by P. B. Ryan
“I still don’t see what the murder of a perfect stranger has to do with me.”
“What it has to do with you,” Skinner said as he strolled around the room, eyeing the shapes beneath the linen shrouds, “is that the murderer happens to be an old friend of yours.” He met her gaze with a smug grin. “Detective Colin Cook.”
Chapter 2
Nell somehow managed to keep her expression neutral even as her thoughts careened. Colin Cook, one of Skinner’s former colleagues in the Detectives’ Bureau, not that the rest of them had ever considered him as such, given his Irishness, had been the lone member of the bureau to escape the retribution meted out to the rest of them after the corruption hearings. Though not entirely blameless—Cook had been known to pocket a few greenbacks now and then—the bearlike black Irishman had enjoyed a singular reputation for integrity and competence. When the rest of the Boston detectives were fired or sent out to patrol the streets, Cook had been offered what amounted to a promotion: a coveted appointment to the Massachusetts State Constabulary. As a state detective, Cook was primarily charged with stemming Boston’s rising tide of vice, although murder investigations also fell under his purview.
“I can’t imagine that your information is correct,” Nell said evenly, “if you’ve come to the conclusion that Detective Cook is the responsible party.”
“You don’t think he’s capable of killing a man?”
“For just cause? Certainly. He fought for the Union, after all. But outright murder?” She shook her head. “I wouldn’t expect the likes of you to understand such a thing, but there are men in this world who have moral standards, and Colin Cook is one of them.”
“A pretty speech, Miss Sweeney,” said Skinner with a mocking little bow, “and I’m sure if Cook were present to hear it, he’d be moved by your faith in him. But as it happens, that faith is sadly misplaced. He did do murder. He did it savagely, and I must say, rather sloppily. I was the first cop on the scene, and I can tell you it was pretty cut and dried. They all know him there—he’s a regular—and we got three witnesses that say he done it.”
“‘We?’ Surely you’re not the officer handling this case. That would be the responsibility of the state detectives, would it not?”
“It would but for the fact that Major Jones, who’s in charge of that unit, feels it would be a—what did he call it?—’conflict of interest’ for his boys to investigate one of their own. Now, me, I’ve got experience as a detective, and no reason to want to go soft on Cook. So, in the interest of justice, I stepped forward and offered to—”
“In the interest of justice?” she scoffed. “In the interest of revenge, you mean. You’d like nothing more than to see Detective Cook hang.”
Skinner tugged the sheet off the round marble table in the center of the room, laid out with a selection of August Hewitt’s favorite antique musical instruments. He picked up the pocket hunting horn, a heavily coiled brass trumpet less than a foot long, dented and tarnished with age. Viola thought it ugly, and didn’t see the point of keeping it out, but as the music room was her husband’s special haven, the instrument remained on display.
Skinner hefted the horn as if testing its weight. “I won’t deny that it gives me a warm feeling inside to see murderers twitch at the end of a noose.”
Nell said, “It would give you no end of glee to see Detective Cook hang, if only because he’s Irish, and a better man than you. But on top of that, he was actually rewarded when the truth came out about what you detectives were up to, while the rest of you ended up—”
“He sold us out,” Skinner said, teeth bared. “He ratted on us in secret sessions during the hearings, just him and those big bugs that don’t have the slightest idea what it takes to deal with the foreign vermin who’ve overrun this town. Next thing you know, I end up policing Paddyland for a Paddy captain, of all damn things, who treats me like I’m some stray cat he’d like to drown, while that humbug-spouting mick gets bumped up to Jones’s unit. He’s earning almost twice what he used to, while I’m still making do on eight-hundred bucks a year.”
“Surely, Constable, you’re making the job pay better than that,” Nell said with a knowing little smile.
In a crude imitation of an Irish accent, Skinner said, “Oh, you fancy yourself quite the clever little lass, don’t you, now?”
“I’m not stupid,” she said. “I know how you and your kind do business. As for Cook spouting humbug, what are you saying? Are you claiming he lied?”
