Murder in a mill town

by P. B. Ryan

  “That’s why you were at City Hall that night.”

  He nodded. “I hid behind a gatepost to watch you. When I saw you leavin’ with Beals, I knew I had to stop it. Only I didn’t count on that fella with those big fists on the end of them long arms.”

  “William Hewitt,” she said. “Harry’s brother. A much more worthy person.”

  Duncan studied her for a moment, hesitated, then said, “He’s the other one, ain’t he? The one you can talk to, the one you trust.”

  Thinking Duncan had earned the truth, Nell said, “Yes.”

  He looked down, nodded, ran his hand over his jaw. “Are you and him...?”

  “No.”

  He looked up, begging her with those translucent blue eyes to tell him the truth.

  “No,” she said. “I can’t... I couldn’t...”

  “Because of me?” He looked hopeful.

  “I am a married woman,” she said carefully. “My employers may not know that, but I do. And as a governess, there are certain standards I’m expected to live by. If I were to enter into a...romantic relationship with a man, there could be no future in it, and I could never acknowledge it openly.” Of course, that had been the case with Dr. Greaves, yet she’d been his willing mistress for four years. Was it really unthinkable that she might be coaxed down the same path again?

  Eager to redirect the conversation, she said, “I’ve been talking to Warden Whitcomb. It turns out he sent Adam a note about your escape the day after it happened. Adam assumed you’d flee the country. That’s what he would have wanted, because he knew you were on to him. But in case you were caught, he needed to plant the idea that you were violent, and a liar, and that you’d threatened to kill me. That way, no one would believe you if you told them what Adam himself was up to.”

  “Piscopal bastard,” Duncan muttered.

  “Naturally, he couldn’t tell us you’d escaped,” Nell said, “because then we’d try to find you, seeing as how you’d supposedly threatened me. But then Tuesday, when he found out I was being followed, he realized it must be you. So he told us about the escape the next day, as if he’d just heard about it, along with some tale about you spouting Leviticus and Deuteronomy.”

  “It was him that used to get all worked up about adultery and all that,” Duncan said. “I ain’t the guy he made me out to be.”

  “I know that. The warden told us you’ve never given him any real trouble.”

  “I gave you plenty, though. If it wasn’t for me, Beals woulda never latched on to you.”

  “You made up for it,” she said.

  “You don’t have to worry about any more letters from me. I’ll leave you alone from now on, but don’t ever think I’ve forgotten about you. It’ll always give me comfort, knowing my darlin’ Nell’s still mine and mine alone.”

  * * *

  Will was waiting for her in the prison courtyard in his new black phaeton, purchased, along with a pair of fine horses, just that morning. She’d teased him about it’s being the quintessential doctor’s buggy, and wondered out loud what it meant that he’d chosen to own rather than rent his means of transportation in and around Boston. He’d just lit a cigarette and changed the subject.

  “How did it go?” he asked her as he helped her up into the carriage.

  “I felt more kindly disposed toward him than I have since we first met. He says he’s going to leave me alone, but he also considers me very much his wife, for all time.”

  Will frowned as he gathered the reins.

  “Are you ill?” she asked. “You look even worse than when you first picked me up.”

  “I didn’t sleep well last night.” He flicked the reins and drove the carriage through the front gate; with any luck, Nell would never have reason to come here again.

  “So,” he asked when they were on their way, “how old were you when you married him?”

  He was taking up where they’d left off in the hack the night before last, pursuing the subject he hadn’t wanted to pursue then, in the wake of the revelation of her marriage.

  “I was sixteen,” she said. “I’ve told you how we met, I think. My brother Jamie introduced us when I was still at the county poor house in Barnstable.”

  “Yes, I recall you telling me that.”

  “He captivated me completely, right from the beginning. I’d never know a man like him. He was a firebrand, but with the most boyish smile. I knew he was he was just a small-time crook, like Jamie, but he told me he wanted to go straight, maybe build boats. He said he knew a shipbuilder in Wareham who’d hire him. Within a month, we were married.”

