Murder in the City of Liberty

by Rachel McMillan

  “I’m going to think out loud.”

  “What? Again?” Reggie’s voice was light.

  “I was thinking about a trial.”

  “Pleasant time to think about a trial!” Reggie chortled.

  “In school. It was on one of our exams. In the example, a fellow was standing trial for sabotaging his own property. He stood to gain more by destroying his property than by selling it. The insurance.”

  “Oh.” Reggie rolled a corner of the paper between two fingers.

  “What do we know so far, Reggie?”

  “That when we go find Kelly he will be accepting his last shipment and working very hard to make his property disappear? I wonder.”

  Hamish tucked a requisition into his suit jacket. “We know that Kelly really wants to keep his property. When I was there, I saw several pamphlets from the Christian Patriots. This is a man who knows to keep an eye out for prospective rivals.”

  Reggie sank onto Toby’s bedspread. Her eyes flitted around the room, and she almost rose again, worried that she had gotten too comfortable and desecrated a sacred space. The wallpaper. The sweater haphazardly hung on a hook behind the door. As if Toby might barge through the door any moment.

  “The Christian Patriots are pacifists.” Hamish lowered his voice as if someone might be around and would hear them. His eyes sought all four corners of the small room. “At least they have tricked themselves into believing they are pacifists. The war my country is fighting is, to them, a distraction from their cause. False. Fake. Why would they stand by and let someone capitalize on weapons and ammunitions for what they think is a fake and organized war? We talked about this!”

  “So . . .”

  “They think there is some virtue in stopping what is happening in my country and overseas from coming here. And any money they would make—perhaps at the expense of the very people they want to eliminate from their perfect world—could help spread their philosophy.”

  “Money! People who would jump at the chance to live in the new building might be the perfect bait for their rallies and pamphlets.” She warmed to his theme, face animated. “But also someone who wants the opposite. Whose sole gain is to make a buck.”

  “Precisely.”

  She looked over Hamish’s shoulder. “Toby would keep Kelly from getting that money.”

  Hamish nodded. “But the kid playing both sides? He was smart, but he was just a kid.”

  “You think someone else was at the helm?”

  Hamish didn’t answer. Reggie rose, smoothed over the blanket on Toby’s bed. Took one last look around a room that stung her with nostalgia for a childhood she had never lived. A childhood of the scent of apple pie drifting from downstairs (as it was now) and sun streams buttering a homemade bedspread (as they were now).

  Reggie was a little overwhelmed. But happy at the same time.

  * * *

  Reggie insisted she return to the office to collect the office gun before they confronted Pete, miffed that she hadn’t thought to bring it in the first place. Hamish wanted to cycle over immediately and get a head start. Gun or no gun.

  “You sure you can protect yourself?” Reggie asked. Logically. More logically than Hamish responded when he answered in the affirmative.

  Hamish nodded. He wanted to buy time in case someone showed up. As his tires skidded into the white signs marking Hyatt and Price’s development a half hour later, he made out Kelly at the side of the building.

  “Mr. Kelly!” Hamish called, hopping off his bicycle and walking toward the open door.

  “Mr. DeLuca.”

  “Miss Van Buren and I couldn’t figure out what player would play horrible pranks. Not only that, but get the means to. A fish. A chicken. A pig’s heart. Gruesome.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Hamish nodded. “You do. And you had the means to do it. Joe. The janitor. He’s a connection of yours. A customer. You had someone to help you.”

  “What would I care about a baseball player?”

  “You needed to distract him. You had Errol’s kid nephew doing all sorts of things. Figuring things out. What’s more, you didn’t like the idea of someone like Errol playing for any league: farm league or no. And to add insult to injury, he was the first investor to rent. People are always shipping stuff through here. Boats coming and going, you could have easily taken what you wanted. A gun. I do think you went to the ballpark that night to confront Errol. To see if you could bribe him. Or taunt him. Joe would tell you when he would be around. And he was that night.” Hamish took a breath. “And then you found out that Toby wasn’t just working for you.”

  Kelly turned from Hamish. “You might want to collect that bicycle of yours and go back to where you came from.”