“He made stuff up just to get us in hot water, and they swallowed it whole and asked for more.”
“And how would you know that,” she challenged, “if those sessions were so secret?”
“Oh, you are clever, aren’t you?” He closed in on her, clutching her arm in a painful grip; she could smell the rum on his breath, the sour tang of his sweat. “You’re two of a kind, you and Cook, a couple of crafty, high-reaching bogtrotters out to get what you can over the backs of all us regular, hardworking Americans. Yeah, but I’ll bet you’re not so high-and-mighty when the good detective gets you alone, eh? Do you give him a good ride, Miss Sweeney? Do you buck and scream and—”
“Get out.” Nell tried to wrestle free of his grip, but she was no match for his wiry strength.
He slammed her one-handed against the door, holding her there as he tilted her chin up with the mouthpiece of the horn. In a menacing murmur he said, “I wouldn’t mind hearing you scream.”
“Nor I you.” She wrenched the horn from his hand and whipped it across his face.
He stumbled back into the piano with a yowl of pain, his hands cupping his nose. “You bitch!” he screamed in a nasal rasp. “Jesus! You goddamned—”
“Get out.” Nell opened the door to the hallway. Two kitchen maids passing by with armloads of pots and kettles paused to gape at the constable.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he snarled as he advanced on her.
From the Red Room came a woman’s steely, British-inflected voice. “Oh, I think you are.”
Viola Hewitt, seated in her Merlin chair, wheeled herself through the doorway with an expression of resolute fury. Garbed with atypical severity in a tailored gray suit, her black-and-silver hair mostly concealed beneath a square-crowned riding hat trailing a swath of netting, Viola cut a daunting, almost majestic presence, even in the wheelchair.
Skinner stared unblinkingly at the revered Brahmin matron, blood trickling from between his fingers, before pointing a shaky finger at Nell. “She assaulted an officer of the law. I mean to have her brought up on—”
“And I mean to have you ejected from this house by my footmen, who will bloody more than your nose in the process, unless you leave here immediately.”
Glaring at Nell, Skinner said, “I know you know where he is.”
Nell said, “I have no idea what you’re talking ab—”
“Cook.” Skinner wiped his hand across his face, smearing it with blood; there was a livid scrape on his cheek, as well. “He disappeared last night, after shooting Cassidy. If anyone knows where he lit off to—”
“I haven’t seen nor heard from Detective Cook in weeks,” Nell said.
“You lying little—”
“Bridget,” Viola said to one of the kitchen girls. “Would you fetch Peter and Dennis? I believe they’re outside loading the—”
“I’m leaving,” Skinner said, adding, to Nell, “Tell Cook we’ll catch up with him sooner or later, and make no mistake, he will hang—I mean to make sure of it. As for you, don’t you ever forget there are eyes out there, watching your every move. One of these days, Miss Sweeney, you’re gonna get the lesson you’ve been begging for.”
After he left, Viola nodded toward the brass horn still clutched tight in Nell’s fist. “It’s about time that hideous thing came in good for something.”
Nell let out her breath in a tremulous chuckle. Viola cocked her head in the direction of the door, which Nell closed.
“Have a seat, my dear,” sai
d Viola as she wheeled further into the room. “You’re white as chalk.”
Nell sat on a sheet-swathed chair and rubbed her left arm, which was sore where Skinner had grabbed it.
“I realize I should have made my presence known,” Viola said, “but curiosity overcame propriety when I caught on to the nature of the conversation, so I hid behind the curio cabinet. This Detective Cook, he’s the one you’re so fond of, yes?”
Nell sat back, nodding. “He’s a good man, Mrs. Hewitt. I can’t believe he’d murder someone. I don’t believe it.”
“Are you quite certain? Given the right situation, you might be surprised how brutal the nicest person can be.”
