled clothing. “But you might already have that covered?”
Hamish ignored him, rapping on the door before entering. Reggie was awake and playing with the radio dial.
“Only Luca Valari could be detained for murder while his name is lauded,” she said sourly.
“Regina Van Buren, I suppose I could come up with an even more scandalous headline,” Nate teased. “Society girl found in North End office all night with young Canadian lawyer.”
“Oh, hush up,” Reggie snapped, then yawned. “You know nothing happened. Go be useful and get us coffee, anything from Mrs. Leoni’s, and the papers.” She looked over her creased satin dress. “Come to think of it, can you ask Mrs. Leoni if she has anything from her daughter that I can wear?”
Hamish looked tired but a little less conspicuous in his evening wear. Removed of his bow tie, cummerbund, and jacket, his glasses on and his braces snapping beneath his crooked fingers, he wouldn’t stand out as quickly.
Nate returned several moments later with two bags from Leoni’s. “Mrs. Leoni heard about what happened. She says it is all on the house.”
Reggie pounced on the packages of fresh bread and rolls. In the other bag Nate handed her was a dress several years out of date but sure to serve its purpose until she was able to get home and change. Something she was in no mood to think about now.
Soon Reggie excused herself to the lavatory down the hall, and when she returned, her face was completely devoid of the previous night’s makeup, her hair was repinned, and her figure was hidden in the folds of a too-big dress.
Nate was reading the headlines aloud to Hamish, who had used the sink in the corner of the office to slick his hair back from his head. “Club Owner Suspected in Murder,” “Cigarette Girl Found Dead,” “Corpse at the Flamingo.” But the headlines weren’t nearly as catchy or memorable as the purple prose embroidering the success of the opening night. The scandal and the passion surrounding Mary’s death, the eyewitnesses who recognized the free-spirited cigarette girl from similar establishments (including an interview with Charles Galbraith from the Dragonfly), the sizzling mystery—all framed the club in glittering allure. If Luca wanted publicity, he got it. And then some.
Later, after leaving the office to get coffee at a nearby shop, Reggie and Hamish returned to find Mrs. Leoni waiting outside.
“Nathaniel is not here now. My friend Mrs. O’Connell, she has been turned out of her house.”
Reggie swallowed. She was tired and even Mrs. Leoni’s voice was like nails on a chalkboard.
The phone’s jangle welcomed her through the door. A stack of telegrams may as well have been gift-wrapped on her desk, so neatly were they piled.
Hamish’s eyes were glazed. “If we stay here, we’ll fall asleep,” he said, watching Reggie blink the telegrams into focus. He read a few of them over her shoulder: many praised Luca on his publicity; others quoted headlines. He stretched. “Let’s go back to the club.” His eyes had snagged on a telegram that hyperbolically used salacious and duplicitous in the same line.
He shoved his hand in his pocket and retrieved a fistful of bills, handing them to her as he suggested they hail a cab. “You pay. Luca’s been footing the bill for almost everything and I am still learning to use American currency.”
In daylight, the Flamingo sighed like the wrapping and bows beside an open Christmas present. Unsparkling, the magic of the night replaced by littered newspaper, sandwich wrappings, and cigarette butts. Reggie was at Hamish’s shoulder, feeling the tension in his muscles when her arm brushed his. Men with press cards tucked into their hatbands smoked and talked and draped over the red partitions encircling the club.
The large bulbs on their cameras winked in the sun.
“In Winchester Molloy policemen and investors can be bought,” Reggie said in a sly undertone. “Surely reporters can.”
Hamish aligned reporting with a high standard of ethics introduced to him by his father. Ray DeLuca never would have accepted money under his journalistic oath. But this was a new world spreading before him—far from the confines of Winslow, Winslow, and Smythe. Anything could happen. Anything would happen.
Schultze spotted them and waved at them to come through, so they finagled through the reporters and the two police officers barricading the street.
“Hey, who are you?” A man with a fedora more off his head than on smacked his gum at Reggie and Hamish.
“We’re affiliated with the F-Flamingo.” Hamish tripped over an evasive sentence. He was exhausted and nervous and sad. Her heart tugged.
“Well, then you won’t mind answering a few questions.”
Hamish shook his head. “I have no comment.”
The reporter stopped him by moving his foot in a swift, practiced step. “You mean you weren’t here?” Snap, snap went the gum in his mouth.
“I have no comment,” Hamish repeated a little more forcefully, though he was sure it sounded like little more than a kitten attempting a roar.
Reggie, more accustomed to nosy society reporters, squirmed ahead. “He said no comment. I say no comment.” She waved her hand.
The reporter crossed in front of them. “Interesting. You’re hiding something.”
“Be gone, you odious, gum-smacking toad,” Reggie snarled.
