“I think you’d better come outside with me, Hank.”
I looked up to see that Detective Bailey stood in the doorway, hat in hand. I didn’t know whether to be relieved or alarmed. Could we trust him? I didn’t know if he had been part of all of this. He was Detective Andrews’s partner, after all. Had the two of them been in on the smuggling—and the murder—together?
“What are you doing here, Bill?” Detective Andrews asked, and with the uncertainty in the question came my answer. Detective Bailey was on the side of right.
“I heard there was a fire at the Alden warehouse this morning. I figured you’d be here. Come outside, will you?”
“Sure. I’ll be out in a minute,” he said.
“No. I think you’d better come now.” Detective Bailey’s tone caught all of our attention, and I realized that his manner was different. There was something official in it now. The pretense of friendship had gone out of him.
Detective Andrews seemed to realize this, too, for he frowned. “What’s this about?”
“Just come outside, will you?”
Detective Andrews’s dark eyes swept the room, then came back to his partner, some sort of internal struggle clearly happening in his mind. He was deciding what to do, I realized. Deciding whether it would be best to give up or fight his way out of it. At last it seemed that he made up his mind.
“No,” he said, his jaw tightening, his eyes hard. “I’m not coming outside. I’m staying in here and doing my job.”
Detective Bailey looked at him for just a moment, something unreadable in his clear green eyes. At last, he spoke. “In that case, you force me to do mine. Harold Andrews, I’m arresting you for the murder of Grant Palmer.”
There was a moment of stunned silence, and then I heard Tabitha gasp.
Then Detective Andrews swore lustily, still keeping up pretenses, still trying to win a losing battle. “What are you talking about, Bill?”
“You know what I’m talking about.”
Two uniformed officers appeared in the doorway.
The game was up now. Detective Andrews knew it, but he was not the sort of man who would take defeat easily. He was a fighter, and he would fight until the end. “You’re crazy!” he said, his voice loud, his eyes bright, almost wild. “Is this some sort of joke?”
“I wish it was.”
“You can’t arrest me. I’m your partner. This is a betrayal!”
“Don’t talk to me about betrayal, Harry,” Detective Bailey said, his voice suddenly very cold. He turned to the uniformed officers. “Get him out of here.”
Detective Andrews turned to bolt like a cornered animal, but the young officers were too quick for him. Grabbing him by the arms, they pulled him, shouting protests and profanities, from the room.
When he had gone, Detective Bailey turned to us. His face was grim, a terrible weariness in his eyes. I could only imagine how difficult this had been for him, how hard it was to know that the man he had trusted with his life, had worked alongside for years in the cause of justice, was a cold-blooded killer.
“I thought he was up to something the past year or so,” he said at last. “He started acting strange, slipping off without me during some of our shifts. But I never had any proof of anything. Then we heard rumors that an informant was going to give information about Frankie Earl’s activities, and he seemed to get uneasy. The night Grant Palmer was killed, he had left the station, saying he was going to get something to eat. When we got the call, he was eager to be the one to investigate the crime. After I learned that Palmer worked for Earl, I started to suspect that Andrews might have been behind it. It wasn’t until an informant came forward this morning that we could conclusively tie Andrews to Frankie Earl.”
“Another informant?” I asked.
He nodded. “A man named Tiny Davis.”
I glanced at Milo, whose face revealed nothing. It was the man who had been tied up at De Lora’s. I could only imagine how Mr. De Lora had convinced him to go to the police.
“Detective Andrews was at the warehouse this morning,” I said. “He set it on fire with me inside.”
I heard Tabitha gasp behind me, and Mr. Alden swore beneath his breath.
Detective Bailey nodded. “That’s what Davis said. I’m sorry you had to go through that, Mrs. Ames. I’m glad you made it out.”
So was I.
“What’s going to happen now?” I asked.
“We might be able to tie this back to Frankie Earl, with Tiny Davis as a witness. If that happens, we can shut his drug operation down.”