Viola wouldn’t be offering little insights on brutality if she knew what Nell’s life had been like until about ten years ago. Choosing her words carefully, so as not to sound too conversant on the subject, Nell said, “It would seem to me that, to actually kill someone—not for just cause, but in anger, say—is to cross a line that most of us are incapable of crossing, no matter how enraged we become. It’s as if God has equipped us with a sort of...moral brake that won’t allow us to take a life unless there’s an exceptionally good reason.”
“Is it possible, do you suppose, that your Detective Cook might have felt that he had an exceptionally good reason to kill this...what was his name? Cassidy?”
“Johnny Cassidy. Something like self-defense, you mean? If that were the case, it must not be obvious, or else they wouldn’t be hunting him down as a murderer.”
“Nor,” Viola pointed out gently, “would it be likely that he would have fled in the first place.”
Nell closed her eyes and shook her head. “If you knew him as I know him...”
“Was it true, what you told Constable Skinner—that you haven’t been in touch with Detective Cook?”
Nodding, Nell said, “The last time I saw him was two or three weeks ago. I’d taken Gracie for one of her afternoon outings in the Commons, and he passed by. We chatted for a while about the new house he’d just bought, and his work with the State Constabulary.”
“He didn’t mention anything about problems in the North End, or...”
“He did say he’d been spending quite a bit of time up there, in his professional capacity, which would stand to reason, given his current responsibilities. Fort Hill, too. The Irish slums are where most of the gaming dens and taverns and and...other such places are located.”
“Brothels,” Viola added with a smile. “You can say it—it’s just us.”
Nell returned her smile. One of the most Viola’s most endearing qualities was her candor about such matters, a holdover from her early bohemian years in Paris.
“He mentioned his work,” Nell said, “but only in a general way. He told me it was a big job, trying to stamp out vice in a city like Boston. He said that, by last count, there were over three-thousand places where liquor was sold, dozens of gaming halls, and somewhere between two and three-hundred...‘houses of accommodation,’ as he called them.”
Viola chuckled at the euphemism.
Nell said, “If anyone could make inroads in cleaning up those neighborhoods, it would be Colin Cook. He’s a very capable detective, and Irish, to boot. He fits in with those people, he knows how they think, he speaks their language. And he has a deeply ingrained sense of right and wrong.”
“And yet,” Viola said with a sigh, “he’s now found himself a fugitive from the law.”
Burying her face in her hands, still trembling from her encounter with Skinner, Nell said, “I can’t imagine how this came to pass. It’s not just Skinner who thinks he did it. The chief of the state constabulary must suspect him, else he wouldn’t have ordered Skinner to track him down. I’m so afraid he’s going to be found and...oh, God. By the time I come back from the Cape, he’ll be in prison—if they haven’t already hanged him by then. Who knows, Skinner might just take matters into his own hands and execute him on the spot, claiming he’d tried to make a break for it. I wouldn’t put it past him.”
Wheeling herself closer to Nell, Viola reached out to take her hand. “You want to help him, don’t you?”
“How can I?” Nell asked shakily, her throat tightening with impending tears. “I’ll...I’ll be on the Cape while Skinner is hunting him down and...and...”
“And the whole while,” Viola said, “you’ll be fretting about your friend, wondering if he’s been found.”
“Or killed.”
“I daresay you’ll be no good to Gracie in such a state.”
“No, I...I wouldn’t let this interfere with—”
“You couldn’t help it. You’re only human.” After a thoughtful pause, Viola said, “I know you. I know your sense of justice, your fidelity to your friends. You wish you were staying in Boston so that you could try to find your detective friend before Constable Skinner does.”
“Of course, b-but—”
“You could, you know, if you wanted to.”
Nell looked up. “Stay here? But—”
“For a while, anyway, until you’d sorted things out.”
“But what about Gracie?”
“Eileen could look after her until you can join us on the Cape. I’ll leave you money for the train. Just cable me at Falconwood to let me know when you’ll be arriving at the Falmouth depot, and I’ll send Brady to meet you. You see, it’s really no great challenge to arrange—if it’s really what you want.”
“It is. But I would feel as if I were shirking my duty to Gracie...and to you.”
