A Fatal Four-Pack

by P. B. Ryan

“She can be quiet when she wants.”

  Nell said, “Do you have any idea where she might have gone?”

  “Nope.”

  Addressing the detective, Nell said, “She might not have left voluntarily, given that she didn’t take anything with her, or tell Molly she was leaving.”

  “I considered that,” he said, “but Molly tells me the two of them sleep in the same bed. Surely Molly would have woken up if Pearl had been abducted against her will.”

  Jack said, “She probably just decided she didn’t want the trouble of testifying—or getting sober.”

  It was understandable that Jack chose to believe, as Cook did, that Pearl had left on her own, given that her disappearance was such a boon to his case. But Nell’s conscience wouldn’t permit her to so easily dismiss the more ominous possibility. “The abductor might have had a gun, or a knife, and threatened to kill her if she made any noise,” she pointed out.

  Flynn spoke up for the first time. “Roy Noonan’s got a gun and a knife.”

  “So does every other ruffian in this town.” Detective Cook churned that great jaw in thoughtful rumination. “Where was William Touchette last night?” he asked, looking from Nell to Jack, and back again.

  Jack seemed momentarily thrown by the question, but recovered swiftly. “He...he was in my house, asleep. He’s staying with me.”

  “You’re sure he didn’t leave?”

  “I would have seen him if he had. I was up all night reading in the library, with the door open.” Reading and drinking, Nell assumed; she knew a morning head when she saw one.

  “All night?”

  “I have trouble sleeping sometimes.”

  That last bit, about Jack’s wakefulness, was true enough. He’d told Nell while driving her over here in his smart little one-horse gig that he’d reread Mr. Fourier’s The Social Destiny of Man start to finish last night. He’d been too uneasy to sleep, he’d explained, after hearing Will steal out of the house around midnight—presumably to gamble. Dawn was breaking by the time Will returned, groggy and disheveled and uninterested in Jack’s advice that he adopt more circumspect habits, at least until his murder case was resolved.

  Clearly, Jack was lying about Will’s whereabouts last night not just because gambling was a violation of his bail conditions, but in order to prevent him from being implicated in Pearl’s disappearance. Regardless of whether Will had anything to do with it—and Nell couldn’t believe, didn’t want to believe, that he had—it wouldn’t do to ignore the possibility that Pearl was in terrible trouble. “I don’t have to tell you how much I sympathize with your position, Mr. Thorpe,” she said. “But I’m afraid common decency obligates us to look for Pearl. If she was abducted against her will and is being held somewhere—”

  “She took her pictures,” Molly said. So unexpected was it for her to volunteer information that Nell and the three men just stared at her.

  The prostitute sucked on her cigarette, stained bloodred at the tip, held the smoke in her lungs for a few seconds, and blew it out in a stream. “She’s got two pictures—photographs, in velvet cases. One’s of her and her sisters, when they was all little. The other’s of her babies.”

  “She has children?” Nell asked.

  “They died within a day of bein’ born, both of ‘em. Little twin girls, Ernestine and Adelaide. She had a photograph made of the two of ‘em in their coffin. They was buried together,” she said with surprising wistfulness, “like two little china dolls in a box.”

  “Why did you tell us she didn’t take anything?” Cook asked.

  A negligent shrug. “I forgot about the pictures. Two pairs of shoes was missing, too, her favorites. Pearl, she loves them shoes of hers.”

  “She left on her own, then,” Jack said.

  Nell nodded in agreement; what kidnapper would let his victim gather her favorite things to bring along?

  “I mean to find her,” Cook said. “Does she have family somewhere?” he asked Molly.

  “Her sisters are mill girls in Charlestown, but they won’t have nothin’ to do with her.” She took another puff of her cigarette. “Can I go now? I’ve got a customer waitin’ for me upstairs.”

  “One more question, if you wouldn’t mind,” Nell said. Except for that altercation with Tulley around eight o’clock, Will had spent the entire evening of the murder in the back parlor, dozing off between bowls of opium. Without Pearl to tell the jury about Will’s fury toward Tulley and his resolve to “make him pay,” perhaps Jack could make a case for Will being too quiescent to mount such a vicious attack—assuming they could scrounge up enough witnesses who’d seen him after he’d smoked himself into a stupor. “The night Ernest Tulley was murdered,” Nell asked Molly, “did you happen to notice William Touchette in the back parlor?”

