I laughed. “Did he get away with it?”
“Oh, no, they arrested him. Thought he was just some foreigner with dirty ways. Everyone thought the scandal would destroy his career. Only, the next time he shows up at the Metropolitan Opera, he gets a standing ovation from the assembled great and good.”
As we reached Fifth Avenue, he said, “So there you have it. Beware men with mustaches in monkey houses.”
“Thank you for the warning.”
The mood had shifted, and it seemed we were friends again. Still, I thought of the article he was no doubt already writing in his head, the pain it would cause the Tylers—and people like Anna and her family. There would be no room in those tight black-and-white lines for good intentions or human error. It would all be viciousness and stupidity … venal foreign hordes versus American goodwill and gullibility.
I asked, “Do you really think Sullivan was telling you the truth?”
“I think I put three whiskeys into him, that should be enough for candor. You really think it’s not possible?”
“Why kill her if she was in on it?”
“Revenge and to stop her talking. The Black Hand’s hard on the people who rat them out. She double-crossed them once, why trust her a second time? They get her to leave the window open. Use her to tell them the layout of the house. Then…” He waved a finger in front of his throat. “Revenge on her and Tyler both. Would have worked out fine if Mabel hadn’t sounded the alarm.”
“And you think Sandro Ardito was part of it?” He nodded. “But why make arrangements to meet a woman he knew would be dead?”
“Could be Sullivan’s theory about keeping her quiet.” He was tactful enough not to repeat the rest. “If the baby had been kidnapped, suspicion would have fallen on her right away. This way they make her think they’re getting her out of the Tyler house, giving her refuge. Could also be his sister’s right and he’s an idiot and they don’t tell him everything.”
I was trying to think of a way to refute this when he said, “You ask your friend Caruso about the Black Hand. A few years ago, a gang sent him a mano nera letter, demanding two thousand dollars. And he paid it. Guess what happened then?”
“What?”
“He got more letters, a lot of letters. Famous singer’s handing out cash, you put your hand out, right? One gang asked for fifteen thousand dollars. That’s when the great tenor decides to go to the police. They arranged a drop-off, and when the two, er, businessmen showed up to collect, the cops arrested them. But I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that they happened to be Italian.”
“There are Irish gangs, too.” Although the only Irish name that came to mind was Paul Kelly—who was actually Paolo Antonio Vaccarelli.
“The Irish? We’re amateurs. Like shining shoes, Italians shoved us out of that business long ago.”
Nearing the Benchley house, we saw a small boy with a batch of newspapers under his arm, yawning where he stood, eyes half-closed. Seeing us, he said hopefully, “Evening paper, mister?”
“That paper’s four hours old,” said Behan. Nevertheless, he dug into his pocket and gave the boy some money. Then he took all the papers and said, “Go home.”
As the boy ambled down the street, I said, “I’ve never asked. Are there smaller Behans?”
“We’re not yet in a position to afford posterity.” He held out one of the papers.
I took it. “What will you tell Mr. Benchley?”
“That Mr. Tyler’s judgment on who he can trust isn’t what he thinks it is. Why—what would you tell him?”
“Why tell him at all? If you’re going to reveal to the world that Italians are violent criminals and Charles Tyler is a fool?”
“This wasn’t a vacation, Miss Prescott. I owe my editor a story. It’s going to be a long night as it is.”
“You’re printing tomorrow?”
“Or the next day. ‘She was a Servant of the Black Hand. They Paid Her in Death.’ No, you need Tyler in there…”
“Please, Mr. Behan.”
He took my hand, either in apology or farewell. “Good night, Miss Prescott. I wish Louise Benchley every happiness.”
14
I don’t remember climbing the stairs. I half remember shucking off my clothes, the sound of the newspaper as it fell to the floor. I recall gazing down at its pages, OUR TRIBUTE TO TITANIC DEAD: Men Who Sacrificed Life for Women Lauded as True Americans. Thinking I shouldn’t leave a mess. Deciding it could all wait until tomorrow.
