Murder in the City of Liberty

by Rachel McMillan

  The Christian Patriots were inspired by the Dudley Silver Shirts of the Great War and those in Hitler’s Nazi Party on the other side of the world. But while Hitler’s brand of national socialism was deeply grounded in the working class, Dirk’s sect spewed a philosophy to attract those who were decidedly not of the working class. The elite. The upper crust, who Hamish decided were at core afraid that the Jewish American population would somehow take the wealth from their pockets. They were susceptible to a patchwork quilt of ideas that when sewn together found a root cause they could rally behind with self-righteous indignation, filtered through words and slurs ill-suited to their Brahmin accents.

  The most arresting of the night’s speakers was a former journalist and lay politician, Leonard Tucker. Hamish mulled over the name. The officer they’d encountered at Toby’s murder scene was Tucker. Never mind. It was a common name. His take on Christian Patriots took the best of what America’s founding fathers stood for and twisted it to ensure that it spoke only to some of the nation’s residents, leaving little room for the inhabitants of the North End. What chilled Hamish the most was how the words sat in such a cold, calculated, and articulate tone. There was scientific reason, Tucker believed, to why some men were created superior to others. It was here that Hamish lost completely the track of Christian Patriotism (if, indeed, he had found it at all). Then a man named Walter Norman next took the podium to speak to his loss in the first war and to the crippling depression that saw his Aryan ancestors on his mother’s side in Frankfurt under the oppression of what he called “the Jewish Problem.” Eventually, just “the Problem.” As if there was one singular problem in the current political climate of the world and one race solely responsible.

  Walter Norman cleared his throat and rasped his way through a reading from the Dearborn, a newspaper attributed to Henry Ford from several decades before. Hamish studied Reggie a moment: she was pinching the fabric of her light cotton pants and trying to look anywhere but at the speaker. Hamish followed suit, studying the men and women intently taking in the ridiculous views. He studied to see if any of them looked as uncomfortable as he was sure he and Reggie did. Barely able to sit still, looking over their shoulders to the clock and the doorway. But most looked like the kind of people Hamish would find on the street in passing. Nothing singled them out other than the fact that most of their clothes were well cut, their status more of Reggie’s world than Hamish’s. Men in perfectly tailored suits and women in fashionable hats. Hamish didn’t know much about clothes, but he knew enough from the film magazines Reggie kept around the office to decipher what was modern.

  “This would infuriate Vaughan,” Reggie whispered. “I wonder if he even knows what Dirk is doing. They work together, sure, but I don’t hear him mention his name as often outside of his office talk.”

  “This would infuriate anyone,” Hamish said. When his lips lowered to her ear, he could almost taste her shampoo with her hair just a breath from his lips. It was a nice distraction from the tempered theses of hate he was hearing in the level voices of these besuited men.

  He was sick of the Christian Patriots, thinking of their leaflets at the train station in Charlestown, the pamphlet on the desk at Pete Kelly’s building.

  “You know what Nate always says.” Reggie tried to lighten the mood.

  “If you’re not informed, you don’t have the luxury of an opinion.”

  “Exactly!” Reggie’s voice was a little too loud on the exclamation, and a woman turned and shushed her with a sneer. Reggie stuck out her tongue. “I want the luxury of an opinion.”

  * * *

  Scraping over her childhood with a fine-toothed comb, Reggie was hesitant to admit that Dirk might have come by his belief system honestly. He never had to work. He never had to see a person who didn’t mimic his background and bearing in any role but that of a servant. Nonetheless, his speech addled her nearly into Hamish’s lap. She could not sit still.

  When the meeting was finally over and they loitered for the purpose of their investigation, she could say little but, “You’re a boor, Dirk. Oh! And speaking of boor.” Reggie felt the luxury of taking her time on every last consonant in a line of perfect, derisive articulation as Walt Bricker stepped into view.

  “Miss Van Buren.” He nodded. He didn’t nod at Hamish. He didn’t see or acknowledge Hamish.