“And what about Detective Andrews?” Tabitha asked from behind us.
“He’s going to prison, where he belongs.” He shook his head, the mask of professionalism slipping for just a moment, and I saw the sorrow in his eyes at this betrayal of his partnership and friendship and the ideals he had thought they shared.
“We’ll need you to make a statement,” he said, pushing away whatever sadness was pressing in on him, at least for the time being. “However, I know you must be tired from your ordeal, so I’ll come back tomorrow if that will suit you.”
“Yes,” I said, thinking longingly of my bed. “Tomorrow would be better.”
* * *
“I CAN’T BELIEVE all of this,” Tabitha said, when he had gone. “I would never have imagined any of it. Poor Grant.”
I did feel sorry for Grant Palmer. He had made a lot of poor choices, but he had not deserved to be murdered as he had. And perhaps, in his way, he had thought that working for the police would put him on the path to redemption. At least Frankie Earl might be made to pay for his crimes as a result of Mr. Palmer’s efforts.
“I wish Grant had never gotten mixed up with Frankie Earl,” Mr. Elliot said. “It seems now that Mr. De Lora was the lesser of two evils.”
“Yes,” I agreed. He had saved my life, after all.
“I don’t feel so bad that I helped him now,” Rudy said contemplatively.
I looked up at him. “Helped him?”
“Yes, you see, I … designed the matchbooks for De Lora’s.”
My brows rose, though I didn’t really know why I should be surprised. It made perfect sense. I remembered the very good ads that had hung behind his desk. Now that I thought about it, the style of the artwork had seemed vaguely familiar to me.
Rudy Elliot smiled sheepishly. “I told you Grant was always trying to throw advertising jobs my way. Well, Mr. De Lora wanted some custom designs, and I worked them up for him. I couldn’t tell anyone, of course, and after Grant was killed I was so worried that I had been linked up with his killer. I’m so relieved.”
“I saw them,” I told him. “They were very good designs.”
He smiled. “Thank you. Grant and I fought about some of them. I told him I was going to put Esther Hayes on one and he said he didn’t think De Lora would like it. I did it anyway, though, and I think it ended up being Mr. De Lora’s favorite matchbook.”
“I’m sure it was,” I agreed. I recalled the argument Jemma Petrie had overheard between Grant and Rudy. “I’m going to have her,” Mr. Elliot had said. He had meant the matchbook drawing of Esther Hayes.
He looked at his watch then. “It’s almost time for me to be at work. I don’t suppose I’d better give up my job for a life of nightclub design just yet. I’ll drop in tomorrow, maybe? When everything has settled down.”
Tom nodded. “Thanks, Rudy.”
“Well, this has all been a lot to digest,” Mr. Alden said as Mr. Elliot left. He looked tired, but there was something like relief in his expression, too. After all, he would now be rid of the threat of Frankie Earl and could enjoy his lucrative association with Mr. De Lora’s newest enterprise. “If you’ll all excuse me, I have some calls to make about the insurance.”
He left the room then and Tom turned to Milo. “I know now might not be the best time, but would you mind … could I have a word with you for just a moment?”
“Of course,” Milo said. Our eyes met b
efore he turned to follow Tom from the room, and I wondered what this was about. It was then I remembered that there had been a cloud hanging over the proceedings. Had Tom and Tabitha sorted out their differences, or were they going to tell us that the wedding had been cancelled?
I didn’t have long to wait to find out. As soon as they were gone, Tabitha turned to me. “Oh, Amory. I’m so happy! Tom and I have worked it all out. He said he was in no position to hold my indiscretion against me when he has his own.”
I frowned, uncomprehending at first. “You mean, he … there has been another woman?”
“Oh, no,” she said with a shake of her head, leaning closer. “He didn’t want to tell me, but he’s been hiding something.”
