Devil by the Tail

by Jeanne Matthews

  Sleep eluded her until the small hours. Garnick’s wake-up knocks at seven o’clock startled her out of the bed like the popping of rockets. She dressed in a hurry and over the breakfast of bread and cheese he’d brought, told him the theory she’d worked out about Winthrop.

  “If that’s how it was, it’s high time for a reckoning with the counselor.”

  “Do you think he’ll go to his office this morning before the trial?”

  “Let’s find out.”

  They didn’t talk on the drive. The only thought searing through Quinn’s mind was that reckoning. Winthrop owed her and one way or another she meant to make him pay. Garnick was as much a victim, or almost as much, but he gave no outward indication of anger. That could be a good sign or a bad. As they pulled up in front of Winthrop’s office, it crossed her mind neither of them should be carrying that derringer.

  The broken window had been boarded up and there was no indication what kind of business went on inside. Garnick gave the door a series of noisy kicks. “You in there Winthrop? Open up or I’ll batter my way in.”

  “Be careful,” said Quinn. “He may have a gun.”

  “If he does, he better know how to use it.”

  The door opened. “I could have you arrested for the damage you’ve done,” said Winthrop. He was attired, as usual, in a crisp white shirt and smartly tailored suit, but his sleep-deprived eyes had lost their presumption of authority. He looked worried. “What do you want?”

  Quinn brushed past him into the office. His files lay in a confused pile atop his desk. She shuffled through them and held up the framed photograph of Delphine. “Your assignment to us omitted a relevant fact, Mr. Winthrop.”

  “Several,” said Garnick. “When you get down to the marrow.”

  “She gave me the picture. An innocent souvenir of our acquaintance.”

  “If the acquaintance was so innocent,” said Quinn, “why sneak around like a criminal?”

  “As I explained to the mayor, the lady and I agreed our relationship should remain private.”

  “To protect her reputation or yours?” Quinn asked.

  “Both.”

  Garnick sat down behind Winthrop’s desk and put his feet up. “Rice had you feeding her pa a script about the water works bonds, how to mislead his friends who’d bought high into selling cheap. He must’ve seen you come and go. Did the old sinner not care that you were tupping his daughter?”

  “It’s no surprise to hear such vulgarity from your mouth, Garnick. But you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “What a hypocrite you are,” said Quinn. “You ensnared Rolf Kadinger into your scheme and you seduced his daughter. When she gave you the mitten and married Burk Bayer, did you kill her out of spite?”

  “No.” The red blotches that broke out when she’d proposed investigating Tench broke out again. “I didn’t set that fire. And if anyone was seduced, it was me. Delphine was a predatory piece of work, self-willed, no respect for boundaries of any kind. And Kadinger? He was greedy to the bone.”

  “A kindred spirit,” cracked Garnick. “With all the angles you play and the clients you diddle, you must be sitting on a tall stash of green. Enough to buy your lady friend some splendiferous trinkets. I never saw anything to beat that tiara.”

  “Perhaps the ring,” said Quinn, thrusting the photograph into Winthrop’s midsection, “but I’ll get back to that. Did Delphine know about the conspiracy to defraud the water bond holders?”

  “Hardly. Her father didn’t trust her with anything more substantive than the choice of which gowns to buy. When I first met him in the mayor’s office, he warned us all, should we have occasion to call upon him at his home, we were not to discuss business in the hearing of his daughter. ‘A dear little thing, but a bit of a flibbertigibbet,’ he said. He didn’t know the half. Listening to her prattle about the skeletons in her own family’s closet, her brother’s embarrassing scrapes and her late mother’s addiction to laudanum, I understood very well she wasn’t to be trusted.”

  “You didn’t tell her the rumors about the bonds were false? Not even to impress her with the fortune you’d be making off the hoax? Not during the interludes when the two of you were engaged in horizontal refreshment? You didn’t drop a hint while you were billing and cooing and promising her the moon?”

  The red blotches darkened. “Clearly Garnick has dragged your mind into the gutter, madam.”