  “I was only in that part of the house once or twice,” Molly replied, “and I wasn’t there when they arrested him, so I’m not sure I’d know him if I saw him.”

  “Perhaps this will help.” Nell retrieved from her chatelaine bag the embossed leather case housing the photograph of Will, Robbie, Harry and Jack posing in the Red Room before the Children’s Aid ball in ‘58.

  “Oh,” Jack said when she snapped it open. “I remember that night. I’d forgotten all about that.”

  “This is him,” Nell said, pointing.

  Molly shook her head. “No. Sorry. Don’t recognize him.”

  “I do,” Flynn said. Pointing to the photograph, he added, “And that one, too.” It took Nell a moment to realize he was pointing to Harry. “He’s been in here regular. Molly, you’ve brung that one upstairs. I know you have.”

  Molly squinted at the photograph. “Oh, that one. Yeah, I guess I done it with that one.”

  Nell and Jack blinked at each other. “Harry Hewitt?” she said.

  “Yeah, he’s never one for the rats or the gong,” Flynn said. “Just the cards, the dice and the chippies. Brings his own bottle, always.”

  “He’s not so bad. Smells like French soap.” Molly stood, tucking both hands into her plunging bodice to plump her bosom. “I’ve got to go now, before my customer gets tired of waitin’.”

  Cook gazed at the stairway that squeaked with Molly’s retreating footsteps. “She knows where Pearl is,” he said.

  “What makes you think that?” asked a nonplused Jack.

  The detective sighed in Nell’s direction. “You tell him.”

  Nell wished, not for the first time, that Colin Cook weren’t quite such a good detective. “First, there’s the fact that Molly didn’t seem terribly upset by Pearl’s disappearance. Considering they’ve lived together for seven years, and are, by all reports, close friends, I would say it’s quite significant. She certainly wants to keep us from looking for Pearl. Why else would she suddenly ‘remember’ those missing photographs and shoes when I suspected foul play and started insisting that we look for her? If Pearl left of her own accord, there’s a good deal less urgency about the matter.”

  “Not as far as I’m concerned,” Cook said. “She’s still my only witness.”

  “Your only witness who can point the finger at my client,” Jack clarified.

  “That’s right,” Flynn said. “I keep tryin’ to tell you it was Noonan done the deed. Tulley wouldn’t pay up, so Noonan made an example of him. You want witnesses as to what Noonan’s capable of? Put the son of a bitch—sorry, miss—put the bastard behind bars, where he can’t get at them he’s done dirty to, and you’ll have more witnesses than you know what to do with.”

  “He’s got a point,” Jack said.

  Cook shook his head. “My gut tells me it’s Touchette.”

  Flynn said, “Your gut’s gonna get an innocent man hung and let that no-account Roy Noonan off scot-free to keep on doin’ like he’s been doin’. Nice work, Detective.” He spat on his own parlor floor and stomped off, muttering under his breath.

  Detective Cook watched him leave, then turned to regard Nell and Jack with an expression of weary forbearance.
“Tomorrow I’ll send someone across the river to Charlestown to check out the sisters, though I don’t expect that particular branch to yield any fruit, seeing as how Molly offered it up so easy. In the meantime, I’ll be posting some men near Molly and Pearl’s flat to keep an eye on Molly, shadow her if she heads anywhere but here.”

  It was exactly what Nell would have done—although she also would have followed up, and intended to follow up, on Noonan.

  “Not that we won’t convict William Hewitt regardless,” Cook added, buttoning his tweed overcoat. “No reasonable jury could look at the facts and doubt his guilt.”

  “You choose to believe that,” Nell said, “because you hate what he represents—that Brahmin sense of entitlement—and because it helps to alleviate your guilt over taking August Hewitt’s money to assume—”

  Cook’s gaze flicked toward Jack, then back to Nell.

  “He knows everything,” she said, adding the fabricated reassurance, “Who do you think hired him? It helps to alleviate your guilt to assume that William Hewitt killed Ernest Tulley. You must have doubts—you’re a smart man—but you hate to think you might be slipping the noose around the neck of an innocent man. Therefore he must have done it. Does any of this strike a chord of recognition in you, Detective?”

