Murder in the City of Liberty

by Rachel McMillan

  He could smell her. Taste her, even—so close were the newly shampooed tendrils of her pin curls under his chin. And he was happy (and not for the first time) that he was just a smidgeon taller so that the top of her head could fit perfectly under his chin.

  And when they were dancing it was like Vaughan had never existed and there was nothing in the world but the two of them.

  “Hamish?”

  They both stopped and turned at a voice he immediately recognized.

  Just Hamish and Reggie and Bernice.

  Hamish took a step away from Reggie but couldn’t seem to completely let go of her hand.

  “Bernice. I don’t think you have met Regina Van Buren.” This was for Bernice, but his eyes stayed with Reggie. He hoped they had affirmed Bernice wasn’t any different than taking Maisie Forth for a spin on New Year’s Eve at the Palais Royale.

  Reggie dropped Hamish’s hand and switched on her charm. “Very nice to meet you, Bernice. That color is lovely on you.”

  Bernice accepted Reggie’s hand. “You are a woman.”

  Hamish was happy that the spotlight had wandered elsewhere and the club was shrouded in semidarkness. Otherwise the flaming red tips of his ears would have the same subtlety of a fire truck.

  Reggie shot Hamish a dagger of a look. “I’m going to see how Maddy is faring.”

  “We’re business partners.”

  “You certainly don’t dance like business partners.”

  Hamish ran his hand over the back of his neck. “Who are you here with?”

  “My friend Alice. Hamish, I really liked you. I thought—”

  “Regina and I are not together. Reggie.”

  “You left out that she was a woman! You left out that you look . . . you look at her like that when you dance.”

  “How can you tell?” he said lightly. “My glasses are catching the glare.”

  “Don’t try to be funny.”

  “Bernice, there is nothing—”

  She held up a hand. “Here’s the thing, Hamish. You wouldn’t intentionally hurt a person. You wouldn’t intentionally hurt me.” Her voice took on a strange tone, and even though the band had started up and couples spun around them, she stood still. “But you have to realize”—she continued in a lower decibel—“that you don’t know the effect you have on a girl. The way we all look at you.” She paused.

  Hamish cleared his throat. Reggie had said something similar the second time they met.

  “Regina is a woman. A woman who looks like that.”

  Hamish followed her eyes beyond the maze of people to where Reggie was slightly rotating the ice in her glass.

  “A woman you look at like that,” she said. “I’d best get back, Hamish.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I know you are. But life is too short to spend it with the wrong dance partner.”

  * * *

  The band’s rhythm melted from a fast, brassy set with percussion so heavily punctuated it rippled through his spine to a languid, sonorous piece that drew couples nearer.

  He found her at the bar.

  “Well, that didn’t go well, did it? What is it about women who cannot handle another woman being friends with a man? Happens in the pictures all the time.”

  “Really?” Hamish asked. The right dance partner. I should just seize the moment. Now. Tell her now. “Which pictures?”

  “Platinum Blonde, for one.”

  “The one with those reporters. And he marries Jean Harlow only to learn he’s been in love with his best friend the whole time?”

  “Poor example. Take another spin?” She tugged at his sleeve.

  “No.”

  It was dark and hot and she smelled divine, of course, and suddenly he was lowering his mouth to hers. Her eyes, brilliant brown and shining, like congealed starlight (Rats, he thought, I’m even thinking in bad poetry), almost seemed expectant. The slight curve up of her chin dared him. And the world stopped as he closed his eyes, lowered his face, held her closer, and . . . stopped.

  Her eyes were wide when they met his.

  He turned on his heel and left the dance floor, fingering his tie, wishing the ground would open up and swallow him whole. It didn’t. So he continued.

  For someone who stumbled with confidence in so many things, the fact that he found it on the dance floor next to this stunning woman made him love her even more. If he didn’t have that certainty, he wasn’t sure what would keep his heart beating and the very core of him ticking. She had thrown his world off its axis and now she was moving on while he was left to figure out what to do with its grand shift.