  “And you, sir, are supremely qualified to speak about the gutter.” She walked up and down, aligning her thoughts. “Are you saying Delphine couldn’t have told her new husband the bonds were a safe investment?”

  “She knew nothing about them one way or the other. And regardless what Kadinger was telling other people, he wouldn’t have questioned their safety to Bayer.”

  “Why’s that?” asked Garnick.

  “Before you disseminate doubt, you have to disseminate confidence. You have to sell the bonds. Kadinger sold Bayer two at a thousand dollars apiece.”

  “When was this?” followed Garnick.

  “Last March at the grand opening of the water works. A regiment of Zouaves in their French fez caps and red sashes served as Honor Guard to the procession. Bayer had apparently served with the Zouaves during the war and was invited to march. Somewhere along the parade route, he flashed his saber and a suggestive look at Delphine. After the mayor gave his speech extolling the new project as the Eighth Wonder of the World, she sought Bayer out and introduced him to her father. I watched Kadinger steer Bayer to the council table where bonds were being sold and later asked Tench. He said Bayer wrote a check on the spot. The casual expenditure naturally whetted Delphine’s interest.”

  “More pearl earrings and gold filigree rings,” said Quinn, but her attention had wandered to someone who wore a round kepi cap like a fez and a red kerchief that might once have been a sash. She stopped pacing and looked Winthrop in the eye. “You have deceived me in every possible way. I want honest answers from you now or I swear I’ll make it my life’s mission to make yours miserable.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t threaten me. I’ll have you arrested as a nuisance.”

  Without turning, she said, “Garnick, would you shoot a man for me?”

  “I reckon if he was a thoroughgoing rotter I would.”

  “He is.”

  Garnick left the desk and came to stand at her side. “Just say the word.”

  Winthrop’s arrogance withered as Garnick drew the derringer. “What is it you want to know?”

  “You sent Ned Handish to us under false pretenses to help you track down Jack Stram. Did you tell Handish to fire a shot at us to make sure we took the case seriously?”

  “No.”

  “Did you kill Handish when he ran into you at the Mansion?”

  “I never saw Handish at the Mansion. I’ve no idea who–”

  “You used Handish’s name when you talked to Jemelle. What did she tell you about Stram?”

  “Only that he was a mean drunk. She’d been seeing him for a few weeks when he showed up with money and demanded she make up a story about Elfie. She didn’t know why he’d be spending time at the Kadingers. She thought he’d been living in a boat near the reaper works, but if he was I never found him.”

  “Did she know if he’d fought in the war?”

  “No. That’s all. Whatever else you may think of my character or my methods, I believe Elfie Jackson is innocent and I’m trying to prevent a terrible miscarriage of justice.”

  “Yes, the miracle witness.” Quinn wasn’t finished probing the sinkhole of the lawyer’s character. “One last question. Is Thom Sinclair’s name really missing from that property deed?”

  Garnick held the gun against his temple. “The truth.”

  “It’s there.”

  “And you cut a deal with Geneva Sinclair to simply delay until I gave up?”

  “She was never going to relent. You knew that.”

  “I’ll put a lead pill down
his gullet right now,” said Garnick.

  “Wait,” said Quinn. “I’m tallying up the money Mr. Winthrop owes us. What would you estimate a hundred acres in DuPage County would sell for?”

  “Nearabout two thousand,” said Garnick. “Round her up.”

  “Plus the cost of our office, which he burned to the ground.”

  “It’ll run upwards of five hundred to rebuild or reimburse the owner.”

  “Plus the value of my personal possessions, which this rotter destroyed to keep the world from finding out he was Delphine Kadinger’s jilted lover.” She smiled. “By the way, Micah, I forgot to leave Delphine’s ring in the office that night. I still have it. But fire wouldn’t have destroyed it. The ivory may have been charred, but the gold wouldn’t have melted. How could someone as brilliant as you not know that?”

  Garnick dug the barrel of the gun deeper into Winthrop’s temple. “How much money do you have, counselor, in cash and bonds?”