“Gracie’s adaptable, as am I. And Eileen is more than capable of shouldering the burden until you’re back. The only question is where you would stay. I’m not sure I’m quite comfortable with you being all alone in this big, empty house. Do you have friends you could stay with?”
Nell sat back and thought about it. “There’s Emily Pratt, but, well, she’s still living in her parents’ home until her marriage to Dr. Foster, and...”
“And it goes without saying that Orville Pratt wouldn’t tolerate an Irish-born governess under his roof. What about the Thorpes? They’d take you in if I asked them to.”
“Mrs. Thorpe treats me like a scullery maid, and Mr. Thorpe...well, he’s your husband’s closest friend, and considering how Mr. Hewitt feels about me...”
“Mm... There’s Max Thurston. He adores you.” The eccentric playwright had formed a warm friendship with Viola in recent months.
Shaking her head, Nell said, “It wouldn’t look right, me living alone with a gentleman.”
“Yes, but everyone knows that Max is, shall we say, immune to feminine temptations.”
“Most people know that. It would still be scandalous. I could stay here, you know. It doesn’t bother me to be alone, and it would only be for a little while.” With any luck.
“Are you quite sure, my dear?”
Nell wasn’t at all sure, but there didn’t seem to be much of an option, so she said, with as much determination as she could muster, “Absolutely. I’ll keep the doors locked and the curtains drawn. No one will even know I’m here.”
Chapter 3
Don’t you ever forget there are eyes out there, watching your every move.
Skinner’s implicit threat echoed over and over in Nell’s mind as she lay awake in her big bed that night on the third floor of Palazzo Hewitt, as Will had scornfully dubbed it. Despite her exhaustion, sleep eluded her. The heat was partly to blame. Though the windows on both sides of the corner room were wide open, it was a sweltering night, and the few breezes that wafted through the big room felt like gusts of heat from an opened oven door.
For the most part, though, Nell’s restiveness was born of her sense of complete isolation. She felt exposed and forsaken in this huge mansion with it ghostly, sheet-draped furniture, regardless of the fact that she was there of her own volition.
Having never been in this house when it wasn’t occupied by a swarm of family and servants, Nell hadn’t counted on the utter, preternatural emptiness of it. T
here were no muffled voices reverberating through the walls, no opening and shutting of doors, no footsteps, no life. Just the faint, faraway ticking of the grandfather clock in the front parlor downstairs, which she’d never recalled hearing in her bedroom before, even in the middle of the night.
Rising out of bed, she crossed to the mantel clock, peering closely to make out the time in the thin moonlight: almost one in the morning. One would think that, having been awake for some twenty-two hours, after only five hours of sleep the night before, she’d be too exhausted to be sleepless, no matter how uneasy she felt.
Wanting to get her mane of sweat-dampened hair off her neck, Nell opened her top dresser drawer to search for the thin length of velvet she used to tie her hair back when she slept, because it resisted slipping off during the night. While rummaging among her little collection of gloves and collars and ribbons, she came upon a neatly folded, tissue-wrapped swath of silk tucked away in the back—the scarf Will Hewitt had been wearing the last time she saw him, back in January.
Nell had come to the railroad station on that blisteringly cold morning to see him off on his train to San Francisco, from whence he would board a steamer bound for Shanghai. It was to be a long and grueling journey, one destined to last perhaps years, one he hadn’t been looking forward to, but felt compelled to embark on in order to put some distance between them.
Leaving Boston meant leaving not just her and Gracie, but his new position teaching forensic studies at Harvard medical school, which she knew he’d found rewarding. They’d never spoken frankly about his reasons for the trip, about the feelings that had arisen between them over the nearly three years of their acquaintance. Such feelings could lead nowhere, given her clandestine marriage. As a Catholic, divorce was a pointless option; she would be excommunicated should she ever remarry. For as long as she lived, Nell was destined to remain a spinster. And an intimate relationship outside of marriage, should it ever become known, would ruin her; she would lose her home with the Hewitts, her job, but worst of all, Gracie.