  He knew it was ungentlemanly to leave her there, just standing. He resisted the urge to look back, instead shouldering through the crowd loitering by the bar and spilling out of the double doors.

  He took a few deep breaths and scratched at the back of his neck to give the fingers of his right hand an occupation other than shaking. He looked out into the light-filled street: neon signs flashing into the square, foot traffic spilling from the direction of the subway like an overturned vessel, billboards guarding buildings shoved into each other like claustrophobic puzzle pieces. There was so much of Luca in this part of the city. And so much of Reggie too.

  “Hamish!”

  He heard her before he saw her, jogging in his direction, heels clacking on the ground, as she lifted the hem of her silk dress from the pavement and brushed a loose strand of hair from her cheek. “What is the matter with you? Come on. We’re just two friends waiting for a very late Dirk and his friend.”

  “It’s not funny.” Hamish took his glasses off and studied a small speck in the corner of the right lens. “But we aren’t just friends. At least, not from where I am standing.”

  “You don’t want to say anything stupid, Hamish,” Reggie said quickly. “Anything that would change our being friends.”

  He looked away, but he could feel her bright brown eyes, larger with the careful smoky powder and liner she had applied for their night out.

  “Do friends dance . . . dance like that?” His hand was shaking. He tucked it into his pocket. “Bernice was right. Friends do not dance like that.”

  “Hamish, let’s not make things complicated.” Her voice was soft. The throaty alto he loved but in a decibel he rarely heard and suffused with a gentleness so different from her usual spirited straight-shooting. Somehow this affected him more. She was walking on eggshells for him.

  “I understand that while I have been unintentionally leading Bernice on—”

  “Your lawyer voice, Hamish—”

  He ignored her. “You haven’t yet settled things with Vaughan Vanderlaan. And I don’t want to do anything compromising without . . .”

  “Oh come, Hamish!” She punched his shoulder. “You would never do anything compromising.”

  “But it looks that way, doesn’t it? And it isn’t right. Not when we’re hurting other people.”

  “Look at me.” Hamish didn’t turn to her, his shoes very fascinating. “Hamish, look at me.”

  He finally blinked at her through downcast lashes. “What, Reggie?” Those brown orbs glistened with something surprisingly like tears under the streetlight.

  “I don’t want things to be this way.”

  “Then make them another way, Reg.” He looked down at her. “I kinda set out all my cards, didn’t I?”

  “Don’t make us into this, Hamish.”

  “Into what, Reggie?” He shoved his hands deep in his pockets. “We’re friends.”

  “Regina!” The last voice on earth Hamish wanted to hear broke through. “Sorry to keep you. I worked late and Walter here was still over in Charlestown.” He stabbed Hamish with a look. “And you’re here too.”

  “It was funny my running into Hamish here,” Reggie said. “He was here with a young lady.” Hamish watched Reggie scan the faces of a small stream leaving the club as if looking for Bernice even though they both knew she was gone.

  The figure beside Dirk Foster s
tepped into the half-light and Hamish felt his heart drop. Dirk’s friend was Walt Bricker.

  “Are you finished getting some air?” Dirk asked. “Can’t dance out here.”

  As they shuffled back inside, Bricker, for his part, maintained a level of calm even though the flash in his eyes let Hamish know he was as put off by the meeting as Hamish was. Hamish wasn’t of the same set as Regina or Dirk, but even he could tell that the seams on Bricker’s suit didn’t quite align. That the fabric was off the rack rather than tailored to his measurements. Nonetheless, the pomade in his hair and the way he fingered his tie and mimicked Foster revealed an effort to fit in. Maybe that was why he met Hamish without a trail of leftover conflict. He wanted to play the part.