I don’t recall lying down or closing my eyes, but I do remember the dream. In darkness, I had the sense of being weightless, spinning in emptiness. My skirts billowed and clutched my legs, my hair lifted from my scalp, my arms were heavy when I moved them. I understood that I was underwater, and just as I understood, I felt I could not breathe.
I reached up, fingers stretching, hoping to break through, feel air. But I grasped only water. I flew—raising and lowering my arms, looking upward to where the light should be, but saw darkness. My lungs constricted, my arms grew tired, and I floated.
I did not see them, but I became aware that my mother and sister were somewhere with me in the dark. In my mind, I called to them, but they had been dead when they went into the water and could not hear me. It occurred to me that I might be dead, but surely they would hear me in that case?
A dark shadow formed before me and my heart grew even more agitated—bad to drown, worse to be eaten. But it was no approaching leviathan, just a human form with floating hair like mine. A man. The water stirred the edge of his coat, roiled his pant legs, I knew the cloth to be rough, woolen. Once I had held it in my fist.
His arms were out and I reached. I kicked, tried to get closer. But the more I moved toward him, the more he moved away. I flailed, swinging arms, legs, twisting in the ocean to catch up, not be left, left alone to sink. Even as I struggled, the thought came, If I reach him, we are heavier together, we sink faster, there will be no reaching daylight. And it does not matter anyway because there is no more air and everything aches.
Dying hurts, your body swells, begins to burst, the bones crack, and you hear your heart pound its last beats …
There is a point, I suppose, when dreams become too dark. Death comes too close, and the body rebels. And so I flung myself up, covers falling back, hand on my heart, which was pounding against my ribs. I breathed in once, twice, several times, to reassure myself there was air. I was in my room in the Benchley house, and it was only the middle of the night. Not in fact the fathomless depths of the ocean.
There was even a knock at the door. Elsie’s twanging voice saying my name. I called, “Yes?” and she peeked in the door.
“You were screaming.”
Yes. In the dream, I had been screaming. I could remember the cold, salt seawater as it rushed into my mouth. I looked at the newspapers on the floor. “I should stop reading stories about the Titanic.”
“I think so!” She sounded Midwestern and indignant, like a farmwoman who has caught the hired hand doing something he shouldn’t. It was a comforting sound, an echo of a simpler world where the forthright expression of disapproval is enough to right wrongs.
“I’m sorry I woke you.” I tugged at my hair and rubbed my eyes. It seemed we were both up. I could see the pink of dawn out the window.
Elsie perched on the edge of my chair. “That’s all right. I keep dreaming something bad’s happening back home and I’m not there.”
“You miss your family?” She never spoke of them, and I had assumed otherwise.
“I guess. They wanted me to marry this old man down the road. He was a widower, smelled like one, if you don’t mind my saying so. I told them no, I’m not doing it. First time in my life I’d ever told them that. They said, Well, you’re earning one way or another, so I said, Fine, I’ll get a job.”
“And you came to New York.”
“I was so mad at them, I thought, I’ll get as far away as possible and then they’ll be sorry.” She wrinkled her nose
. “You’re stupid when you’re young, you know?”
The younger self she referred to had existed just six months ago. But it was true, there was a big difference between the Elsie who had first arrived at the Benchleys’ and the woman I was speaking to now.
Then she said, “You know how it is with parents.”
“I don’t.”
“Oh, you’re an orphan, I’m sorry.”
“Orphan”—that was a title that had never occurred to me. “I don’t know,” I said truthfully. “My mother died a long time ago. But my father might still be alive.” I smiled as if I found the memory funny. “He left me on a bench when I was three with a note pinned to my jacket.”
Elsie’s mouth dropped. “You ever think of looking for him?”