  Jack was staring at her, looking stunned and, if she wasn’t mistaken, a little impressed. Detective Cook shoved his bowler onto his head and executed a stiff little bow in her direction. “Miss Sweeney.” Turning to Jack, he said, “Mr. Thorpe. A pleasure to make your acquaintance. If I may be of further service, you know where to find me.”

  With that, he was gone.

  Jack wagged a finger at Nell, his eyes sparking in a way she suspected they rarely did anymore. “Why, you sharp-tongued little thing. I had no idea. Well...perhaps some.”

  “Come,” she said with a chuckle as she motioned him toward the kitchen. “I think I hear someone. I’ll bet that’s Kathleen.”

  It was Kathleen, in her ever-present head rag and apron, peeling her way through a mountain of potatoes at the kitchen table. She glanced up when Nell greeted her, the little knife in her big hand stilling in the act of shearing off a tendril of skin, then resumed her work. The abrasion on her cheek was much improved, making her look a good deal prettier than she had last week, despite her broad face and strapping bones.

  “Kathleen, this is Mr. Jack Thorpe, an attorney,” Nell said. “Mr. Thorpe, Miss Kathleen Flynn.”

  “Miss Flynn.” Jack bowed; Kathleen kept peeling.

  “Mr. Thorpe represents William Touchette, the man who was arrested for Ernest Tulley’s murder. I wonder if we might ask you some questions.”

  The girl’s shoulders twitched in what appeared to be assent of a sort. Nell and Jack seated themselves at the table.

  Jack said, “Would you mind telling us what happened in your room the evening of Saturday, February eighth, between Mr. Touchette and Mr. Tulley? We understand there was some sort of scuffle.”

  “Pearl told us about it,” Nell said when Kathleen just kept peeling, little furrows corrugating her broad brow. “She said the two men seemed to be fighting over you.”

  The girl looked up sharply, seemed on the verge of saying something, then closed her mouth and looked down, color mounting in her milk-white, lightly freckled cheeks; even without seeing her hair, Nell knew she was a redhead.

  “You can see how that would look pretty damning for my client,” Jack said. “It would appear to give him a motive for killing Mr. Tulley. Jealousy and all that.”

  Kathleen’s head shook—or rather, quivered—as she stared at the half-peeled potato in her hand. She opened her mouth a couple of times, only to close it. Finally she said, in her girlishly high-pitched brogue, “They wasn’t fightin’ over me. I mean, they was fightin’, but it wasn’t like that.”

  “What was it like, Kathleen?” Nell asked gently. “An innocent man may go to the gallows if we can’t set the record straight.”

  “He don’t deserve to hang. He didn’t do it, I know he didn’t. He ain’t that kind of man.”

  Jack said, “We don’t think so, either. What happened, Miss Flynn?”

  Kathleen sat back in her chair, one hand fisted around the potato, the other absently twirling the knife. Without looking up, her voice low and strained, she said, “That Tulley, he never could leave me be. I don’t know why. There’s women round here who would of given him what he wanted for the change in his pocket, but he used to pester me somethin’ fierce, didn’t like to take no for an answer.” She licked her lips nervously.

  “Did you tell your father?” Jack asked.

  Kathleen gave a dismissive little grunt. “He said I must be leadin’ Tulley on, said I was no better than them whores, but that ain’t true.”

  “Of course it’s not,” Nell said. “Did Tulley pester you that night?”

  “Worse,” she said softly. “He followed me up to my room and tried to...” She glanced up at Jack, her blush coalescing into ruddy splotches.

  “Go ahead, Kathleen,” Nell urged. “He’s got to hear it if he’s going to defend Mr. Touchette.”

  Frowning at the potato, her voice almost inaudible, she said, “I was settin’ on the bed, mendin’ my hose. He come in and...at first I thought it was that Roy Noonan, ‘cause they got a similar look, and Noonan’s a rough customer, too, but then I seen it was Tulley. He gets on top of me and starts...” The knife jittered in her hand. “He grabbed at me and tried to...lift my skirt. I hollered at him to get off me. I tried to hit him, so he punched me in the face.” Setting the potato down, she touched the partially healed scrape on her left cheek. “I seen stars for a minute, and when I went to get up, come to find out he’s tyin’ my hands to the headboard. I tried to scream, but he’d stuffed a stocking in my mouth. He’s got my skirt up, and he starts undoin’ his britches.”