  “Some of our funding comes from the development of housing in the Boston area,” Dirk said. “Funding from appropriate men who align their wallets with their political ideals.”

  “I can just imagine,” Hamish said. “Properties like Pete Kelly’s?”

  “You think that what is happening in the world is just a by-the-way?” Dirk raised his chin. “There is always a source. You are obtuse and it is getting us no closer to coming to the root of the problem. Our cause needs well-bred and intelligent men and women. Like me and Reggie here. And even you.”

  Hamish raised his hands. “I am not here to talk politics . . .”

  “Our close friend and colleague Nate Reis is the face of what you are trying to destroy,” Reggie said vehemently, choosing to settle her ire on Bricker with a narrowed glare. “He is part of the glue that keeps our neighborhood together.” She turned back to Dirk. “And you have the gall to sit here on your high horse and spew this nonsense? What do you or any of these people know about hard work? About community? Dirk, you have always had things handed to you on a silver platter. You speak of the Depression, but you know nothing about it! You strolled through life as you always do, except maybe your tailor took a little extra time in getting the fancy Indian silk you wanted for your ties. So you’re speaking about things you never experienced and appropriating a view to combat a battle you never fought.”

  Dirk ignored her, coolly turning to Hamish. “And you? You’re smart enough. Your countrymen are fighting already, and what are they fighting for? We have branches in Canada, you know.” He looked Hamish over. “You’re not our usual candidate.” His eyes narrowed on Hamish’s face. “But you can’t help one-half of you, can you?”

  Hamish bristled and tucked his fingers into his palm. He had a million things to say, but it wasn’t worth it. They would jumble in his brain, taking up space the moment he left the building, but if he did say them, they would fall ignored on the linoleum anyway. “Mr. Foster, a sixteen-year-old boy was murdered at a ballpark in Charlestown. Do you know anything about that?”

  “Never was a baseball fan, myself.”

  Reggie stepped in. “He ran messages for Pete Kelly down on Fiske’s Wharf. The very property you’re trying to build on.”

  When Dirk said nothing, Hamish turned to Bricker. “Do you know anything about this?”

  “Why would I kill a kid?”

  “We’ve seen you there before,” Reggie said.

  Dirk silenced Bricker with a slight grip on his elbow as the last lingering attendees from their meeting pushed through the open door. Once they had a pocket of privacy to themselves, Hamish continued. “Toby was a messenger. He ran errands for Pete Kelly.”

  “Kelly will be out of there soon enough.”

  “At the price of a kid,” Reggie added dramatically. Too dramatically, perhaps, because Hamish and Dirk and Bricker turned to her quickly.

  Hamish prolonged the silence, watching Dirk and Bricker. The latter was turning over a leaflet in his left hand. The former, merely staring at Hamish. Hamish had won a grade school spelling bee once, on the word derision—its meaning quite evident on Dirk’s face.

  “So neither of you knew Toby Morris at all?” Reggie asked.

  “I know him to see him,” Bricker said. “But I’m not in the mood of killing people.”

  “He died from a forceful blow to his head. A punch,” Hamish said pointedly. Studying Bricker. Then assuming he was on uneven ground with Dirk. Yes, Dirk was very much the leader, both in stature and in bearing. Luca always said some men were just followers. But how far would Bricker follow?

  “I think it is time to call it a ni
ght,” Dirk said. “Neither of us were anywhere near the ballpark when that unfortunate death happened. You can check with Hyatt and Price and . . . Bricker here.” Dirk looked at Bricker, only the slightest doubt flashing in his eyes. “Bricker here will find you an airtight alibi, won’t you?”

  “Of course,” Bricker said.

  * * *

  Once outside, the two of them free of the rally and well up Washington Street, Reggie rolled her shoulders. “Well, that was horrifying.”

  “I guess at the very least it helps us understand some of what is going on in the world,” Hamish said. “That there are these ideologies.”

  “And now with the war that’s already started there . . .” Reggie didn’t finish her sentence, and they kept a ruminative silence as they walked down Washington Street, Hamish rolling his bicycle beside him while studying his spectator shoes.

