Passing Fancies (A Julia Kydd Novel)

by Marlowe Benn

  “Wealthy white boss dies at the hand of colored employee,” Kessler muttered, translating the danger into the kind of headline that would stoke virulent righteousness—and sell great stacks of newspapers.

  Philip watched the smoke curl from his cigarette. “Unfortunately, just the thing to quicken the newshound’s pulse.”

  Kessler swept his hand across his mouth. “That’s the last thing we need, and you know it. Race had nothing to do with this case. Pruitt’s the obvious suspect for all the usual reasons. But yes, that’s another reason we need her to talk. I’m counting on you, Kydd.”

  “What’s your case against her?”

  “They argued violently when Timson refused to return her book manuscript and jewelry. A few hours later, both are missing and so is she. She had easy access—came and went from that apartment all the time. We haven’t formally arrested her yet, as we’re still looking for the murder weapon and any witnesses, but my men are searching. The sticking point is that she refuses to answer questions—not one word. I’m hoping you can dazzle her into talking.”

  “The almighty confession?” Philip smiled. “You Torquemadas love to badger the magic words out of a suspect. Never mind that people blurt out just about anything for all sorts of reasons that rarely include a sudden taste for veracity.”

  “Everything points to Pruitt,” Kessler insisted. “She had motive and opportunity and no alibi. You may wrinkle your nose at confessions, but they work wonders with a jury.”

  As Philip lifted a palm in acquiescence, the bespectacled young man stationed in Kessler’s outer office knocked and thrust his head into the room.

  “Sergeant Hannity is here, sir.”

  Kessler pushed back his chair and swore under his breath. “Have him wait, Jones. Give me one minute.”

  He glared at Julia as he spoke to Philip. “I wanted her well away before this. Damn.” He looked about and motioned Julia toward a small door near the entrance to the office, obscured behind a thicket of Boston ferns. “In there. I think you can squeeze in. You must promise not to move or make a sound. If you hear anything, which I hope you can’t, you must swear you won’t repeat any of it to anyone. Is that clear, Miss Kydd?”

  Julia peered into the cramped space he proposed she enter. It was a shallow supply closet lined on three sides with narrow shelving. If she stood very upright and held her breath, she might fit. The situation was ludicrous, but at least it meant she could stay. She intended to listen with every possible care.

  “Not a peep,” he reiterated, watching her edge in. “I can’t have Pruitt know you’re here.”

  She nodded as the door closed against her knees. Kessler dragged over the massive fern’s pot to make sure she stayed hidden.

  She heard him move away and a moment later call out, “Thank you, Jones. Send him in.”

  As he spoke, Julia cracked open the door the inch or so allowed by the heavy pot. Without a trace of fresh air, she might gag on the fumes of cleaners and disinfectants stashed around her. Furthermore, as she’d hoped, she had a narrow but clear view of Kessler’s desk.

  Hannity strode into the room. He greeted Kessler and nodded to Philip. “This Pruitt gal’s a tough one, sir.”

  Behind him came a uniformed policeman, pushing Eva forward. Julia bit her lip to keep quiet. She hardly recognized her friend. Without her heeled shoes and proud posture, Eva’s height seemed merely gangly. She wore water-stained slippers, the back of one squashed flat as if it had been too much effort to slip her foot fully into it, a black scarf tied over her hair, and a blue dress made shapeless by its missing hip sash. A green bruise seeped from below her left ear, and a more colorful bruise crowned her swollen left cheek. Her lips were a pale-liver color. Without fresh makeup and likely without sleep, she looked ghostly, as if wrapped in a stagnant fog.

  Her hazel eyes were hard with fear and something else. Anger. Hurt. Worry. Despite the walnut-size lump that squeezed her left eye partly shut, she gazed at the men warily. She lowered herself into the chair Kessler indicated, facing his desk. Hannity flanked her on one side, Philip on the other. Seated, her back was to Julia, who saw surprise in Kessler’s face. He was expecting a colored woman.

  “I understand you tried to elude my men, Miss Pruitt,” Kessler began. “Hiding only heightens our resolve to find out what you know. Please tell us about Saturday evening and yesterday morning, after you challenged Leonard Timson about the papers in his safe. Describe the events of that night for us.”