I realized then what she meant, that she had discovered what I had begun to suspect. “He was in prison with Grant Palmer,” I said.
Tabitha looked shocked and then she laughed. “No, thankfully it never came to that.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, surprised my supposition had been incorrect.
“Tom did something stupid when he moved to New York five years ago. He had no family left, no one to help him, and opportunities were scarce, so he took a job working for some rumrunners. He coordinated things with smugglers from Canada, which, in a funny way, gave him experience that comes in handy working for Alden Shipping. That’s how he met Grant, because Grant was buying some of the stuff for De Lora’s. Anyway, he made some kind of mistake and a shipment went missing. The bootleggers thought he was stealing from them, and I think they would’ve killed him if he hadn’t been able to come up with the money. But Grant stepped in and got him a loan from Rudy’s dad’s bank. He was still working there at the time. I think it was a little bit underhanded the way he did it, because, of course, you can’t take out a loan to pay back gangsters. But Tom paid back the money to the rumrunners and got out of the smuggling business. He learned his lesson and determined never to make the same mistake again. He’s very ashamed that he was ever doing anything illegal.”
It all made sense now, the secretive past, the way Tom and Mr. Palmer had both dodged the question of when and where they had met. Tom was, after all, the wholesome young man I had first taken him for, afraid his short entanglement with bootleggers would be a cause for scandal and ruin.
Then I remembered what Miss Petrie had said, about how she had overheard an argument between Tom and Grant Palmer, and that I’d heard part of it, too.
“Was Mr. Palmer demanding money to keep quiet about it? Jemma told me she overheard them quarreling.”
Tabitha frowned, then her expression cleared. “Oh, no. It was Tom who was borrowing money from Grant. Tom has been trying to pay back the money to the bank. He wanted a clean slate before we were married, he said. He didn’t want the past hanging over him. It’s been all right working for Dad, but he needed a big sum of money for the final payment. He even tried to win it at gambling, but he ought to have known better. Grant lent it to him.” Her face softened. “Grant wasn’t all bad.”
“No,” I said. I thought of Leon De Lora. “Few people are all bad or all good.”
“That must have been why Grant was coming here that night,” Tabitha said suddenly.
I looked up at her. “What do you mean?”
“He said he needed to tell Tom something. I bet it was that if he was going to work for the police, that there might be the possibility his past connections would be revealed, and maybe Tom’s, too.”
“Yes,” I said. “That makes sense.”
“If only he had told me from the beginning, it would have saved him a lot of worry,” she said. “But now that there are no secrets between us, I think everything is going to be all right.”
I smiled. “I think so, too, Tabitha.”
* * *
WHEN THE POLICE were gone and Tabitha and Tom had gone off together, Milo and I went upstairs to rest. It had been nearly forty-eight hours since Milo had slept, and I knew he must be even more tired than I was.
For my part, I was immeasurably weary, but also intensely relieved. I couldn’t believe it was all over. The killer had been brought to justice, and now Tabitha and Tom could have their wedding and begin their life together.
In bed beside Milo at last, bathed and in fresh bedclothes, I let out a sigh of pure thankfulness.
“Wait until Inspector Jones hears about all of this,” I said.
“He’s going to scold you, I’m sure.”
I smiled. “I’m sure you’re right. But, after all, if it hadn’t been for us, I don’t think Detective Andrews would’ve ever been caught.”
“Perhaps you’re right.”
Milo turned on his side to look down at me. “When I get you back to England, I’m taking you straight to Thornecrest and keeping you there until the baby is born.”
“Are you?” I asked with a raised brow. Milo had never been the sort of husband to dictate my behavior, and I found this new protectiveness endearing.
“I can’t keep you out of trouble anywhere else, but I dare say I will be able to do so at Thornecrest. Nothing ever happens there.”
“We shall see,” I told him.
“I’ve been drafted into service,” Milo said, changing the subject. “Tom’s asked me to stand up in his wedding.”