  Now for the rest of it. She drew in a breath, let it out. “He taught me how to pick pockets.”

  Will looked at her; she focused on the road ahead of them.

  “I got good at it,” she said. “I had to—Duncan didn’t bring home that much from the jobs he pulled. I kept trying to get him to go to Wareham and talk to that shipbuilder. Finally he had enough of that, and he just exploded. It was the first time he hit me.”

  Will’s hand tightened on the reins.

  “Usually it happened when he was drunk, which got to be pretty often. He hated me picking pockets, even though he was the one who got me doing it, because I usually did it by bumping into men on the street. He didn’t like the way they looked at me, the things they sometimes said. He’d start fuming if he saw any man talking to me, even one of our own friends. He didn’t even like me being with the women we knew, because most of them were whores or as good as, and he thought they were a bad influence. He laid it all out—who I could talk to, when I had to be home, what I could wear, how I could act... Anything could set him off. He kept me so nervous I couldn’t eat. I was thin as a rail that second year with him, and I usually had at least one bruise somewhere.”

  “Why didn’t you leave him?”

  How could she explain it? Even she didn’t fully understand the person she was then, the person Duncan was. “He was always so contrite afterward. He said it wasn’t really me, it was because he felt like less than a man, letting his wife essentially support him. Of course, by then I knew not to bring up the shipbuilding. He said he needed one big job, something with a really good haul.”

  “The jewelry shop.”

  “I only found out about it the next day, when the cops were on his tail and he was frantically hiding the loot. I asked him where the blood on his shirt had come from, and he told me what he’d done to Mr. Ripley. I told him we were through, which was a big mistake. I should have just slipped away quietly after the cops got him, because I knew they’d catch up to him sooner or later. Telling him then...” She shook her head. “He just snapped. Once he started in on me, I knew he didn’t have it in him to hold back. I told him I was pregnant and I was afraid he’d hurt the baby. He thought I was just making it up to get him to stop.”

  Will turned to face her, hesitated a moment as it sank in. “You weren’t?”

  Nell tried to say, “No,” but her throat contracted around the word. She swallowed. “No, I’d just found out. But he thought I was lying to him, and that made him even madder. He kicked me. He used a knife on me. He...forced himself on me. He wanted it to hurt, and it did. I don’t know whether it was that, or being kicked in the stomach, but when I came to on the floor, he was gone—he was already in custody, as it turned out—and I was... I’d already started miscarrying.”

  Will rasped something under his breath.

  “It was an incomplete miscarriage,” she said, “but I didn’t realize it till days later, and by then I was half-dead from infection. My landlady took me to Dr. Greaves. He...performed the necessary procedures, and with a great deal of skill. I’m not sure just any doctor could have saved me at that point. But I was left...” This was the worst part, that for which she would never forgive Duncan. “I won’t ever be able to have children.”

  There came a weighty silence. “How can you be sure? These situations aren’t always so cut and dried.”

  “I kno
w. All Dr. Greaves told me at the time was that I might end up barren. But I must be, because...” She hesitated. “You know that I stayed with Dr. Greaves, and that we became...”

  “Yes.”

  “We were intimate for three years, and I never conceived.”

  “Surely you...took precautions. He was a doctor. He must have known about the various devices.”

  “I wouldn’t have anything to do with them.”

  “For religious reasons.”

  “Yes.”

  “You do realize the church’s rules were written not by God, but by men professing to speak for Him.”

  “It’s the faith I was born into,” she said, “the faith of my fathers. I’m not about to start picking and choosing which rules to apply to myself. You may scoff, but it became important to me, after...Duncan, and picking pockets and all that, to put my old life behind me. To let God—or God’s representatives on earth—govern how I live, instead of someone like Duncan.”