  For two minutes the room was still. Eva didn’t stir. A typewriter clattered in the outer office.

  Why didn’t she speak? Julia struggled not to twist with anxiety. This was Eva’s chance to tell her story, explain her innocence. Why was she hesitating?

  Kessler leaned across the desk. “A man has been murdered, Miss Pruitt. A man you argued with just hours before. A man who refused to return items belonging to you.” He waited for nearly a minute. When Eva gave no sign of answering, he went on in a low voice. “You were seen going to Timson’s rooms early yesterday morning.”

  Julia gripped the nearest shelf edge. Was she? He hadn’t mentioned this. Or was Kessler bluffing, trying to trick her into thinking her situation was hopeless, that they already had evidence of her guilt?

  His voice rose with a hint of impatience. “A short time later he was found dead. I need you to tell us what happened, Miss Pruitt. In your own words.”

  From her cramped closet Julia saw his hand close around his pen and his knuckles whiten. In that moment she saw what Eva saw. She saw Kessler’s anger, his determination to draw from her mouth the words he would use to hang her. He had hemmed her into an impossible position. By declaring her involvement with Timson’s death, the only space in the story his questions left for her was the details. He wanted to know how and why, not if his narrative was accurate. Eva’s only power lay in refusing to enter the story he framed.

  Julia understood: to speak and be deliberately misheard was worse than saying nothing. She cheered Eva’s silence. What Kessler interpreted as insolence or guilt, she knew to be self-defense. If Eva said anything at all, they would find a damning subtext in it, something to bolster their beliefs of her involvement.

  “Silence suggests you have something to hide,” Kessler said. “You’ll fare much better if you tell us what happened rather than force us into guesswork.”

  Another silent minute passed. Julia’s stomach ached from the tension of listening, each passing moment of Eva’s resistance a small victory. Philip continued to wait, but Hannity blew out a loud breath. The typewriter fell silent too.

  “For Pete’s sake,” Hannity burst out, “don’t you understand simple English?”

  Julia squeezed her lips together, stifling her own combative reply.

  “Sergeant.” Kessler shook his head slightly.

  Hannity cocked his jaw toward the windows.

  It seemed to Julia that an eternity passed, and still Eva made no sound. Apart from the rise and fall of her shoulders with each shallow breath, she might have been a statue. Julia wondered if her eyes were open or closed.

  Kessler sat back. Hannity swung his knees toward Eva.

  She remained motionless.

  “May I have a word with the lady?” Philip spoke to Kessler, but his eyes never left Eva.

  He drew out his sterling cigarette case and offered Eva one of his finest rose-tipped Régies. She ignored it.

  “I understand you’re quite the diva, Miss Pruitt. The toast of Harlem, I’m told. Admirers fawning at your feet, champagne by the bucket, fresh flowers every hour.”

  He smiled at the ridiculous picture. “But it’s not all wine and roses, is it? The stage life is not for the faint of heart. Theaters are full of modern Svengalis. Owners, managers, bosses—they all exact their toll. Hardly fair or right, eh? All your talent and years of hard work going mostly to boost a man’s vanity and line his pockets?

  “Beastly rotter, that Leonard Timson,” he said. “Now there’s a brute
no one will miss. He had no right to take what belonged to you, did he?”

  Despite Eva’s silence Philip continued in the same desultory tone, as if making small talk over sweet tea on a Georgia porch swing. Julia recognized the cunning behind his ambling drawl and silently urged Eva not to be fooled. Anything she said would be whisked away and typed up in triplicate for prosecutors, the rest of her story disregarded as so much chaff. Be careful, Eva. Answer only the fair questions, the ones assuming your innocence, not your guilt.

  “I imagine his taste in literature was abysmal,” Philip said with a knowing sigh. “He had no idea what it meant to garner a contract from Mr. Goldsmith, did he? It’s an extraordinary honor, a greater thrill than a lifetime of applause at Carlotta’s, am I right? A literary coup. It will carry your name not just through Harlem but the whole city, the whole country. Quite a prize.”

  Eva’s shoulders gave a sudden jerk. Hannity scooted forward in his chair, and Kessler straightened. Only Philip did not move. All three men watched her, waiting for something more.