  Last night Bricker had been at the center of the universe, touting his terrible views and foisting his pamphlets on passersby under the shadows of darkness. Here he was Dirk’s shadow, his left hand (his dominant hand, Hamish decided, combining his impression of Bricker the night before—the hand distributing leaflets, clutching his sleeve after recoiling from Hamish’s fist) drumming a rhythm on the side of the bar. The band was starting again after a short break in the set, and Hamish had trouble hearing whatever words Reggie was exchanging with Dirk. He did, however, make out a request for a round of drinks and mumbled, “Just a Coca-Cola.”

  The quartet moved to the side, Dirk’s hand lightly on Reggie’s elbow, Hamish holding on to his soda glass as they moved to a slightly less noisy corner of the club.

  “Well”—Dirk turned to Walt Bricker—“Didn’t I tell you she was a picture?”

  Hamish studied Bricker intently. For the first time his swagger swayed.

  “Delighted.” Bricker reached for Reggie’s free hand; her other manicured nails were wrapped around her lime fizz.

  “I’ve heard your name,” Reggie said casually, casting a peripheral glance in Hamish’s direction. “How do you know Dirk?” Reggie’s mid-Atlantic accent cut through their social classes. Hamish knew Reggie well enough to see she was surprised that Dirk associated with a man like Bricker.

  “We attend the same political meetings,” Dirk answered for his friend.

  “I didn’t put you in for the political sort, Dirk.” Reggie’s sweet tone was caught in her gritted teeth.

  The riff of a trombone, a jaunty octave on the piano, and a pulse of drums.

  “Can I have this dance, Regina?”

  Bricker lured Reggie to the floor while Hamish shoved his hands in his pockets and gave Dirk a side glance.

  “Step over to the bar with me?”

  Hamish nodded, giving one more glance in Reggie’s direction. Bricker was harmless on the dance floor. He wasn’t very good, but he was harmless. Hamish appreciated the prospect of air.

  “Look, I don’t like you.”

  Hamish chuckled. “What a friendly chat.”

  “My friend in there doesn’t like you.”

  “The one you meet at your political meetings.”

  “But Regina likes you. And that is a problem. She can play at this all she wants, but you are not of our class.”

  “Seems like Walt Bricker isn’t of your class either.”

  “It’s different. Vaughan is my friend and he isn’t ready to give up on Regina quite yet, and you are a distraction.”

  “Why did you want her to meet Bricker, if you are so concerned about distractions? He’s a bit blue collar, isn’t he?”

  “I owed him a favor.”

  “What kind of favor would you owe someone like him? You know he spends his nights distributing pamphlets in Charlestown. Getting in fights.” At least inspiring fights.

  “I am working on a new development with some other businessmen. Regina’s father for one.”

  “Housing at Fiske’s Wharf?”

  “Exactly.”

  “The Hyatt and Price signs are everywhere.”

  “Many men in my political organization have a vested interest in seeing this project to its completion.”

  “Slum housing?”

  “Affordable housing that will clear out some of the crowding of the North End.”

  “The soil around it isn’t conducive to building a multistory structure.”

  “No one says it has to last centuries, DeLuca.”

  “I guess I am just trying to understand how your political affiliations are involved in housing at the wharf.”

  “Maybe you don’t need to understand.” Dirk removed an ivory case and extracted a cigarette that glowed eerily white under the streetlamp. He lit it while scanning the pedestrian traffic in front of them. “Smoke?”

  Hamish shook his head. Everything about the conversation puzzled him, but he didn’t have time to ask any further questions before Reggie appeared, breathless and looking at Hamish pleadingly.

  “Your friend is a horrible dancer and his manners are atrocious,” Reggie said.

  Hamish scanned her face. “Did he try anything . . . untoward?”

  “He didn’t have time. He’s in there having a row with a man he doesn’t approve of.” Reggie crossed her arms. “Something tells me there is a lot he doesn’t approve of.”

  “He’s just passionate,” Dirk said.

  “That’s one word for it,” countered Reggie.

