“Harper loved you, Mary. I’m sure it didn’t bother him.”
“It bothers me.”
They got the check, which Mary insisted on paying, and Riis took her home in his carriage. As she was mounting the stairs to her apartment, it occurred to her that she had set a boulder in motion that could not be stopped. The only question remaining was whether it would avoid her or come crashing through her door.
She would soon find out.
30
Late morning the next day Mary was returning from her father-in-law’s house. Chuck had requested that they spend the day together, and he made such a request so rarely that Mary always tried to accommodate him. It was Sunday, and he had intended a full day of church, lunch, and dinner. Mary had never been very religious, and the events of the past few weeks had made her even less so. As far as she was concerned, God’s plan was a severely inadequate explanation for Harper’s death and her getting raped. She didn’t discuss that with Chuck but rather told him that she had some work to do. That wasn’t a complete fabrication because she had no idea when or if the ramifications from her newspaper announcements or her taunting of White would come home to roost, and she was grateful for every moment she knew Josie would be safe no matter what. At first Chuck was disappointed that Mary was not staying but after finding out she was willing to leave Josie with him, he cheered up.
Mary desperately needed some time alone. The past few weeks had been a nightmare roller-coaster ride that had taken her through one traumatic event after another. It would be nice if she could just shut her eyes and not see Harper’s dead body or Harvey Iglehart’s or White’s obnoxious smile as he was on top of her, but she was positive those images would haunt her for a while. She had tried to push her rape into the far recesses of her mind, not wanting to deal with its deleterious and devastating effects until she had completed the task of catching Harper’s killer. It wasn’t working.
Before she turned the corner to the street where she lived, she felt something in her eye. She stopped, took a handkerchief out of her pocketbook, and tried to get it out. Just as she did, a hand was placed on her shoulder and she heard a strange male voice say, “Miss—”
Reacting instinctively, Mary immediately grabbed the man’s arm and flipped him over. He landed hard on the sidewalk.
She pointed at him. “Don’t you ever touch me!”
The man lay there, stunned and in pain. “You’re insane, lady. I was trying to tell you your wallet fell out of your pocketbook.”
Mary looked down and indeed did see her wallet lying on the sidewalk. Feeling incredibly embarrassed, she picked it up and put it in her pocketbook. First Sean, then this stranger.
She shrugged helplessly. “I’m so, so sorry.” She tried to help him up but he would have none of it, annoyed that he’d gotten hammered for trying to do a good deed, and by a woman, too. It was all extremely awkward, and there was really nothing else to do at this point but to move on. She turned onto her street, realizing only too well that she could try as much as she wanted to avoid dealing with her rape, but it was there and the effects were bound to surface no matter how much she tried to suppress them.
Mary noticed how unusually busy her block was for a Sunday. Considering what had just happened, she wondered if she was being overly suspicious but took note of it anyway before entering her building. Climbing the stairs, she had arrived at the second floor when she heard knocking on the floor above her, where she had her apartment.
“Mary, Mary, are you there?” a familiar voice said. When Mary got to the landing between the second and third floors, she looked up and saw it was Lance Fuller.
“Lance, what are you doing here?”
Startled, he whipped around toward her, then tried to catch his breath. “Oh my goodness. Mary, thank God you’re okay. I’m concerned for you. For your safety and Josie’s.”
As Mary continued climbing the stairs, she said, “You must have seen yesterday’s newspapers.”
“And I spoke with Stanford. If your object was to upset him, you’ve succeeded. I’ve never seen him this way. He’s so completely out of control I’m afraid he’s capable of doing anything. I thought maybe I could help.”
By now, Mary had joined Fuller on the third floor. She smiled and said, “That’s very sweet, Lance, but I had a husband who also thought he could help. If you remember, that didn’t turn out very well.” She took out her keys to open her door. “You’re already here. Would you like to come in for a while?”
He did. Mary opened the door and he followed her inside. She gestured, indicating her apartment. “It doesn’t compare to the Fuller mansion, but it’s home to me.”
“How do you know what the Fuller mansion looks like?”
“Merely guessing. I have seen Fifth Avenue mansions before.”
“Grandiose and overdone. Modesty isn’t in their vocabulary.”
“Don’t you mean ‘our’? After all, you are indeed a Fuller.”
“By name, yes, but definitely not morally or philosophically.”
“You are financially, and most people don’t see past that. I’m going to have some coffee. Would you like some?”
“I hope you don’t mind if I don’t have any.”
“I do indeed mind. You have to leave right away.” Fuller flinched, not knowing how to respond. “I’m joking, Lance. What happened to your wonderful sense of humor?” She went into the kitchen, where she always had a pot prepared, and lit the burner.
“I seem to have misplaced it after speaking with Stanford. I couldn’t sleep last night.” He went to the window and looked out as Mary returned. “You have a nice view of the street.” He stretched and yawned.
“Did you really think I wouldn’t notice?”
“Notice what?”
“What you just did: signal the two men in the carriage across the street.”
Stunned, Fuller tried to profess innocence. “Mary, what are you—?”