  “Toby met someone playing both sides. Someone way out of your league.”

  Kelly blinked. “You’re wasting my time.”

  “You got scared when my cousin was back in town. You’re scared now, which is why you think you can still find a way to make a buck. You’ll light fire to this building and turn a profit. Keep Hyatt and Price from ever getting to it. But it won’t work. Because they have high-priced lawyers—the same lawyers they probably came and spooked you with before you found me. They will find a way to take all of it. You won’t get the insurance. You won’t—”

  “I am on a bit of a deadline.” Kelly cut Hamish off, his face unchanged. He turned into the door and Hamish followed him, though he couldn’t see in the middling dark what Kelly was reaching down to pick up.

  It became ultimately clear at the flick of Kelly’s torch.

  “You’re setting this place on fire! For the insurance. Act of God. Can’t be much of an act of God if they find the match and the gasoline can. And a witness.”

  Kelly shoved Hamish against the wall and ran outside. Hamish found his balance and followed him. He sloshed gasoline around his shoes then made a dripping trail.

  Hamish pounced, wrestling Kelly, and the can toppled, a steady pungent stream spilling onto the grass.

  Kelly was strong, but Hamish was fast. Reflexes compensated for every sudden movement.

  Hamish ducked at Kelly’s swing then leveled a few of his own. He whipped his glasses off and tucked them in his pocket. They were so closely engaged, he could make out the heavy breath and perspiration and ire on his opponent’s face.

  “I didn’t mean for the kid to be killed.”

  Hamish blinked fury from his eyes. They stung with sweat and now with something else. Something split between hoping Reggie would arrive with a gun and hoping she would stay clear away.

  “I’ve had quite the business offer of late. Kid would have gotten in my way.” Kelly panted, repositioning himself. Falling back. “So much for my good deed. Thought the kid would be quiet. Out of respect to his uncle. Started sending his uncle things. But then someone made me a huge offer and I couldn’t have my mistake of a clumsy teenager be the one thing that kept me from it.”

  “Who!” Hamish bellowed. “Who showed up?” He knew the answer.

  Kelly started to reach into his pocket, but Hamish was faster, clutching both of Kelly’s forearms. Hamish gritted through his teeth. “The police are coming, you know. And you just gave me a confession.”

  “Confession!” Kelly laughed. “I don’t think you’ll be around to report it.” Kelly showed him a packet of matches.

  Hamish’s eyes widened and he wrestled him down. Kelly squirmed until he had enough momentum to throw Hamish off, then landed a careful blow to his nose. Hamish’s world buzzed a moment; he held his face and rolled back. When he blinked the blurriness away, Kelly was holding up a match, making a show of striking it on his shoe. “You’ll have to be quicker.”

  Hamish’s quickening heartbeat startled the breath from him as the slow flame flickered then licked and snaked over the gasoline-ravaged grass. Hamish leapt to his feet in pursuit of Kelly as the fire raced. There was a sound to it too. A sudden, sickening roar. Hamish blinked a
s it crawled up the sides of the warehouse.

  He tackled Kelly from behind. But the fire was too close. Kelly swerved and landed another blow to Hamish’s face. Hamish coughed and took it, rallying enough to return the same. Kelly fell back and Hamish lost him like a shadow, the smoke stinging his eyes and turning his vision into a wall of blurriness.

  He blinked it away and panted a moment. He needed to breathe. But couldn’t. The smoke was suffocating. But he needed to. The longer he worried about not being able to, the faster his heartbeat thudded and his nerves snapped.

  He slipped his hand beneath his right suspender a moment, finally finding Kelly in shadow. He reached out to pull him up. Tough him. Grip him. But Kelly had a weapon Hamish didn’t have.

  The gasoline can.

  And Hamish’s world went black.

  * * *

  Reggie was with Reid, of all people. She had headed straight back to the office after their visit to Jean’s, and Reid was waiting.

  “I’m here for a gun,” Reggie said.

  “And I’m here because after weeks and weeks of waiting I finally have a warrant for Kelly.”

  “What? How?”