  “Is it so important to be told how to live?” he asked. “Have you so little faith in your own judgment of things?”

  “After marrying Duncan? Oh, yes.”

  “That’s why Gracie is so important to you,” he said. “Because you don’t think you you’ll ever have any children of your own.”

  “In my mind, she is mine. If I were to lose her...well, I can’t imagine it. I’d literally rather die.”

  He fell silent for a while. “It threw me, when I found out you were married, not just because... Well, mainly because you’d kept it from me. I think of us as being... Of you as being a confidante, someone I needn’t hold back with. Knowing you’d withheld something so important...”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I was an ass. I was thinking of my own bruised feelings, not of you and your...well, your life. As you say, Gracie is the only child you’ll ever have. In a choice between jeopardizing that and telling me all, there was only one sensible option.”

  “I appreciate that, Will. Thank you.”

  They drove in silence for miles. Lulled into drowsiness by the motion of the carriage and the comfortable seat, Nell was almost asleep when Will said, “Couldn’t you get an annulment?”

  She looked at him. He kept his gaze on the road. He was dreadfully pallid.

  “I petitioned the church years ago,” she said. “Dr. Greaves helped me. They wouldn’t grant it.”

  “Divorce is utterly out of the question?”

  “The only reason to do it would be to remarry, and if I did that, I’d be excommunicated. And your mother expects me to remain unmarried until Gracie is old enough not to need me about so much.”

  He sighed and wiped his damp forehead with a tremulous hand.

  “Did you miss a dose of morphine?” she asked.

  He hesitated, then said, “I haven’t had any at all today.”

  She waited for him to explain.

  “I should have been able to defend you yesterday,” he said. “Instead, I lay there in an opium haze and left you to fend off a murderous madman by yourself. Of all the shameful things I’ve done in my life, that one ranks right up there at the top of the list.”

  “So you’re... Are you giving it up altogether?”

  “That’s right. As of this morning.”

  Nell knew, from what he’d gone through last winter, that the most hellish aspects of his withdrawal would begin in a few hours. “Let me help you,” she said. “Tomorrow’s Saturday. I’m free all day, and all night if you need me. And then Sunday, after church. Or perhaps I can even get Sunday morning off—your mother will understand. I can see you through the worst of it.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t want you to see me like that, raving and vomiting...”

  “I have seen you like that, Will.”

  “Yes, well, things have changed since then.”

  “Have they?”

  “I should bloody well hope so.”

  * * *

  It was almost midnight when Nell approached the desk clerk at the Revere House and asked for her key.

  “Certainly, Mrs. Hewitt. Sleep well, then.”

  Sleep? If she’d been able to sleep, she wouldn’t be here.

  Unsurprisingly, there was no answer when she knocked on the door to Room 2D. She twisted the key in the lock, eased the door open.

  The only light came from the fireplace. Will was curled up on top of his still-made bed in an open shirt and trousers, shuddering and sweating. He raised his head to look at her as she closed the door.

  “Oh, Nell...” His head sank back onto the bed. “Why did you come?”

  She fetched a bowl of water and a wash cloth from the bathroom, set them on the nightstand, and sat on the edge of the bed. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”

  “What?” he asked.

  She dipped the cloth in the water, wrung it out, and stroked it gently over his face. “I missed you, too.”

  ###

  Read on for EXCERPTS from more Nell Sweeney mysteries...

  Other Electronic Books by Patricia Ryan

  Nell Sweeney Historical Mysteries by Patricia Ryan writing as P.B. Ryan:

  Still Life With Murder

  Death on Beacon Hill

  Murder on Black Friday

  Murder in the North End

  A Bucket of Ashes

  Medieval Romances by Patricia Ryan:

  Falcon’s Fire

  Heaven’s Fire

  Secret Thunder

  Wild Wind

  Silken Threads

  The Sun and the Moon

  A sneak peek from Chapter 8 of the first book in the series,

  STILL LIFE WITH MURDER

  by Patricia Ryan writing as P.B. Ryan

  Nominated for the Mary Higgins Clark Award

  February 1868: an Opium Den in Boston

  Will Hewitt tapped bits of black ash from the bowl into the stone box. “How did you know these places were called hop joints?”