They pushed through a few other reporters and made it inside. A few police were prowling and one photographer had been granted access beyond the border. Ben Vasser recognized Hamish and waved him over.
“You’re Valari’s cousin or something? Very well. This place will be ready to open again tonight. Can’t do much with an unfortunate accident.” He flipped his notebook closed. “Unless either of you saw anything suspicious?” He asked the question in such a tired, plain voice that Hamish wasn’t ready to present anything to him. He wasn’t taking this seriously. Just another through-the-motions day on the job. Hamish looked at Reggie. She gave the slightest ghost of a headshake before averting her eyes. She didn’t want anyone to know what she suspected.
“It’s a tragedy,” Reggie said. “She was such a free-spirited girl.”
Vasser nodded and let them through. “We’ve
covered about as much as we are going to here.”
Out of his sight line, Hamish and Reggie exchanged a glance. The Employees Only door was open a smidgeon and they crossed in its direction. Hamish felt Reggie shiver beside him.
“What’s wrong?”
“If it isn’t an accident,” she whispered, “then maybe whoever did it returned to the scene of the crime.”
Hamish took a quick glance around the club. Roy Holliday was just moving his band in for a quick rehearsal before the night set. Schultze was now engaged in a solemn discussion with Vasser, eyes narrowed. Schultze looked over Vasser’s shoulder and his eyes caught Hamish’s for a moment.
“I don’t recall my cousin passing the torch to you in the event of an unprecedented circumstance.” Hamish was careful with his words.
Schultze snarled. “You sound like a lawyer, you know that? Should’ve stayed where you were. I invested a lot in your cousin, so with or without him, we’ll keep this show going. Even if Vasser and his men want to sniff around for a while.”
“Then we can sniff around too.” Reggie brushed by.
“We’ll be quick and careful,” Hamish added.
Once they were standing on the small landing on the other side of the door, he steadied Reggie with a soft grip on her elbow. “Guess they didn’t need to keep Schultze’s walking stick for evidence,” he whispered.
“No one is treating this as a crime.” Reggie shuddered, her face white.
“I’m sorry, Reg,” Hamish said. “I should have realized this would be hard for you.”
She shook her head. “It’s all right. We just need to find out what happened.”
Reggie turned to the wall and ran her fingers over the pocked cement.
“Wait, what’s that?” she asked. Hamish followed her sight line to a speck of blood tattooing the wall. “So she was bleeding before she fell, or else . . .” Reggie gave a low whistle.
“How likely is that?” Hamish pressed his fingers into his hairline. He should have been paying closer attention. Last night—last night he was watching Reggie when he might have seen someone with Mary. Mary with Schultze. Schultze leaving his walking stick. Mary having words with Johnny Wade. Schultze. Hamish following Mary to the dance floor.
“I danced with her,” he said gently.
“I saw.”
Hamish clenched his fist. He could still see the gruesome angle and blood from the impact of her head on the cement floor when he closed his eyes, the way her neck was turned and surely broken. The raw ribbon against the white of her skin impressed by force. Nothing about her neck injury could possibly allow anyone to think it was just an accident. She’d felt so nice in his arms. Warm and alive.
“In the pictures,” Reggie was saying, “something means everything.”
“This isn’t a picture. One of your movies,” Hamish said shortly, too tired in the moment even to check his tone and filter it through politeness. He turned toward the stairwell. Then looked back, his face softening. “I’m just going to go and take another look.”
“I’ll meet you outside.”
Hamish was right. It wasn’t The Thin Man. It wasn’t the pictures. Even in the pictures there were suspects for every mystery. Some usual. Some unexpected. Some like the villains Winchester Molloy apprehended, twirling their mustaches and working for their own nefarious gain. Others the least likely to be suspected.
“You all done here, miss?” Ben Vasser mopped at his brow with a handkerchief.
Reggie nodded. “So the investigation is closed then? Business as usual?”
“I never should have let you kids in here. But Valari is fond of his cousin. He talks of him all the time.”
“You seem to hold great regard for Luca Valari.”
“He’s a powerful ally for us. I don’t want to bring any more notorious attention to his establishment than is necessary.”
“How is he a powerful ally?” Reggie asked, wondering what Luca might have that the police could possibly want.
“My colleagues in the Chicago department cite more than one occasion when he was able to help them apprehend a shady businessman or two. When we detained him, he merely had us make a few phone calls and it was confirmed. If some crazy girl wants to drink too much and fall down a flight of stairs, then I’m not going to implicate Luca Valari. We asked him some questions, I am doing a thorough follow-up for the paperwork, and that’s that.”
Reggie laughed bitterly. “How wonderful to have the world on a platter.”
Vasser lowered his lids. “As I understand it, you’re Regina Van Buren. All over the papers. A girl of your breeding”—he seethed the word—“would know quite a lot about having the world on a platter.” Vasser turned. “I am sure you can see yourself out.”