  Reid nodded enthusiastically. “Some small infraction. Minuscule. But enough. And even in my jurisdiction.”

  “I need to find Hamish. He was going to confront him.”

  “Ride with me?”

  Reggie was enjoying the stint in a police car. Smoothing her skirt and laughing at Reid’s attempts at humor. It wasn’t until they neared Fiske’s Wharf that she started to feel uneasy . . . unsure . . . panicked.

  Smoke swirled as Reggie and Reid inspected the looming fire from the car windows.

  Reid tried to calm her. “I see your ring there.” He nodded from the driver’s seat. “You’re engaged. Congratulations.”

  Reggie tried to speak but instead just squeaked and nodded.

  They parked far away from the smoke. Gray and billowing.

  “You stay here,” Reid said firmly, placing a restraining hand on her shoulder. “Stay here. I am going to see if I can help.”

  Reggie looked out the gritty window. The firemen and ambulance were just arriving. The smoke was overpowering, crawling through the door Reid quickly opened and stealing her breath.

  “You promise you’ll stay here? Don’t make me handcuff you.”

  Reggie coughed, nodded. Lied.

  She waited until he was out of sight. Which wasn’t long considering the black cloud was spreading. She fingered her ring. She couldn’t bring her hand to her necklace. Breathe. Hope. It was hard to do either when everything before her was an inferno.

  She opened the car door and stepped into the murky gray. Well, it’s preferable to water, she lied to herself as her eyes began to sting and the atmosphere swelled and closed in, choking her.

  A fireman grabbed her arm. It took her a moment before she saw him, blinking, but she shoved him off.

  * * *

  At the very least, when he imagined dying, he hoped it would be in the middle of an adventure. Quasimodo protected his saints and his monsters of stone from Frollo’s men and the Parisian guards and even Clopin, king of the Romany people, and his willing followers. He protected what was his from the raging smoke. Hamish was light-headed, probably a bit delirious too. For once he entertained a few Hunchback of Notre-Dame comparisons, thinking of the battlefields far, far away. His mouth was dry. He tasted grit and everything around him was closing in like a wall.

  He tried standing up but his bones felt like gelatin and he lay down again. He didn’t know where Pete was. If he had gotten away. He didn’t know. He was slowly getting sleepy, his eyes fluttering shut. He should put on his glasses so they could identify him. But then, just as his eyelids were railing against the gray, he thought he saw something. Sunshine. A splash of yellow. His eyes widened.

  Reggie wore yellow. Reggie had been wearing yellow. Earlier when they had Cokes at Errol’s place. Yellow like her engagement ring. He slumped a little and decided to just sleep it off . . . forever if needed. Until she called his name.

  * * *

  The outfit would be ruined. It was expensive too. One she kept from her time as a Van Buren debutante. Sartorially impressive. It contrasted nicely against her chestnut hair. A dozen times she thought she’d found him, pressing through the haze with her arm, tainting her dress. And then she did. It had to be him. Even with black hair and black, sooty clothing, she saw him. Just a moment. A flash of unbelievably blue eyes through the fog.

  Reggie dashed over, pulled him up with strength she didn’t know she had, the muscles in her arms feeling like they were being ripped out, her arms from their sockets too.

  “Don’t you dare, Hamish!”

  His stiff form beside her straightened and suddenly he was helping her. Moving on his own. Away, away from the smoke, through the waterfall spray of water hoses and in the direction of the river.

  She could see him. The curtain of dark parted and a wide slice of moonlight made its place beyond the fire and dark.

  He was coughing, spluttering. Wiping the grime from his face. He looked at her a moment, squinting. She wasn’t sure he completely saw her. Then he fell back, coughing again.

  Reggie looked at him, scrunched and smeared and singed. Then back toward the building alive with eerie flames, barely controlled by the firemen, and her mind made a connection of That was too close while her heart had another idea altogether.

  So her fingers were entangled in the back of his hair and her lips were on his. Claiming him again and again—over his lips and then over the ash smudged on his cheekbones and the smoky line of hair at each temple. She kissed him and kissed him and she was sure the tears trailing from her eyes stung his dry lips, but he kissed her back. Still. She was shaking. Her mouth tasted like ash and dust. But she didn’t care. He had almost died and she hadn’t spared two ticks of a thought before racing to go with him.

