Murder in a mill town

by P. B. Ryan

  “Evie!” Luther called out as his sister bolted up and raced off into the woods. Rising to his feet, his face blood-flushed now, he turned to face Otis. “You made Evie feel bad.”

  “Luther,” Cora said quickly, “go after your sister. Go on,” she urged, pointing to the woods.

  Luther hesitated, looming over Otis with his big hands contracting into fists as if of their own accord. Still grinning, Otis struck a match and lit his cigarette, but his hands, Nell noticed, were just ever so slightly unsteady.

  “Evie needs you, Luther,” Cora urged. “She might be crying.”

  Luther looked toward the woods, then back at Otis, his jaw set, rage sparking in his eyes. When he turned and ran off after his sister, everyone, Nell included, slumped in relief.

  “That Luther, he’s like a big kid most of the time,” Ruth told Nell. “But when he gets riled, he don’t know his own strength. He beat a man bloody last year—almost killed him—for talkin’ lewd to Evie.”

  “Otis,” Cora said, “what were you thinking, baiting him that way?”

  “Me and him are friends,” Otis said through a stream of smoke. “He’d never hurt me.”

  “Don’t you be so sure,” Ruth muttered.

  “You done with that pitcher yet?” Mary asked Nell. “I’m achin’ all over from holding myself so still.”

  “Just about,” Nell said as she added some unnecessary shading. “You know, something doesn’t make sense here. If Bridie was...well, if she and Mr. Harry were...you know...then why did he fire her?”

  “Seems he didn’t like to share,” Otis said, to appreciative laughter from the mill girls.

  “He found out about Virgil, then?” Nell asked.

  Otis nodded as he drew on his cigarette. “Happened last Friday, when they rung the evening bell at six-thirty. Mr. Harry, he’s standing out in the courtyard, talkin’ to some fella. These ones—” he indicated his female companions “—they’re all whispering and giggling, on account of this fella’s looks. I swear, I thought they was gonna swoon dead away. They can’t resist a fella that dresses like he’s got a few shiners in his pocket.”

  The girls exchanged dreamy smiles and little moans of yearning.

  “It wasn’t his clothes, you bonehead,” Cora said. “That fella had a face like on one of those Roman statues, and you’re just jealous ‘cause girls don’t look at you that way.”

  Pointedly ignoring her, Otis said, “So, the bell rings, and everybody come pourin’ outa the wool building, as usual. That Virgil, he was waiting for Bridie to get off work, only always before he kind of hung back where he wouldn’t attract too much notice. That evening he was waiting right up by the front door.”

  “Was he often waiting for her when her shift ended?” Nell asked.

  “Three, four times a week,” Otis said, “but always on Friday and Saturday. I don’t know what they did on Fridays, but—”

  “Don’t you?” Ruth snorted with laughter; her friends followed suit.

  “On Saturdays they left town,” Otis said. “I was talkin’ to one of the other spinners a few weeks ago—fella name of Nate. Nate had finally worked up the nerve to ask Bridie to go walkin’ with him after work one Saturday, only to have her tell him she couldn’t, on account of her fella was meetin’ her to take her to the White House.”

  Nell frowned, wondering if she’d heard right.

  “Not the White House,” Otis said. “That’s just what she called it—maybe ‘cause it’s white, I don’t know. She said it was an old farm nobody worked no more, but the farmhouse was still there, and that’s where her and Virgil went to be alone.”

  “So he was waiting right up by the front door that Friday evening...” Nell prompted.

  “Right, and soon as he sees Bridie, he grabs her kisses her—but good—with everybody standing around watching, including Mr. Harry. You should of seen him. Hoppin’ mad, you could tell, but holding it in till he went all purple-like.”

  “Why do you suppose he was so upset?” Nell asked. “I mean, it’s not as if they were real sweethearts or anything. From what you say, he had plenty of other girls willing to...give him what he wanted.”