I thought of the personal ad in the paper, the one Sofia had circled. If the gentleman who left a child at the docks many years ago sees fit to make the acquaintance of that child who is a child no longer …
I shook my head. Changed the subject. “So, it was no to the widower.” Elsie wrinkled her nose and stuck out her tongue. “Would it have been yes for someone else?”
She ducked her head. “There was one boy, he liked someone else, though. I think they got married.”
“I’m sorry.”
She shrugged, then asked, “Is it true someone got killed at the Tyler house? Bernadette overheard Mr. Benchley talking about it on the phone.”
One day Mr. Benchley would open the door fast enough and Bernadette would be out of a job, I thought. But the news would come out sooner or later; Michael Behan was no doubt typing it up as we spoke.
“Yes. A young woman in the Tylers’ employ was killed.”
There are two questions that follow such a statement. Elsie chose, “How?” first. I told her.
Then she asked the second. “They know who did it?”
“Not yet. People have different ideas.”
“What’s your idea?” she asked.
“Well, there was another employee there who was in love with her.”
“But she didn’t love him?”
“She did not.”
“That happened in my town,” Elsie said. “Willa Turner. Sam Burdock liked her and she went with him for a while. But then she started up with Daniel Meecham, and I guess she forgot to tell Sam. He got real angry about it.”
“And?”
“Well, he…”
She put a hand to her throat and squeezed.
“He killed her?”
She nodded. “It was so sad. I don’t think he ever would have done it if she’d—”
“What?”
Elsie shrugged. “Well, you can’t go with two boys and think it’s going to be all right. That kind of thing would make anybody mad. Especially Sam. He was the type who feels things real deeply. Willa should have known better.”
“What happened to Sam?”
“He left town. I think everyone thought that was for the best. Daniel took it hard, and it must have been strange for Sam, seeing Willa’s family at church, and them feeling bad. It was all just a … mess, you know? I mean, three lives were ruined when you think about it.”
Only one life ended, though. I thought to ask Elsie why Sam received her—and the town’s—mercy when he had killed a woman and Willa received none because she should have known better. But did not. I had woken her up, that was enough.
“Didn’t the police want to arrest him?” I asked.
“Why? It was a personal matter, you don’t want the law getting involved in that. Wasn’t like Sam was a danger. Just love gone wrong.”
Love? Love. The word echoed peculiarly; had Elsie chosen the wrong word or was I just strangely preoccupied with the concept these days?
Elsie’s day was about to start, so she went to wash and dress. Yawning, I decided I needed water, directly in the face. Going to a small table where there was a jug of water, a bowl, and cloth—the Benchleys gave the in-house staff their own rooms, but bathing facilities were shared and down the hall—I poured out some water, splashed it on my face, and opened and closed my eyes several times. Then I wondered what Michael Behan was doing. Had he gotten any sleep or had he stayed up all night writing his article?
I had just struggled into my clothes when Elsie called from downstairs, “Missus on the phone for you, Miss Prescott.”
Hurrying down to the first floor, I took up the receiver. “Mrs. Benchley?”
“Oh, Jane! Jane, you must come back—”
“Yes, I’m coming on the afternoon train.”
“No, now!” she wailed. “You must come now.”
“Why, what’s wrong?”
“She’s done it! The foolish girl has gone and done it. I don’t know what to do with her—”
“Done what, Mrs. Benchley? Who has done what?”
“Louise! She’s broken off the engagement. No wedding, she says, not now, not ever! She’s packing her bags—packing her own bags, Jane!—right now. Says she’s leaving this afternoon, even if she has to walk to the train station. You must come now, Jane. There’s not a minute to lose!”
15
And so I returned to Pleasant Meadows. On the train, I tried to fathom what had inspired Louise to take such a drastic step. Had the mothers finally pushed her past the point of endurance? Had William’s mother said something unforgiveable? Or William himself? Her nerves had been so taut, even gentle teasing might have struck her as unbearable cruelty.