“Don’t insult me by denying it. I’m a detective. I notice things out of the ordinary, especially on my street.”
“You can’t possibly think that—”
“I assure you I can.” She looked right into his eyes. “I read Harper’s book…twice.”
Fuller acted innocently. “So?”
“I knew there was something wrong when you did nothing to stop your friends from raping me.”
“I warned you, Mary. Did you forget that?”
“But you did nothing to actually stop it. That’s when I knew they had something on you. And then the book…You killed Harper, you bastard!”
“That’s insane!” Fuller retorted.
“I put those announcements in the newspapers and antagonized your chum Stanford because I knew it would get to you. White and Breese wouldn’t care enough about the book to commit murder. It may be upsetting but they both knew from experience, from Susie Johnson and God knows how many others, that no one would hold them responsible. But Mommy and Daddy would cut you off if they knew their baby boy had participated in their bacchanalian escapades.”
Fuller straightened up, a coldness coming over him. “If you’re referring to the rapes in which I participated, Mother and Father wouldn’t care one bit if I was involved or not. It’s the section where I had sex with Stanford and James. There’s no room in the Fuller family for a homosexual. I would have been completely disinherited.”
“No room in the Fuller family.” Mary tried to hold in her anger but it shot out of her. “I’m minus a husband and my daughter a father, because baby boy Lance wasn’t man enough to stand up to his parents!”
Stung, Fuller started pacing, trying to justify his actions. “Damn it! Harper lied to me. He pretended to be someone he wasn’t, professed to be my best friend, and all the time he was writing an exposé that would destroy my life! I asked him to change it and he said no. I couldn�
�t believe it. I followed for a couple of days, saw where he lived, and finally confronted him, once again pleading with him to take out just that one little part that meant nothing to the book but everything to me. He refused me a second time, just flat-out refused. Then he saw you go into the alley and heard the shot. He ran in there, and that’s when I…Afterward, I went to his apartment and got the manuscript.”
“You shot him the cowardly way—from behind, in the back of the head.”
“He was going to ruin everything. What kind of friend does that?”
“A man with principles. Harper was a journalist, a damn good one. I’m sure the only reason he showed it to you was to confirm his facts. That’s the kind of man he was. It’s called having integrity and a sense of fair play, but you have no idea what that is. All you understand is protecting the money and privilege you didn’t earn.”
He realized this discussion was fruitless. “I was hoping, praying really, that you wouldn’t be home and I could slip in, get the book, and leave without incident. I sincerely like you, and I’m profoundly sorry for what is about to happen, but you forced my hand.”
“Nothing’s ever your fault, you spoiled, rich ass.”
At that moment, two men burst through the door, but Mary was ready. She had already sized them up when she saw them in the carriage earlier and had been planning how she’d deal with them. One was a large heavyset man and the other one was medium sized. The room was fairly narrow and it was difficult for two to charge her at once. She took several steps deeper into the room.
“This can all be avoided, Mary. Just give me your copy of the book.”
“Go to hell!”
“You’re being silly. We’re going to tear this place apart and get it whether you get hurt or not.” Mary didn’t answer. She was too busy preparing for the onslaught. Fuller shrugged and signaled the two men to proceed.
As luck would have it, the medium-sized man charged her first. He swung at her, and she blocked it with her left arm, then flipped him over her shoulder. He crashed through the living room window and fell three floors to the street, screaming all the way.
The heavyset man momentarily stood there in shock until Fuller egged him on. “Stop looking so stupid. I warned you about her, remember? Now come on, finish the job.”
The heavyset man charged her. Mary knew in that small space she couldn’t get enough leverage to do what she’d done to his partner, so her first move was to land a full-force savate kick to his right knee. He tumbled to the floor, but when she went to follow up with a kick to the head, he was able to grab her foot and she went down next to him. He was very strong, and with one hand he held her foot in a vicelike grip while he started punching her with his other hand. Mary took two powerful shots to her stomach and then one crushing blow to her face. She was pretty sure her left cheekbone was broken but immediately forced that out of her mind. She was in a fight for her life.
She was starting to get woozy, and Mary had to do something before the next blow, which could easily render her unconscious. She was near Harper’s desk, and she pulled open the bottom drawer. In it was his book, which she removed and threw at the heavyset man. The pages scattered everywhere, but more important, some covered his face, temporarily blinding him. He instinctively let go of Mary’s foot to deal with the papers.
She had to act quickly. It would be a mere matter of seconds before he resumed beating her. His hands were around his face, so a blow to his neck might not land. She quickly sat up and punched him in the crotch as hard as she could. There was no response, as if she had done nothing at all.
As she began to panic, Fuller laughed. “I heard what you did to Stanford, so I hired a eunuch.”
Mary had no time to respond. She quickly grabbed the lamp off Harper’s desk and slammed the base of it into the heavyset man’s head. The painful, guttural sound that came out of his mouth indicated that she had hit her mark with enough force. He held his head, rolling in the papers of Harper’s book as he moaned.
As she quickly got to her feet, Fuller screamed, “She’s getting away!”