  “I know, it don’t make a whole lot of sense,” Ruth said. “But I’ll tell you what, he was fit to be tied. Went stormin’ back inside. Bridie and Virgil took off, but then a few minutes later, us all are headin’ back here for a smoke, when we hear her voice. Her and Virgil are havin’ a little set-to in the woods there. She was mad as a wet cat that he went and kissed her like that, in front of Mr. Harry.”

  “She mentioned Mr. Harry by name?” Nell asked.

  Otis grinned. “Yeah, seems he knew about Mr. Harry, but Mr. Harry didn’t know about him.”

  “Until that kiss,” Mary said. “Bridie was all het up over it, tellin’ Virgil he went and ruined everything. Said, ‘We won’t get so much as a nickel five-cent piece out of him now.’”

  Nell looked up from her sketchbook. “She said that? Are you sure?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Otis flung his cigarette butt into the stream. “She musta decided she wanted more than just trinkets outa him. Mostly what we heard from Virgil was just him tryin’ to shush her. He talked some, but we couldn’t make it out real good. Didn’t have no trouble hearin’ her, though. Them Irish girls, they can get riled up good.”

  “Was Evie with you?” Nell asked.

  “Yep.”

  “When did Bridie get fired?”

  “Next day,” Ruth said. “Saturday. We was waitin’ on the dinner bell, so it was near to noon. That flunky of Mr. Harry’s—Carlisle—he come down to fetch Bridie upstairs. She struts off with that smile of hers, like she’s somethin’ special ‘cause she spreads her legs for the likes of him. I seen her take her rouge pot outa her apron pocket as she heads into the stairwell. Ten minutes later, she’s back, red as a beet, with her eyes all swollen. Me and Evie, we asked her what happened, but she wouldn’t even look at us. Never said a word, just took off her apron and grabbed her shawl out of her cubby and left. That was the last I seen of her.”

  Mary squirmed, rubbed her arm. “You done yet?”

  From the direction of the mill came the pealing of the bell summoning them back from their dinner break.

  “Yes, I suppose I am,” Nell said.

  Chapter 4

  “Ready to go back, then?” asked Brady from the driver’s seat of the Hewitt’s glossy black brougham as Nell approached, buttoning on her gloves.

  “Not quite. I need to speak to Mr. Harry before I go.”

  “Take your time, miss,” he said in his raspy brogue. “I’m not mindin’ all this heavenly sunshine, I’ll tell you that.” A jovial Irishman of middle years, Brady was one of the few Hewitt retainers with whom Nell enjoyed genuinely cordial relations.

  “The thing of it is...I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind coming upstairs with me.”

  “To see Mr. Harry?” he asked in a tone of puzzled amusement.

  “Yes.”

  Brady’s smile dissolved as he got it: Nell didn’t want to be alone with Harry Hewitt. He didn’t ask why, to Nell’s relief. She liked Brady. She didn’t want to have to concoct some specious rationale for dragging him along, but she would, rather than tell him the truth. Viola Hewitt had already lost one son to Andersonville and another to the lulling embrace of Morphia. It would kill her if she were to find out what had transpired between Harry and Nell last May—to be forced to confront the beast lurking beneath her son’s urbane façade.

  * * *

  Harry Hewitt met Nell’s eyes through the glass-paned door of his opulent, sun-washed office as she waited with Brady in his secretary’s anteroom.

  His burnished gold hair oiled just enough to impart the perfect patrician sheen, Harry sat perched with a cigar and a glass of whiskey on a corner of his marble-topped desk. He was nattily attired as always, in a slate-colored morning coat and paisley cravat, which he wore drawn through a signet ring so that it hung straight down his chest, rather than bow-t
ied—a fashion introduced by the eccentrically elegant Mr. Dickens during his reading tour last year and emulated by no one in Boston, to Nell’s knowledge, aside from Harry. He was groomed to a high polish, the only flaw in his appearance being a small scar on his left eyelid—its provenance known only to Harry and Nell—which caused that lid to droop ever so slightly.