  Nell said, “That’s what Detective Cook called—”

  “Who?”

  “Detective Cook. He’s in charge of your case.”

  “Oh, yes.” He shoved the tip of the knife in the little hole and twisted it around. “Big Irishman. Giant head. Smarter than he looks.”

  “He took me to Flynn’s Boardinghouse to—”

  Will looked up sharply. “He took you to Flynn’s? Why?”

  “I led him to think your father had sent me to make sure you were really guilty. I wanted to hear what the witnesses had to say, maybe try to piece together what actually—”

  “You have no business meddling in this,” he said, a sort of confounded anger vanquishing his good humor.

  “I have no choice. Your mother is determined to find out what happened Saturday night, and I’m the only person she can turn to. I tried to get answers from you yesterday, if you recall, but you put me off completely.”

  “I don’t recall, actually. The yen was coming on pretty fast. Was I rude?”

  “Occasionally.”

  “Good. You oughtn’t to pry into such things.” He whacked the pipe against the stone bowl again, so hard she was surprised it didn’t break.

  “What did you fight about with Ernest Tulley?” she asked.

  “Oh, do spare me, Miss Sweeney.”

  “You chased him down the stairs, and kept pursuing him even after he hurled you through a window. Were you fighting over Kathleen Flynn?”

  “Who?”

  “Seamus Flynn’s daughter. He owns the boardinghouse.”

  “Ah, her,” he said. “Yes, that’s it. Clashing horns over a female. Oldest story in the book.”

  “No, but really—”

  “Yes, indeed. It was the strangely beguiling Kathleen Flynn. Now will you kindly shut up and leave me to my gong?”

  “Who was that other man in the back parlor with you?” she persisted. “The one who was drinking whiskey while you were smoking opium?”

  He closed his eyes;
the air left his lungs.

  “Was he a friend?” she asked. “Or—”

  “No. I barely— I didn’t know him. He just...wandered in there. We struck up a conversation.”

  Ah—a semi-solid answer, at last. “You talked about Ernest Tulley,” she said. “You made some fairly strong statements. You must have made friends pretty quickly.”

  “Gong and booze will do that to you.”

  “You said something about making Tulley pay.”

  “Did I? I must have been quite enamored of the enchanting Miss Flynn.”

  “Are you protecting someone?”

  “Do I seem the type to go to the gallows in someone else’s stead?”

  “I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “What are you afraid of, Dr. Hewitt? That I’ll discover you really did it? Or that you didn’t?”

  “If you’re hoping the opium has loosened my tongue to that degree, I’m afraid you’re in for a disappointment. It takes a good deal more than one bowl to deprive me of my wits.”

  “How much does it take? More than twenty-five cents’ worth, presumably. As much as what’s in there?” She pointed to the little horn box.

  “Good lord, that much smoked at one sitting would kill even me. No, that’s a supply to take with me. Suffice it to say the more I smoke, the more it affects me. A bowl or two at regular intervals, or a tincture of opium if there’s no gong to be found, will keep the shakes and aching at bay so that I can function fairly normally. More than that will gradually strip me of my senses, but in a most...seductive way. No one can appreciate the allure of the poppy until he has experienced it.”

  “Do you usually smoke enough to affect your senses?”

  “Nearly always. It takes quite some time, and a great deal of gong, but I find it’s the only way I can tolerate myself.”

  “They say you killed Ernest Tulley in a frenzy of opium intoxication.”

  “What do you think?”

  She looked around at Will’s fellow pipe fiends, all of whom were in some stage of deep repose. “I should think it would be a miracle if someone under the influence of this drug could summon up the energy for a proper frenzy.”