  Quinn raised her hand and pushed the gun down. “I believe we can trust Mr. Winthrop to do the right thing, Garnick. That is, if he wants his reputation and his license to practice law to remain intact. I believe we can rely on Mayor Rice to make sure his attorney pays his debts and stays out of trouble until after the next mayoral election. Meanwhile I’m looking forward to an awesome performance at Elfie’s trial. A win can only bring more business his way and keep money pouring into Mr. Winthrop’s coffers.”

  Chapter 32

  Quinn and Garnick arrived at the courthouse an hour before the trial was scheduled to begin. The street in front and the streets in all directions bustled with citizens zealous for justice, the kind meted out in a matinee melodrama. The mayor’s luxurious monogrammed vehicle, pulled by two sleek gray steppers, parked in front of the main entrance. Rice waved magisterially to the crowd as he climbed the stairs. Around the corner Annie’s bouncer directed traffic around her Landau carriage, which he had parked catty-cornered so that it impeded travel in both directions. A piratical figure with long, unkempt locks and a face like chipped granite handed Annie out.

  “Cap Hyman, himself,” said Garnick, drawing alongside. “Afternoon, Cap, Miss Annie. What’s brought y’all here to the show?”

  Annie debouched from the carriage door like an immense yellow waterfall, yards of silk spilling over a bluff. She set her overfilled pumps firmly on the ground and planted her hands on her hips. “You know damn well what brought us, Garnick. Is any dirt gonna come out about Henry Tench or did you promise what you can’t deliver?”

  “The show’s yet to unfold, Annie.” He guided Leonidas around the Landau and parked the rig.

  “I hope she doesn’t hold it against us when the city continues to put the bite on their establishments,” said Quinn.

  “Not much she can do long as we keep clear of Hairtrigger Block.”

  Quinn was less sanguine about what anyone could and couldn’t get away with, but she marched up the courthouse steps fairly bursting with curiosity and residual anger.

  Mayor Rice, Winthrop, and a heavyset man with mutton-chop whiskers and a thick sheaf of documents conferred beneath the judge’s bench. Quinn guessed that Muttonchops was the prosecutor. Their heads turned as Annie and Cap promenaded down the center aisle and installed themselves in the front row. Garnick and Quinn took the seats behind and to the side in order to see around the yellow wall that was Annie. Winthrop eyed Quinn with something like trepidation. She hoped the look of unalloyed loathing she threw back at him confirmed his worst fears.

  The judge presented an impassive countenance. His round, appraising eyes ranged over the assemblage as if sorting the sheep from the goats. Black-robed and nearly neckless, he reminded Quinn of a crow. At the only other trial she’d attended, the judge entered last and everyone stood. She wondered if the mayor’s august presence had muddled the rules.

  The defendant sat alone at the defense table – head bowed, hair primly netted, gloved hands folded in her lap. A dour and forbidding Sergeant Chesterton stood behind her chair, presumably to prevent any attempt at escape, and next to him a beefy policeman with one hand resting on the butt of his gun kept a beady-eyed surveillance on the growing crowd.

  “That’s Fogerty,” said Garnick. “The guard Elfie knifed. And here comes our friend Tench and a few of his profiteering chums.”

  Quinn watched them slide into the pew across the aisle. Tench parked himself at the end of the row closest to her. He wore a black look and stretched his right arm as if to show that he could reach out and clout her if she caused trouble.

  She surveyed the rest of the spectators. Behind Tench a middle-aged woman wearing round pince-nez spectacles observed the crowd from behind a wicker hand fan. Was she the alibi witness who was supposed to end Elfie’s ordeal or was it the raw-boned woman in gingham to Garnick’s right? The woman’s head was bent over her knitting so she couldn’t see anything in front of her but Annie.

  A spleeny Verner Kadinger sat cheek by jowl with a well-dressed, self-important looking man, Caleb Cranston, or some other lawyer. She recognized two women from the Opera House ladies room whispering in the ears of their gentlemen companions.

  Quinn turned to check out the late arrivals. “Moses’ horns!”

  “What?” Garnick followed her eyes. “I figured he’d turn up.”