  On a coat tree in the corner there hung a cashmere overcoat, one of those awful new homburg hats, a silver-handled walking stick, and a long, pearl gray gentleman’s scarf of heavy silk twill embroidered with Harry’s distinctive, vine-framed double-H monogram. About a dozen others, in a rainbow of hues, were hung on pegs on the wall. Harry’s scarves had become, along with his unique vests and cravats, something of a sartorial signature. In Boston, one said “Harry Hewitt” the way the rest of the world said “Beau Brummel.”

  Harry’s secretary, the balding and bespectacled Carlisle, was announcing Nell’s request for an audience and holding out Viola’s folded letter with To Whom it may Concern written on the front in the violet ink of which she was so fond. Harry barely glanced at the letter. His gaze shifted from Nell to Brady, and back again. A corner of his mouth quirked knowingly. Too late, Nell realized her mistake in bringing along a protector. She’d learned long ago not to let dangerous men sense her fear, but such hard-won wisdom was difficult to retain, given how tame and privileged her life had become.

  Carlisle continued to offer the letter, but Harry made no move to take it. He raised his glass to Nell, his eyes hard, his smile grim, and tossed back its contents in one gulp, then shook his head to Carlisle and waved him away.

  “I’m sorry, miss,” said Carlisle when he rejoined them, “but Mr. Hewitt is terribly busy this afternoon, so I’m afraid he won’t be able to—”

  “Tell him I’ll catch up with him sooner or later.” Nell snatched the letter from his hand and left.

  * * *

  “Home now, miss?” Brady asked as he handed Nell into the big black brougham.

  She settled into the front-facing seat, arranging the folds of her skirts, feeling the contours of the two letters in her pocket: Viola’s and Duncan’s.

  “Miss?”

  “Yes. Home.”

  He shut the door, climbed up into his seat, lifted the reins.

  “No,” she said through the open window.

  “Miss?”

  She drew in a breath, let it out slowly. “Take me to the state prison, please.”

  There came a moment’s disbelieving silence. “The state—”

  “It’s about a mile that way, I believe.” She pointed down the road.

  “Whatever you say, miss.” He snapped the reins.

  Nell reached into her pocket, pulled out Duncan’s letter, unfolded it. The paper was coarse, cheap, brownish, the penmanship immature but painstakingly inked, with no cross-outs and surprisingly few misspellings—remarkable, considering that he’d had almost no formal schooling as a child, and could barely write his name when she’d known him. Nell suspected that this letter, like the seven others he’d sent her over the past four months, had been copied and perhaps re-copied in an effort to get it just right.

  Sept. 2nd 1868, Charlestown Prison

  My Darling Girl (for I will never stop thinking of you that way),

  Oftentimes I wonder if you even open these letters, since you have never written one back to me. But I will keep on writing them in the earnist hope that some day you will find it in your heart to write back to me.

  I do not expeckt you to forgive me for how I hurt you but I beg you to believe that I have changed. I was a diffrent man then. I was angrey and I did not even no why. Father Beals says 8 yrs. in this place have humbled me, and it is a good thing I got bagged because humilty is good for the soul and I believe that is true. I believe I am closer to Jesus because I am in this place. Did you ever think you woud hear me talk about Jesus?

  He is a Piscopal chaplan Father Beals but he is a good man, as good as any of our preists I say. Any way he is all we got here so he will have to do. And I reckon it is not his falt he was born Piscopal.

  I have missed you so much these past 8 years. I do not no any fancy way to say it. I just miss you. I do not no how I will make it threw the rest of my time here without seeing you. That is some thing I cannot bear to think about.

  It is no surprise to me that you do not want to write to me after what I did to you the last time we were to gether. I do not blame you one bit. I am more sorry than I can say but you no that if you have been reading my letters. You also no that I need to say it to you’re face like a man, the new man I am now not the old angrey one. Please I no you do not want to write back but please Nell come visit me here just once. I will not keep you long. It will be so good just to rest my eyes upon your face once more. And tell you how sorry I am.

  I no you must want me to stop writing to you, that is why you do not write back. Nell, I swear to God that I will stop writing to you if you only will come see me once and let me say how sorry I am. Just once for a few minutes so I can say what I would have said long ago were I a better man.