  She slowly crossed her arms, and her shoulders resumed their adamant set.

  Hannity glared at her. Then his patience snapped. He snarled into her face, “Say something, you little—” and slapped her hard above her ear, spinning her sideways in her chair.

  Julia gripped the nearest shelf edge, holding on to anything that would keep her from bursting out into the room, her impulse to escape mirroring what must have been pulsing in Eva’s veins. Hannity was a burly man. He could break Eva’s arm with one sharp twist. Yet she was trapped, unable to run from his blows. It was outrageous! How dared he strike a woman, or anyone so defenseless?

  Eva slowly righted herself and made a noise in her throat as if gathering phlegm to spit. Hannity hit her again, knocking her scarf to the floor.

  “Stop that!” Philip protested. Julia bit her cheek, wishing instead he’d returned the blow with a good old-fashioned slug. The ferric tang of blood flooded her mouth.

  “Back off, Sergeant,” Kessler said, frowning. “We were just starting to get somewhere.”

  Julia was astounded. Kessler faulted Hannity for breaking the spell Philip was beginning to weave? What about the violence? His sergeant had struck a prisoner! No, not a prisoner. Eva wasn’t under arrest. She was an American citizen, entitled by right to be treated with respect—and every other tenet of basic human courtesy.

  Hannity gave a sulky shrug and edged back in his chair.

  With a low moan Eva tried to cover her exposed head. Her arms swarmed to hide her hair. A dull milky-brown color, it was coarse Negro hair, lying in stiff, flat sheets like slabs of dried mud. She bent for her scarf.

  With a scornful belly laugh Hannity kicked it under Kessler’s desk. “Not so easy to fool the suckers now, is it?”

  Eva gave a plaintive gasp as Philip stirred with a sharp “Sergeant!” Kessler seconded the rebuke with an inarticulate growl.

  Julia clutched the edge of the door, her fingers wedged into the narrow gap. She wrestled back a need to scream or shout. She could barely watch as Eva bent forward and Hannity rose again, towering over her. He muttered something through his teeth, and Eva cowered, swiveling toward Philip. Before Hannity’s fist could slam into her shoulder, Philip threw out an arm to deflect the blow and seized Hannity’s wrist.

  “That’s enough!” bellowed Kessler. He slammed his pen down on his desk. “Looks like we’re done here.”

  Hannity shook off Philip’s grasp. Eva squirmed, turning toward Philip so that Julia could see her give him one quick, inscrutable look. It pierced Julia. As cautious as it was intense, it implored yet defied him to read what was there. What did it mean? What was she trying to say?

  Hannity clamped down on Eva’s forearm. “I’m not convinced this canary won’t sing. My boys know how to make her squawk. Let’s go.”

  Eva struggled to keep her flattened slippers on her feet as he yanked her out of the chair and pushed her out across the room ahead of him. As soon as the door swung shut behind them, Julia smacked her own prison door into the heavy fern pot. Philip dragged it aside, and she burst out.

  “Good God!” Julia exclaimed. “What did he mean by that?”

  “Don’t be naive,” Philip murmured.

  He was right. She knew what Hannity meant. But she couldn’t fathom that an officer of the law would strike Eva—or any woman, any person, of any race. Julia knew terrible things were done in corrupt places like the rural South or foreign countries ruled by dictators. But this was New York, one of the world’s great cosmopolitan capitals, beacon of enlightened culture and society. Of course it had its share of lawless violence, but surely those in power sought to curb such violence, not wield it—with impunity—themselves.

  The police were meant to be a cornerstone of civilization. In dark past times the powerful had routinely preyed upon the weak, but now laws, not brute force, prevailed. Didn’t every child learn, as Julia had, that one could turn to the police for help in times of fear or trouble? They were pledged to serve and protect, not terrorize. Julia trembled to comprehend what she’d just witnessed. Those hooded Klansmen and their ilk were bad enough, but clearly Eva had good reason to fear the police too. Where would she be safe, much less find justice?

  “Take your sister home, Kydd. Now.” Kessler’s eyes had gone cold and small.

  To Julia he said, “You’re to say nothing about this to anyone, Miss Kydd. Not one word.”