Mary had only moved a few feet when the heavyset man once again latched on to her foot. She had to find a way to get loose before she wound up on the floor with him again. She kept pulling away with her captured foot as she stomped on his hand and arm with her other foot. She finally forced her release and stumbled backward into the kitchen.
The heavyset man sat up and Fuller yelled at him, “What are you waiting for? Finish your job!”
Hurt and embarrassed that a woman had done the damage, the heavyset man was more determined than ever. He got up, pulled out a pistol, and followed Mary into the kitchen. What he didn’t anticipate was that Mary was waiting for him with a pot of boiling-hot coffee in her hands. His face only had time to register fear before she splashed the coffee in his face. He screeched so loudly that his agony was almost palpable. He dropped the gun and stumbled out of the kitchen with his hands covering his face, backing away until he hit the far wall of the living room. There, he sank to the floor, whimpering like a child.
Mary walked out of the kitchen with the coffeepot still in her hand. “You really should try my coffee, Lance.” She motioned to the heavyset man. “It packs quite a wallop.”
Fuller panicked. He started looking for an exit where Mary couldn’t get to him. There was none unless he wanted to jump three floors to the street. Seconds later, Sean charged in, along with their old friend Sergeant Billy O’Brien and another policeman from Second Street Station.
Billy always spoke in a thick Irish brogue. As his eyes fell on the heavyset man, he said, “Well, well, Mary girl, it looks like you’ve been awfully busy.”
She turned to Sean. “What took you so long?”
“Our carriage threw a wheel and we had to go on foot from there.”
Fuller extended his hand. “Ah, Officers, so glad you came. I’m Lance Fuller. Arrest this woman. She’s insane and very dangerous.”
Another officer came running in and spoke to Sean. “The man your sister threw out the window is singing like a canary. Kelly is rushing him to the hospital to make sure he’s alive to testify.”
“Good work,” said Sean.
Billy looked at Fuller and laughed as he handcuffed the heavyset man. “I’m sure this one is already practicin’ his singin’ voice.” He then guided the heavyset man out of the apartment.
Mary stepped toward Fuller, who nervously looked around, realizing he had no place to hide. “See? Your word doesn’t mean anything here,” she said. “You’re in Brooklyn, Lance, and we’ve got you.”
“You’re slipping, Mary,” said Sean. “He looks completely untouched.”
“Call it noblesse oblige,” answered Mary. “But then I’ve never been part of the nobility.” Mary shoved her knee into Fuller’s balls as hard as she could. As he screamed and bent over in excruciating pain, she said, “Oh, I’m so sorry, Lance. Given your behavior, I thought you were a eunuch, too.”
As Sean was ushering Fuller out he purposely rammed his head into the doorjamb. “Sorry, Mr. Fuller. Hopefully, that won’t happen again.” He then rammed Fuller’s head into the doorjamb a second time. “Whoops.” Sean turned to the other policeman. “You better take him. I’m so clumsy today he just might tumble down the stairs.”
The policeman handcuffed Fuller and led him out. Sean looked at Mary, fully examining her face for the first time. “Are you okay, sis? It looks like they got some good shots in.”
“I’ll be fine.” Mary turned to stare at her living room with the pages of Harper’s book spread all over it. Indicating the papers, she smiled wistfully. “Harper always wanted to save me. He finally did.”
Moved, Sean put his arm around his little sister and escorted her out on their way to Second Street Station.
31
Mary’s wounds had healed. It was early Febru
ary 1897, almost six weeks since Fuller was arrested. His trial was of great interest to the newspapers, the cities of Brooklyn and New York, and the rich and poor alike. The general sentiment was that people wanted “that rich bastard to fry.” There were some, mostly of his class, who felt sorry for this man who was trapped by his birthright. They only whispered these sympathies among themselves because they knew how unpopular their point of view was. It was the third week of the trial, both sides had rested, and the jury was out deliberating. Sean thought it might take a while. Though none of the Four Hundred lived in Brooklyn, the defense had managed to seat a few of their friends and employees on the jury, which obviously was of grave concern to Mary.
“No need to wait around here, sis,” said Sean. “This could be an all-night affair. I’ll call you the second I know they’re coming back in.”
Mary was nervous about leaving. “Don’t forget, Sean.”
“I don’t think there’s any chance of that. Harper would make sure I was struck by lightning from above.”
“And that’s nothing compared to what I would do to you.”
Sean smiled. “Run along, sis. I promise I’ll call you.”
“Thanks.” Mary took a few steps, then turned back to Sean. “If I’m not at home, try Lazlo, then Sarah, then Chief Campbell—”
“Isn’t he in the hospital?”
She nodded. “Had another heart attack. I’m going there now.”
“What about Mom?”
“If that’s where you find me, make sure you sound like it’s a matter of life and death. It’s the only way I’ll be able to escape her clutches.”
Sean laughed. “It won’t be too long until Josie starts talking about you like that.”
“She probably already feels that way. I haven’t been able to be with her as much as I’d like to.”
“This will be over soon, Mary, and you’ll have your whole lives together.”
Thankful for his support, Mary hugged Sean and left for the hospital.
Near Prospect Park Page 20