I smiled. “That was nice of him. Did you accept?”
“I did. And I gave him some advice, too.”
I looked up at him. “Oh?”
“I told him marriage changes things in ways one doesn’t expect.”
“How so?”
“It gives a man responsibilities other than his own happiness, a partnership in place of a solo endeavor. I haven’t always been good at remembering that, but I shall try to follow my own advice in the future.”
His hand moved to rest on my stomach, and I felt tears prickle my eyes.
“I’m very much looking forward to fatherhood,” he said.
“I’m glad,” I whispered. I knew that his father had not been the kind of man to lend support to his son, so I could only suppose that Milo would do what he could to rectify this with his own child. I was glad to hear that he was looking forward to it rather than fearing it. Then again, Milo had never been the sort of man to doubt his own abilities.
“It’s going to be great fun to have a child around,” he said. “I hope she has gray eyes like you.”
“She?”
“Oh, yes. It’s certainly going to be a girl.”
I smiled at his confidence. “Well, whatever it is, it’s going to be wonderful.”
We lay for a few moments in a comfortable silence.
“Do you think we’ll do a good job of it?” I asked at last.
He didn’t ask what I meant.
“Of course we will,” he answered.
“What if we don’t?” I wasn’t used to sharing my vulnerabilities with Milo. We did not have a history of open and easy conversations. Indeed, we had stumbled through the majority of our marriage either miscommunicating or not communicating at all. It was really only in the past year that I had begun to look at him as a confidant. Our marriage had started as a whirlwind and it was only lately that he was becoming the calm in my storm. But, as he had said, this was a partnership. We were in this together.
“You’re going to be a marvelous mother,” he said. “You’ll more than make up for any of my inadequacies as a father.”
He said this lightly, but I wondered if he was having the same doubts I was. We had lived a charmed life, if I was honest. Aside from the bumpiness of our marriage, everything had come easily to us. Would it be the same with this child? Would we take to parenthood? I supposed only time would tell.
“We’ve got a bit of time to figure things out,” I said. “Six months or so, I think.”
“We’ll be all right. If we can solve murders, we can surely work our way through raising a child.”
I laughed. “I suppose you’re right.”
“We’re going to be a very happy family,” he said, lookin
g down at me.
“Yes,” I agreed. “Very happy.”
He dropped a kiss on my forehead and it was only a few moments later that he was asleep. I settled against him and followed his lead.
29
THE CHURCH WAS beautiful, a stunning granite building in the Gothic style, with stone arches reaching high into the ceiling. Sunlight gleamed through the stained-glass windows and the electric lights were on, but their light was put to shame by the candles that glowed brightly all throughout the church. The gleaming wooden seats were full of people dressed in their finest clothes, and there was a sense of joyous anticipation in the room. After everything that had happened, I had expected there to be whispers and speculation, but it seemed to me that happiness and goodwill were the foremost emotions here today.
I drew in a breath and was met with the scent of roses drifting through the cool air. Beautiful bouquets of flowers were set at strategic points and silk bows bedecked the ends of each of the pews. Everything was just how Tabitha had imagined it, the perfect fairy-tale setting in which to begin her life with the man of her dreams.
I stood at the front of the church, dressed in my lilac-colored gown, a beautiful bouquet of calla lilies, delphinium, and freesia in my hands. It had been a long time coming to this moment, and I was glad that Tabitha would be able to have her happy wedding day. That, despite everything, she would be able to stand with Tom and make her vows. They would be able to begin their life together, an event made even more fortunate by the crises that had been averted.
Jemma Petrie stood beside me in her matching gown. She was mending and, though it had not been easy for her, I had confidence that the worst days were behind her. I was not so naïve as to think there would be no struggles ahead, but Tabitha had told me she meant to do whatever it took to ensure that her friend made a full recovery. And I knew very well how Tabitha went about accomplishing what she set her mind to.
A Dangerous Engagement Page 29