  “Or what, Mr. Kessler?” Julia shook off Philip’s restraining hand. In a weaker voice than she’d have liked, she added, “You’re afraid I’ll squawk?”

  CHAPTER 14

  Julia insisted she be let out of the taxi at Brentano’s. She hoped an hour of wandering among its congested shelves might calm her mind, but the shop’s dusty hush only amplified her unrest. She bought two books in gratitude for the refuge and retreated to a nearby tea shop, where fragrant steam and clattery commotion slowly eased her agitation. Only when she felt sure Philip would be gone for the evening, out to dine at one of his clubs and then off to the theater or concert hall with Jack, did she return home.

  She was removing her hat in the vestibule when Christophine called out from the kitchen. Julia knocked twice and waited—well trained—for the quick yes, yes before pushing open the door. Christophine stood covered to her elbows in flour, two soft balls of pie dough plopped on the table in front of her. A stew of vegetables, chicken, and spices simmered on the range. Mr. Otto, her new Trini beau, was coming over for dinner later. Julia had promised to go out or spend the evening in her room, leaving the apartment free. “Smells wonderful,” she said.

  “How be she?”

  Christophine was asking about Eva. That morning over breakfast Julia had told her all that had happened since Saturday evening. She’d told her about the terrifying scene in Timson’s apartment, his theft of Eva’s manuscript, and the shocking news of his murder. She had explained the day’s errand, her anxiety about seeing Eva in police custody, and her determination to make sure Eva got a chance to defend herself. Christophine had listened with a deep frown, one cheek sucked into her mouth.

  When Julia didn’t answer, Christophine whisked a palm across her apron and tapped her above the wrist, an old trick to catch Julia’s attention. “What happen?”

  “Oh, Fee, it was—” Julia stopped. “You’re busy. You have your beau coming soon. We can talk about it tomorrow.”

  “Here,” Fee said, handing Julia a spoon.

  Julia took up the long-handled spoon and began to stir the stew. She’d been relegated to stirring early on, after episodes of dropped bowls, sliced fingers, and—twice—burned eyelashes. Each circuit of the deep pot made a soothing rhythm as she struggled to lasso her thoughts about the disturbing interview.

  “The policeman struck her,” Julia blurted. “As if she were a dog. She was just sitting there, not moving or speaking at all. That made him angry, and he lashed out and hit her. Right there in the assistant commissioner’s office!”r />
  Fee pinched both lips under her teeth. “It happen, miss. It happen all the time.”

  “But she did nothing to provoke him. She has a perfect right to say nothing.”

  Fee shook her head. Her rolling pin thumped and spun, thumped and spun. “Them police not so nice nice as you think. You see white-lady police. It be different for your friend.”

  The spoon slowed. Julia winced at her own naivete. She stared at the flecks of flour on Christophine’s cheek, the glaze of perspiration along her hairline. She was wearing the opal earrings Julia had given her last Christmas. Once her mother’s, they glowed more richly against Fee’s skin than they ever had against her own. Christophine was angry but not shocked to hear of Eva’s treatment. The police she knew were not white-lady police.

  It was a horrid term, crawling with implications. It suggested there was no such thing as what Julia had always referred to as simply “the police.” (Didn’t everyone? Or, rather, didn’t every white person of her acquaintance?) The definition she considered standard and universal—a helpful force for public safety and well-being—was apparently only one version of a widely varying reality. Even more unsettling to consider: Eva’s experience might be the more common, and Julia’s the more rare. The notion upended something foundational.

  Christophine set aside the rolling pin. She lifted the limp circle of dough and laid it in the pie plate. Watching her, Julia felt something tighten inside at the thought of anyone laying a threatening hand on Christophine. “I swear, if anyone ever struck you or treated you badly in any way, I’d send up a howl so blue they’d hear it in China.”

  Fee smiled and smacked her rolling pin across the center of the second mound of dough. “I got some good howl in me too, miss.”

  Julia had heard that howl, and it was fearsome. Her stirring slowed again. “I can’t stop wondering what might have happened if Philip and I were not there.” She paused. “Or what probably happens all the time that I never knew about. It was as if the police could say or do anything and Eva had no way to stop them. That sergeant had no right to strike her, and yet he did. He’s supposed to enforce the law, not break it himself.”