  * * *

  Hamish was sulking. He didn’t sulk. She had never seen him sulk. Not when he was recovering from the bullet wound to his shoulder. Not when he learned the truth about his cousin Luca. Not when they found themselves in the middle of a case they would never solve. Never. Hamish was many things: Anxious. A little shy. Smart. But he didn’t sulk. And she had made this new Hamish that she didn’t understand. Flexing his right hand in and out, a tall figure still recognizable even as distance separated them.

  She was as confused as she assumed he was because she knew he loved her, and, to her great dismay, she loved him in return. But she was still unsure of her connection to a man from her past. And there was everything between Reggie and Hamish in that spark of chemistry, in their easy camaraderie, in their willingness to risk life and limb for each other; but nothing in words. She wondered why it was taking her so long to put her cards on the table and finally just tell him. She wasn’t being fair to Vaughan or to herself. Especially not on the nights she stared at the ceiling wondering if by keeping Vaughan in the sphere of her friendship she was simply leading him on. She didn’t want to lead Vaughan on as much as she wanted Hamish to kiss her.

  She fell back against the cool brick on the outside of the club, the breeze picking up and tugging the scent of alcohol and gasoline from the busy square. She was making this more of a tragedy than it needed to be. She knew that. But she loved Hamish. She had for a long time. Probably since that first summer when she was still confused and unsure if it was love or just something stirring with the adventure and their possible future. And then there was a long stretch (and she had the journal entries to prove it) when she couldn’t decipher if it was love or the deep friendship and connection that bound them. But she knew friendship. The way she felt for Nate was friendship. The way she felt for Hamish . . . as if she could feel the tremor in his hand and thud of his heartbeat with each escalating episode of nerves. It was more than mere affinity and never more apparent than when they were on the dance floor. They anticipated each other’s steps. She could almost feel what he would do next: whether it was a twist and turn to a Porter tune or a suggestion spoken in the office, which seemed smaller and smaller every day. She clicked her tongue at herself. Regina Van Buren: strong enough to run away from home, to work on a murder case, to throw herself headfirst into a brave new world as an independent woman, yet unable to screw her head on straight when it came to something as familiar as Hamish. Well, that was to be expected, she supposed. It was easy to screw your head on straight; it was quite another matter to expect your heart to behave in turn.

  * * *

  Hamish wasn’t paying attention to where he was going and barely noticed when he collided with another person.

>   “Sorry.” He backed up and looked into the face of a kid he had seen twice before. Errol’s nephew. “Hey! You’re Toby Morris.”

  The kid was wary and didn’t smile. He just nodded. “Yes.”

  “I’m the . . .” Hamish never liked using the word detective. He didn’t think he was a very good one. Investigator didn’t work either. “I’m the consultant your uncle hired to look into what’s been happening at the ballpark. Like you.” Hamish searched the kid’s face. Sure enough, a gash on his head was healing. “You were attacked.”

  Toby relaxed, loosened his shoulders. “I didn’t see who it was. Sounds stupid, doesn’t it? But it was at night and their hats were pulled down.”

  “There was more than one?”

  “They pulled something over my head. I couldn’t see. Then it was just hands.”

  “What are you doing here at this time of night?”

  “Running an errand. Parker House Hotel.” He erected his spine a little. “High client.”

  “Quite a unique way to get to the Parker from Charlestown.”

  Hamish frowned. A few stragglers from the club were stumbling onto the street. Hamish gently gripped Toby’s shoulder and led him to the edge of the square and then beyond. “Do you think they did this to get back at your uncle?”

  The kid paused. The speckle of stars pinpricked the clear sky above the line of rooftops and buildings Hamish loved on the Boston side. Hamish fixated on the traffic snaking along Tremont Street. They were just outside King’s Chapel, the Parker across the street with its monogrammed awnings and doormen standing sentry. Toby didn’t answer right away, but Hamish didn’t press. Giving him time to speak in his own time. A trick his father had taught him from years of interviewing sources.