  I never thought I was the kind of man to beg but I am humble now and I am begging you. Please come to me Nell. Just once.

  I remain, truly and devotedly,

  Your faithfull and loving

  Duncan

  Nell touched a finger to the little scar near her left eyebrow, feeling the half-inch ridge even through the knotted threads of her glove. A knife scar, the least of those Duncan had dealt her the last time she’d seen him.

  “You want to leave?” he’d growled as he kicked her to the floor, then kept kicking her, pausing only to unbutton his trousers. “You can leave when I’m done with you.” He pummeled her as she thrashed, tore her basque open from collar to peplum, yanked at her stays. He’s scratching me, she thought...on her face, her chest...

  Then she saw the flash of a blade, the droplets of blood spattering his face, and she realized she might very well be dead before this was over—or wish she was.

  Now, eight years later, Nell was still quite alive, and Duncan was serving a thirty year prison sentence—but not for what he’d done to her. His conviction was for the crimes of armed robbery and aggravated assault, committed the day before his attack on her.

  His first letter, dated May 15th, had left her stunned and shaken. Why, after all these years, had he decided to reestablish contact with her? And how on earth had he found out that she had moved to Boston and was living at 148 Tremont Street? How did he know she was a governess, and that she worked for the Hewitts?

  The tone of the letter—so sincere, so penitent—did little to comfort her. Hadn’t he always known how to act and what to say to make her forget, or overlook, what he really was? Uneducated he might be. Unintelligent? Hardly. Oh, he could play dumb when it suited him, but a stupid man could never have taken such effortless command of Nell’s heart and soul, could never have talked her into the things he’d talked her into, could never have made her—pragmatic creature that she was, and no fool herself, even in her adolescence—love him beyond all reason.

  As contrite and affectionate as his first letter was, Nell had felt not the slightest temptation to answer it. He’d gotten his claws around her once; she wasn’t about to step into his cage and let him try it again. The second letter, which had arrived three weeks later, unnerved her even more than the first. If you coud find it in your heart to come visit me, I could say these things out loud like a man instead of just scraching them onto this paper like a coward. Please, Nell...

  Please, Nell...Please, Nell...Please...

  That had been his tormented refrain over the past four months. Come see me once, just once, and then you’ll never have to hear from me again.

  She’d gotten into the habit of listening for the postman so that she could be the first to sort through the newly arrived mail stacked on the Hewitts’ monumental, mirrored hallstand. God forbid one of the family—or Mrs. Mott!—were to notice a letter addressed to her w
ith Massachusetts State Prison on the back.

  She thought she’d have a reprieve when she left Boston in mid-July to spend six weeks with the Hewitts at Falconwood, their Cape Cod summer home, as she did every year. A week after arriving there, she was appalled to receive a letter from Duncan bearing the address of Falconwood. It was as if he was an all-seeing, all-knowing god...or wanted her to think of him that way.

  The carriage rattled to a halt outside a tall iron gate manned by two uniformed guards. Nell showed them Viola’s letter and explained that she was here to see the warden. They waved the coach through the gate, directing Brady to a courtyard anchored by a fort-like building that bore an uncanny resemblance to the Hewitt wool factory. It was the prison’s administrative building where, according to the guards, the warden’s office would be located. To the left was another large building, even more forbidding in appearance, with iron bars on the windows; to the right, two big barnlike structures from which came a cacophony of hammering and clanging.

  “You want me to go in with you?” Brady asked as he helped her down from the coach.

  She shook her head. “No, I’m fine.”

  “You sure, miss?”

  No. “Yes, I’m sure.”

  Chapter 5

  “Virgil Hines?” The warden, a florid, jowly fellow named Clarence Whitcomb, leaned back heavily in his chair, which groaned under his weight. “He hadn’t been what you’d call a model prisoner, certainly, but not as irredeemable as some. Of rather...limited intellect, I should say, but not altogether dim. Likeable, in his way. Rather, er, glib in temperament—more talkative than most. You’d hear him laughing when he ought not to have. Silence is highly prized here.”