  Nell reached across the table to squeeze her hand.

  “I thought my goose was cooked for sure,” Kathleen said, “but then he come in, and—”

  “He?” Jack said. “William Touchette?”

  “Yeah, him. It’s like Tulley just...lifted up off me and flew across the room. He hit the wall pretty hard. The one that done it—Touchette—he pulls down my skirt and unties my hands, but then Tulley comes to and they start throwin’ each other around. That Touchette, he landed some good punches, but Tulley, he just kept comin’.”

  “Did they exchange any words?” Nell asked.

  Kathleen looked uneasily at Nell, then at Jack; she picked up her potato and continued peelin’. “I don’t rightly remember.”

  “It’s all right,” Jack assured her. “I’m Mr. Touchette’s lawyer. Nothing you tell me will do him any harm. Did he say anything to Tulley?”

  She stopped peeling. “He said somethin’ like...’You’re gonna pay for what you done.’”

  Nell and Jack exchanged a sober look.

  “And he called him a bunch of names—I did, too, ‘cause I had that stocking out of my mouth by then—but mostly they just fought. Tulley was takin’ the worst of it, so he slams a chair over Touchette’s back and heads down them outside stairs, but that Touchette, he was right behind him. I’m not too sure what happened then, ‘cept I know the window in the pink room got broke, and Tulley got away.”

  “What about after that?” Nell asked. “Did you tell anyone what Tulley had tried to do?”

  She nodded. “I sent Pearl down to the rat pit to get Frank, and I told him—”

  “Frank?” Jack said.

  “Frank Castelli. It’s Franco, but I call him Frank. Him and me...” The girl’s blush deepened.

  “Did you tell your father?” Nell asked.

  “Nah, he wouldn’t care. He’d just say I brung it on myself.”

  “What was Mr. Castelli’s reaction?” Jack asked.

  “Oh, he was fit to be—”

  “What do you think my reaction was?”

  They turned to find Frank Castelli scowling in the doorway. His handsom
e, swarthy face was badly bruised, and there was a good-sized lump on his forehead.

  “Are they bothering you, Katie?” he asked as he came to sit next to her, one hand curling protectively around her shoulders.

  She shook her head. “This fella,” she said, nodding toward Jack, “he’s the lawyer for the one they arrested.”

  “Did Noonan do that?” Jack asked, indicating Castelli’s face.

  Castelli shrugged. “Ain’t no big deal.”

  “Were you late in paying money back to him?”

  “You kiddin’? I wouldn’t borrow money from that snake.”

  Nell said, “You don’t happen to know if Tulley did?”

  “Wouldn’t think so. He was a snake, too, but he wasn’t stupid. You got to be pretty low on lamp oil to take money from Roy Noonan. Reason he went after me,” he told Nell, “is ‘cause I spoke up when you and that copper was here the other night. He thinks he owns the lot of us, but he don’t.”

  Nell opened the leather photograph case and handed it across the table to Castelli. “Do you recognize any of these men?”

  “Well, this one’s him.” The young man nodded toward Jack as he pointed to his image in the photograph. “Only younger.”

  “What about the man standing next to me?” Jack asked.

  Kathleen, looking over her sweetheart’s shoulder, said, “That’s Touchette.”

  Castelli nodded. “I saw him when they arrested him.”

  “Did you notice him before that?” Nell asked.

  He shook his head. “Nah. I was down in the pit most of the night.”

  Nell felt a rush of disappointment; so far, the only witness to William Hewitt’s narcotic ennui was Seamus Flynn, who’d sold him the opium he’d spent the night smoking. Given that, and Flynn’s general dull-wittedness, it wouldn’t take a brilliant prosecutor to turn his testimony against Will.

  Kathleen said, “This other fella, in the fancy vest, settin’ on the arm of the chair, he’s been in here.”

  “Yeah, I seen once or twice,” Castelli said.

  Jack looked at Nell. Nell said, “It shouldn’t surprise us. Harry spends his nights prowling the gaming hells and watering holes. He was bound to find this place.”