  “The reason I didn’t pass the medical had nothing to do with my eyesight, Reggie.”

  “What?”

  “You know. When I went home.”

  Reggie stopped abruptly. “You were going to enlist?”

  “I wear glasses for reading. I don’t have great eyesight, but that was not the primary reason.”

  “Then what was—? Oh.” Reggie blinked. “I didn’t think that—”

  “But there is a doctor in Canada—and of course my dad found him, because he would find him—of course he found him—who was doing studies on men like me going to war.”

  Reggie grabbed his arm. “He was just trying to protect you.”

  “My dad didn’t even go to war. So our family just doesn’t fight for Canada? I live here now, but I am Canadian. It is my heritage. My identity. What have we contributed? And now, hearing this man with his ideas, and I could have done something to stop it.” He shoved his hands deep in his pockets. “But I can’t because I am prone to nerves.”

  “Hamish.”

  “I don’t know why I am telling you. Other than I wanted to fight . . . fight for a place where whatever they were spewing off tonight would never be part of the conversation.”

  “I understand.”

  “You’d miss me if I went to war, wouldn’t you?” he said after a long silence, one in which he conjured a pretty clear image of Reggie waiting for him at a train station amidst a mill of people, pressing into him and kissing him tightly before he disappeared in a sea of khaki. Writing him while he was away. The things he would do to make the world better for her upon his return.

  From the corner of his eye, he could see her focus on the street before her, hands in pockets, eyes covered by curled lashes, nose and chin a little impish in the way they curved out to the night. “I’d miss you if you went anywhere,” she said lightly.

  * * *

  Reggie met Vaughan in the foyer of the Hyatt and Price firm. She’d assured Hamish she would get home safely, but detoured, knowing Vaughan would be working late. His eyes were bleary with tiredness and his usually bright smile was dulled with exhaustion. Reggie didn’t stand on ceremony.

  “I just came from one of Dirk’s political meetings.”

  Vaughan frowned. “He’s caught up in a few things.”

  “That’s an understatement. Were you able to find out anything about the project he is working on? From your end?”

  “Do you want to have a late supper?” Vaughan fingered her collar gently. “We could go to this little place over on School Street. They have the most amazing mushroom tartlets. I was telling your father. I—”

  “You were talking to my father?”

  Vaughan nodded. “He is in some sort of business venture with Dirk. They have mutual investors or something. You know I was never much into playing the market. Your dad has a far more savvy head for those things.”

  “Indeed.” Reggie smiled at Vaughan and gently removed his arm. “Supper sounds fine. But what sounds even better is picking a lock.”

  “Reg . . .”

  “Do you remember when we were kids and your uncle wouldn’t let us take the propeller boat out so we broke that lock and did it anyway?” Reggie widened her eyes. She knew Vaughan loved it when she bounced a little on the balls of her feet and looked up at him entreatingly.

  “I don’t know, Regina.”

  “Is there security here?”

  “The cleaning ladies come in”—he consulted his Rolex—“twenty-five minutes.”

  “More than enough time! Come on.”

  Vaughan explained that only one elevator functioned after 10:00 p.m. It was quite normal for the executives to work late over glasses of bourbon in the dying light. But with the staff mostly gone, it was seen prudent to conserve as much electricity as possible.

  Vaughan used the privacy of an elevator without an attendant to try for a kiss. Just a butterfly one in the delicate space below her ear.

  “You’re already feeling quite spontaneous,” Reggie said, the sensation making her laugh rather than filling her to the brim.

  “You smell divine. Like lemon, I think. Clean.”

  Reggie stepped away. Lemon equaled proximity to Hamish DeLuca: in a darkened theater, pressed against his shoulder in the sticky confines of a meeting that soured her stomach with its base words and views.

  They reached Vaughan’s floor.

  “You’re skittish tonight,” Vaughan remarked. The lights were dimmed.

  “Excited for our covert break-in.” She flashed him a smile. “How many times have you told me you wanted to be a fly on the wall of one of my investigations with Hamish?”