  When they fell apart, hands still holding on for dear life, he sought her surprised eyes underneath the ratty light.

  “You shouldn’t have come after me, Reggie.” His thumb ran over her cheek, catching a strand of hair.

  But she had to. Her Hamish with his glasses and his long nose and his beautiful eyes. He tugged the sun into her sky in the moments she saw him every day. She wanted to fall into him and keep him safe and navigate a twisting road less traveled with him at her side. She was sorry they had spent any time navigating around each other and a few misunderstandings and her own anger at his decisions. Love was imperfect. And so was he. But she loved him all the same.

  Hamish’s glasses sat askew at a dilapidated angle, a strange contrast to his face: a hybrid of red and gray smog. While he held her, she stole a moment to look down at the muted twinkle of her diamond ring, filmed by soot. She brushed it against her skirt until she was certain it shone again. Brushed and brushed again and again until it hurt. Everything hurt.

  Her brain backpedaled, the cloud of smoke and passion and the eternity of their kiss clearing into cold reality. There was Vaughan and her father’s bankbook beyond the tumbledown hair of this man before her: his soft touch and big eyes, drinking her deftly in. Who was she? Reggie was rebellious but not unfaithful. She knew what her commitment to Vaughan meant.

  She took a moment and pulled away, rubbing at her forearms. Where was she? Away from smoke and danger, away from the tight pull of his arms, the wavering passion in his kiss, the uncertain yet desperate tangle of his arms.

  “I’m sorry,” she tried to say steadily, knowing his own tremulous voice in a moment of intense fear or passion would never match the steadiness in her own. “The lack of oxygen has gone to my brain.”

  Even in the dark and smoke, rippled through by the blare of sirens, she could see his heartbreak, and then she felt it with an intensity that caught in her throat.

  “O-of course,” he stuttered. And it had been so warm and wanting to be with him, near him. Reggie, you stupid girl.

  “I’m engaged,” s
he said lamely, as if it could possibly patch up the rift in their friendship their pressed closeness had spliced. She would tell herself it was the intensity of a near-death experience. She would tell herself. She would . . . Oh, there were a million things she would do later, and they would all lead to her biting her self-manicured nails at the web she had tangled around her heart.

  “I know.” Hamish’s voice was hollow as if a rug had been pulled out from it and he had fallen. “I wasn’t much of a gentleman.” His right hand was shaking, and as headlights pulled in near, she saw a garish red slice across it.

  “Hamish, you’re hurt!”

  “Reggie, I love you.”

  “I know.” She licked her dry lips and regretted it because the motion took a little bit of him from her.

  “And that’s it?” His voice splintered.

  She realized she wasn’t absently rubbing her engagement ring, but rather tugging at the locket he’d given her. Spira, Spera. Well, the breathe part was nearly impossible with the leftover swirls of smoke and the air she was just beginning to replenish after kissing him again and again and again. But hope? “It was an end-of-the-world kiss.”

  He scrubbed his hair, dull gray with matted soot. Reggie’s eyes turned away from him to the skeleton of the building still consumed by smoke and fire in the hazy moonlight. She had made such a mess. Her eyes pricked with tears she hoped were camouflaged by smoke. “When you think it is the end of your life and everything is scary and falling apart and you are relieved to see the one person who . . . matters the most.”

  Hamish was impossible to read after that moment. She had confused him and given in to the stupidest impulse of her life.

  “Do you need to see a medic?” he rasped.

  “You need to see the medic,” she said.

  Voices milled and the volume mounted, and soon Reggie and Hamish were bordered by two police cars, a fire truck that had roared in from Haymarket Square, and a medic’s van. Hamish insisted Reggie see a doctor even though she countered that he was the one with the injured hand. He ignored her. The headlights and torchlights illuminated him: sooty shirt open at the collar, hair a disaster, long, sinewy limbs dragging, blue eyes electric against the smoky dark.