Whatever the provocation, I couldn’t help feeling that the cause of the break would be Louise’s terror of marriage. I had only been away for two days, but that could have been enough time for her worst imaginings to run wild. I thought of What Every Mother Should Know, packed under several layers of clothes in my case. I doubted it had the answer to her problems.
I stepped off the train to see that the distress call had gone out to others. William’s sister Beatrice was standing on the platform awaiting the Tylers’ charabanc.
As fond as I was of Beatrice, her history with the Benchley family was byzantine in its complexity and malice. Beatrice had been Norrie Newsome’s prospective bride for years. Tall and dark, she shared with Norrie a contempt for the proprieties of their world. She had been a poor relation for much of her life; some people in that position learn to grovel, but Beatrice’s spine was too strong. But mourning had taken its toll and what had been a lively, if cutting, wit had turned bitter lately.
We had crossed paths for a decade, and now she approached, saying, “How bad is it, Jane?”
“I don’t know. I was in the city. Mrs. Benchley telephoned and told me to come immediately.”
“I got the same call from Mother. She expects me to talk Louise into going through with it. Emily, too. I don’t know what Mother thinks either of us can do.”
Mindful of Louise’s terror of the Tyler sisters, I offered, “Perhaps if Miss Louise felt certain of her welcome…”
“I can’t say I do welcome her. I know she’s not so awful herself, although scintillating conversationalist is not how I’d describe her. Ma may be thrilled at the thought of spending the Benchleys’ millions, but the thought of seeing that vicious little hussy, Charlotte—yes, I know you work for her—at every family gathering from here on in, it’s enough to make me want to move to Kalamazoo and raise goats.”
I tried a different tack. “Miss Louise makes your brother happy.”
“Does she?” Beatrice gazed out at the road. “I can’t say I’d noticed. Oh, he likes swanking around as the family savior, but do you think they really get along so well?”
Choosing my words carefully, I said, “I think they both know what it feels like to be belittled by those close to them.”
“Maybe they’re just little people,” she said flippantly. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. I’m sorry. I know you’re very fond of her.”
Not before time, Mr. Grimaldi pulled up in the charabanc. We avoided eye contact, each of us acting as if our meeting in the city had never occurred. I thought
of Behan’s article. What would happen to him when it was printed? Tyler would doubtless feel the pressure to fire everyone of Italian background on his staff. That I could feel no pleasure at the prospect of Tyler turning on Grimaldi told me how much my thinking had changed in the last twenty-four hours. Maybe I could persuade the Benchleys to take him on. He would be an improvement over O’Hara.
As we approached the house, Beatrice looked up at the top floor and asked, “Is that where the poor girl died?”
Aware of Mr. Grimaldi, I said, “Yes, it’s sad. She was a lovely person.”
“Weddings do seem to end in death with the Benchleys, don’t they?”
Beatrice was met at the door by her mother, who took her inside. I went around the back of the charabanc, where Mr. Grimaldi was unloading the luggage, and said I would take Miss Beatrice’s suitcase upstairs. He nodded curtly and I felt a flash of guilt that I had let Mr. Behan treat him so roughly.
But as he handed me the case, he said tentatively, “Miss Prescott?”
“Yes?”
He sidled closer. “Sofia. Did you find out anything?”
His eyes were anxious, his tone concerned. Still, I hesitated, not wanting to share a story I was not yet ready to believe.
I asked him, “Do you know how she came to be working for the Tylers?”
“No, but … I guessed. She was frightened when she came. Always—” He glanced nervously around in imitation. “She was smart then. But she forgot. So, they killed her?”
There was something odd in his voice, as if he were seeking reassurance. Why would the news that Sofia had been killed by the Black Hand be comforting? Then I remembered his phantom rival.
“Yes. There was no other man.” He didn’t need to know about Sandro Ardito.
It is to Mr. Grimaldi’s credit that this did not cheer him especially. Almost to himself, he said, “She was a good girl. Thank you for telling me, Miss Prescott.”
Death of a New American--A Novel Page 15