Reggie strolled over the echoing floor. Just because you had the opportunity for entitlement didn’t mean you should take advantage of it.
She crossed through the open doors to wait for Hamish and ran straight into a swarm of reporters: fidgeting with their camera bulbs, spilling out to the street.
“Miss Van Buren!” called the first to recognize her, adjusting the press card tucked in his fedora. “Miss Regina Van Buren. You’re a long way from home. What are you doing returning to the scene of the crime?” His questions and recognition perked the interest of his friends, who soon flocked to her. Even as she studied them in the glaring sun, she imagined what would happen the inevitable moment her name graced the pages of a paper in New Haven, ensuring her parents were mortified and angry. He told her he was from the New Haven Chronicle covering the Boston beat—but he started in the local society pages. Blanketing the comings and goings of the suave set, her parents included. She thought of Robert Williams’s character in her favorite picture, Platinum Blonde.
The door opened a crevice behind her, and as she turned, dozens of expectant eyes looked over her shoulder. With the first bulb flash, Hamish blinked. She gave him a signal behind her back. They were too thrown off by a Van Buren to wonder about him. He was reluctant to leave, inching closer to her.
“Follow my lead,” she said through the side of her mouth. She noticed his hand was balled at his side. The last thing he needed was this new round of questions and scrutiny.
Reggie smiled at each and every one of the tired, anticipating faces. If she couldn’t escape, she wouldn’t. She would clutch at the moment and give the tea parties and DAR committees something to talk about. She would straighten her shoulders and play a part so ingrained in her makeup it felt like she was a wound-up phonograph knowing exactly what song to play. While Hamish escaped.
“Who’s your friend?” bellowed one reporter.
“Driver.” Reggie hoped that with his glasses on and his tousled hair over his downturned face, no one would take the time to recognize them from coverage of the club the night before. Her answer satisfied them.
“Were you there when the girl fell down the stairs?”
Reggie let out an exaggerated snort. “Ha! That’s no way to talk to a lady!”
“You’re no shrinking violet!”
“The police seem to think that Mary Finn’s death is best treated as an accident.” Reggie didn’t wait for a question. “I believe it is best treated as a murder.” She conjured a new brand of charm.
Her bold statement erupted their bulbs, and she blinked at the lights popping around her, raising her hand to visor her eyes.
“And what are you going to do about it?” One cheeky journalist tilted his pencil above his notepad.
She added a little giggle. “Why, solve it of course.”
CHAPTER 19
Get the girl. Solve the murder. Be the hero of your own story. Over and over again, the words cranked through his mind like a stuck gear. There was a dead girl at the bottom of the stairwell and Hamish had mystery in his blood.
As a kid, Hamish was interested in logic and riddles. He liked puzzles. And now he was faced with one.
Hamish stepped out into a curtain of heat, humidity dampe
ning his collar. Walked and walked down Washington and passed the dome of Faneuil, heading in the direction of the river sparkling under the bridge. Boats bopped in the harbor and their horns mingled mournfully with the usual bustle of a Boston day. The North End embraced him with uneven charm.
What if the ties binding him to this new place with these new people meant something more than just shenanigans with his cousin? What if he was slowly turning the pages of his life to learn the story of these people and this place? His father pulled stories out from their shadows, flashing a light so everyone could see the misfortune and avoidance. Hamish should have done the same for Boston. He would do the same for Boston. Perhaps that was why he was there in the first place.
He moved from the North Square and down Hanover Street, which teemed with color and streamers and light, the fountains reflecting prisms of sunlight, the calls and shouts and Babel of dialects echoing around him. Soon he was in the Prado, that red-bricked stretch of solace sandwiched by St. Stephens and Old North Church, and he realized that perhaps in this snug haven of Boston he had found a Court of Miracles like in the book. A place for people establishing a new world—even as men like Schultze and Baskit drained them of what little they had. It was one of the virtues of having lived in a book for so long: his imagination painted its perimeters everywhere. He worried about Reggie, but what was it his father once said about respecting his mother enough to let her choose her own battles?
He picked up his pace, not watching where he was going and parting a few kids aligning their jump rope for another bout of double Dutch. Laughing and whispering secret jokes to themselves. A language he didn’t speak from a world he never knew. He kept his curtains drawn.
One little girl tugged at his sleeve and he looked down with a smile. She waved. He waved back. She asked him his name in Italian. He answered in the same.
Cicero. Cicero. Cicero hiccupping the telegrams. Hamish pressed his fingers to his temples. Then looked up and around with a sudden shudder in case a rogue reporter had trailed him. It was what his father would have done back on the city beat—seeing past the charms of distraction like Reggie and going after the real story.
Murder at the Flamingo Page 19