  “I don’t have a key.” They stood outside Dirk’s office.

  Reggie thought for a second, then brightened with an idea. She extracted the pin from her hair so a fringe of brown curls fell over her forehead. The look in Vaughan’s eyes at the motion stopped her heart: not with returned affection, but rather guilt. She needed to make up her mind. But there was time for that later. For now, she straightened out the metal loop of the pin’s end and smoothed the wire into a straight line. She gently shoved Vaughan out of the way, bending over so the top of her head was in line with the key hole. She curled her right knee and took a deep breath and slid the pin into the lock. “I’ve seen Hamish do this with a paper clip. Something he learned from his mother. She was a lady investigator. Actually, I think she still is. Can you imagine?” A Van Buren lady did not ramble, her brain reminded her while her words flooded out. She wasn’t sure what it was about tonight that made her so uneasy around Vaughan. She supposed it had something to do with gargoyles and Romany girls turned to dust and talk of end-of-the-world kisses as a soft evening breeze tossed a strand of Hamish’s hair across his forehead.

  The makeshift key clicked and Reggie smiled at the shift in weight. She could feel it in place. “There.”

  “That’s a useful skill,” Vaughan said.

  Reggie straightened. “If you had heard what Dirk was saying tonight you would have no qualms about what we’re doing, Vaughan.”

  Vaughan followed at her shoulder. She could feel the cotton of his shirt against her arm. Vaughan flicked the light switch and Reggie scanned the room. It was neat with few visible papers. “You display your blueprints. On your easel,” Reggie recalled. “Dirk doesn’t.”

  “Maybe he wants to keep his ideas to himself.”

  “A man like Dirk wants everyone to see what he’s accomplishing. He would want a bird who happened to settle on the ledge there to peek in and see his brilliance. Don’t give me that look—that man is a sponge for attention.” Her fingernail scaled over a pile of papers on his desk. She tried the first drawer of the mahogany desk. It didn’t budge. She tugged the chain on the green-shaded banker’s lamp and put her makeshift pin key to good use.

  “Here we go!” She beamed, handing Vaughan receipts for services rendered and a folded blueprint sketch.

  Vaughan studied what he held. “Looks like they have early buyers for these properties. Renters.”

  “Is that common? It is still Pete Kelly’s building.”

  Vaugh
an nodded. “People want early investors but also guaranteed tenants when they can get them.”

  “May I?” Reggie scanned the names on the loose sheets. A few names she recognized as the men who spoke at Dirk’s political meeting. Or, at least, were listed in the program she had ripped to shreds to keep from rising and upturning her chair.

  MacMillan. She figured this was Brian MacMillan, another leftover from the Flamingo Club. She had danced with him. He was kinder than the others. She went cross-eyed looking for the name Kent. Then figured a man like that wouldn’t want his name anywhere. There was, however, another name of interest added in pencil below the carefully typed list: E. Parker.

  “What is it? Breakthrough, Reg? You just gasped.”

  Reggie ripped a piece of paper from a nearby notebook and copied exactly what she saw in exactly the same order. “Vaughan, you darling.” She lifted up and kissed him on the cheek, enjoying the scent of him, the slight brush of the sideburn sloping along his cheek. “We make a good team.”

  Vaughan had manicured hands. Well looked after. Used to folding idly over blueprints or spreading out to emphasize a vision in a presentation. His fingers weren’t long like Hamish’s. Or bruised from whatever he got himself into. There were none of the scars that Hamish’s right hand bore: from years of digging his nails into the skin in anxious moments. Vaughan noticed her study and tightened his hold. “I know what you’re worried about.”

  “What’s that?” She lifted her eyes and met his blue ones with her own.

  “That after we’re married I will expect you to turn into some version of your mother, running those DAR meetings and keeping house. I know that you will want to continue what you started here, Regina. I only ask one thing.”

  Here it starts. Reggie swallowed. She owed him this conversation, even as her mind snagged on the case she would rather have been pursuing. She straightened her shoulders, pasted on a coy smile. “What’s the one thing?”