  “Yes, but I can’t believe he brought Josabeth. If Elfie sees them together, she’ll have a fit of hysterics.”

  Bayer escorted Josabeth into a pew several rows behind the defense table. Elfie would have to about-face to see them. Burk saw Quinn staring and showed her his seductive half-smile. She thought she understood now why he’d placed Jack Stram in the Kadinger house and why he’d paid him to set the fire.

  A flash of light scared the bejabbers out of her. She looked toward the source and saw Fen Megarian holding up his tray of smoking chemicals. He appeared to have suffered no harm at the hands of the city fathers.

  “Get a bead on that mug,” said Garnick. “He’s like an old mouser after a snort of catnip. His Honor must have granted him permission to cover the trial.”

  Quinn hadn’t forgiven him for what he wrote about her, but she had decided to supply him with the story of what happened to the Kadingers. She would hold herself strictly to the facts. Megarian would no doubt supply the poetry. She looked back over her shoulder. The first time she’d met Stram he said the man who hired him would be one “crazed zu-zu” if he learned that Stram was still in town. She’d assumed zu-zu was a drunken stammer or an obscenity she didn’t know. Now she thought she understood. “Garnick, did the Zouave soldiers go by the nickname Zu-Zu?”

  “I’ve heard ’em called that.”

  She said, “I’m going to go talk to Bayer.”

  “If you’re fixing to stir the possum, I’d better come with you.”

  “If by that you mean confront him about Jack Stram, that’s for after the trial. I just want to make sure he stays out of Elfie’s line of sight.”

  “Don’t goad him, Quinn.”

  “I won’t.” She picked her way through the crowd still jockeying for good seats until she reached Bayer. In a low voice, she said, “You shouldn’t be here, not with Josabeth. What if Elfie turns around and sees you?”

  Josabeth clouded up. “My goodness, I’ve never heard such effrontery.”

  “Don’t take offense on my account, Miss Allbright,” said Bayer. “Detective Paschal and I have a rapport.” He showed Quinn his half-smile. “Miss Allbright insists I go out in public and not be deterred by all the foofaraw surrounding the trial.”

  “As if he had something to hide,” sniped Miss Allbright, her ringlets bobbing.

  Quinn glanced toward the defense table and the broad backs of Chesterton and Fogerty. The bailiff led the jurors into the box. A few of the men wore work clothes and dusty boots, but they all appeared sober. The mayor took his front row seat opposite Annie and Cap and nodded at the judge. The judge banged the gavel and Winthrop and the prosecutor withdrew to their separat
e tables.

  A tingle of indefinable dread passed through Quinn. “Elfie’s under a lot of stress. You’d better take Miss Allbright out for a walk and give Elfie a wide berth.”

  Bayer rose. “I beg your pardon, Miss Albright. The detective and I need to clear up a misunderstanding. I’ll return momentarily. Follow the action so you can tell me what I’ve missed.” He took Quinn’s arm and led her out and down the hall a way. He stopped in front of a closed door.

  She said, “There’s no misunderstanding. I’ve told you what I think. Don’t flaunt your new lady friend in front of Elfie.”

  “You have a different look about you, detective. A gleam in your eye. I can’t tell whether it’s because you’ve solved your murder case or your romantic quandary. Either way, the change becomes you. What’s put those stars in your eyes?”

  His glib charm infuriated her. “I’ve finally figured out how you murdered your wife.”

  “Indeed? We must discuss your hypothesis.”

  “The trial will begin any minute. Mr. Garnick and I will pay you a visit later.”

  “I think we should talk now.” He opened the door and maneuvered her inside. It was some kind of library, empty and windowless but lit by sconces interspersed among the shelves. Bayer closed the door and leaned his back against it. “So you’ve got the goods on me. Do please elaborate.”

  She had backed herself into this corner, without a partner, without a gun, and without a plan. She shouldn’t let him bait her, but that self-satisfied half-smile – as if nothing could touch him – set her off. “It was Jack Stram who started the fire that killed Delphine and her father, but he did it on your orders.”