by Liz Freeland
Mr. McChesney held his hands together on the table in front of him, almost as if they were still cuffed. “I did.”
“And the woman who identified you as the suspicious character on the street before the fire—she was correct? She saw you?”
“I suppose so, though I didn’t notice her. But I was wearing my old brown coat and a plaid scarf, as she said.”
“And you burned down the building so you could claim the money from the fire insurance policy of which you were the sole beneficiary once Guy Van Hooten was no longer alive?”
“Yes, but I didn’t know I’d be the sole beneficiary. That is, I must have known when Cyrus took out the policy that only the surviving partner would benefit, but I’d forgotten about that clause. Because Guy was so young! Who knew he would die? I just wanted to get out from under the business, which was sinking.” He turned to me. “You’ve spoken to Bob. Didn’t he tell you how the land lay, money-wise?”
“He said the business was barely scraping by,” I told Faber. “But, Mr. McChesney, this doesn’t help you.”
“I don’t want to be helped!” he burst out. “I acted selfishly. My doctor told me I needed a better climate and less stress. For months I’ve sat up nights dreaming of California. Sunshine and warmth, and no Van Hooten and McChesney to fret me twenty-four hours a day. I asked Guy to buy me out, but of course he laughed at that.”
Faber held up a hand. “There—that’s just the type of thing you shouldn’t say to the police.”
“But I already have,” Mr. McChesney said. “And why not? I didn’t kill Guy—I didn’t mean to, at any rate. I never liked the boy, but I never wished him ill, much less dead.” His gaze, growing frantic, sought out mine. “You believe that, don’t you?”
“Of course. But what do you mean, you ‘didn’t mean to kill Guy’?”
“Just this: I never dreamed he was in that building . . . never. His office wasn’t open. I didn’t even check inside. I just assumed, given the early hour and the fact that the place was so silent . . . No one would have dreamed that Guy, of all people, would be there. Would they, Louise?”
“Everyone was surprised, but—”
He interrupted, practically frantic now. “I could barely make my legs support me that morning when I came back to Thirty-eighth Street. And then when we went to see Edith . . .” He buried his head in his hands, guilt consuming him. “Facing her was the hardest of all.”
“ ‘I never dreamed,’ you said,” I reminded him. “You repeated it several times that morning. You didn’t think he’d be there. That was what you meant, wasn’t it?”
His head bobbed. “If only I’d checked that blasted door! Why didn’t I?”
Mr. Faber’s eyes narrowed on me. “Your memory of those words—‘I never dreamed,’ etc.—could prove useful. You’d swear to that in court?”
“I won’t need to. This is—”
“I don’t want Louise testifying,” Mr. McChesney broke in. “I don’t want a trial at all. If only I could forget it all—but I can’t. Every moment of that morning after I started the damn fire was a horror. Like a horrible dream, and I couldn’t wake up. I’m still living that nightmare, night and day. It’s no more than I deserve. Whether I intended to or not, I killed Guy.”
“No, you didn’t,” I said.
“If you didn’t know he was there, you didn’t kill him,” Mr. Faber said. “So stop even thinking you did. We need to prove that Guy Van Hooten was asleep, or drunk, at the time. It was an accident—the death, if not the fire.”
“Wait.” I was astonished. “Detective Muldoon, one of the detectives on the case, told me that Guy was poisoned.” Aunt Irene hadn’t told him? Worse, the police obviously hadn’t divulged this information to either Mr. McChesney or Abe Faber. “There’s evidence Guy was dead before the fire started.”
Faber dropped his pencil.
“Poisoned?” Mr. McChesney repeated. “Who would have wanted to poison Guy?”
Who wouldn’t? I almost said aloud, but now was not the time for levity. I couldn’t help remembering Muldoon asking me not to tell about the poison. Had the police intended to keep it secret from everyone unless they needed to divulge the information for a conviction?
“Poor Guy.” Mr. McChesney shook his head. “If the police think the fire didn’t kill him, why charge me? I had no reason to poison him.”
“You just told us the man wouldn’t buy you out of the business you were eager to sell,” Faber reminded him.
Mr. McChesney sagged in his chair. “But I know nothing of poisons.”
Faber looked at me. “Did the detective mention the specific poison involved?”
“Cyanide. It’s in rat poison.”
The attorney made a note. “Very common.”
Mr. McChesney thought about that. “The building had mice once, years ago. We might have used poison then.”
“Do not volunteer that information to the police,” Faber said to him. “If they want to connect that particular poison to Van Hooten and McChesney, make them dig for it.” He swiveled toward me. “What else do you know that the police might not have mentioned?”
I laid out all I’d learned. Mr. Faber seemed especially worried about the three thousand dollars, which suggested a money motive. Mr. McChesney swore he knew nothing about the money.
I added, “And the police certainly haven’t found it in Mr. McChesney’s home or bank account, or they would have mentioned it.” It would have been damning evidence.
Abe Faber put his pencil down. “You’re a dark horse, Miss Faulk. Perhaps my law office could use you.”
“I’m bespoke,” I said. “As far as my career’s concerned.”
“Pity.” Faber sighed before turning back to his client. “We need to make the case that you meant no bodily harm to anyone.”
But my old boss, worrying a nail, was in no mood to exonerate himself. “I burned down a building. The fireman I spoke to at the scene said the fire could easily have spread to surrounding buildings if their ladder company hadn’t arrive in time. I might have killed dozens.”
“You didn’t kill anyone,” Faber reminded him. “And the firemen did arrive in time.”
“But I didn’t know they would,” Mr. McChesney insisted, growing more morose. “I won’t make excuses. I’m guilty. If only I could convince myself I weren’t!”
He buried his head in his hands again. The sound of his sob shivered through me. Seeing someone I’d known as nothing less than kind and benevolent suffering such torrents of guilt shook me. Even if Faber managed to save him from the electric chair, what then? Ogden McChesney had dug himself into a trench of guilt. Now, even when presented with evidence that he wasn’t a murderer, he couldn’t believe his own innocence.
A short time later, we left him in custody, cuffed again and shuffling off to God only knew what kind of cell, bowed with depression. Mr. Faber and I walked out of the building into the dying daylight. Even the New York air tasted fresh after being in the jail. It contained the essential element of freedom.
A train clacked by overhead on Sixth Avenue. When it had passed and the noise receded, I said, “It’s hopeless, isn’t it?”
Faber drew back. “Hopeless? Never! I’m surprised at you, Miss Faulk. I thought you had pluck.”
I waved toward the courthouse. “But he will go to jail for arson.”
“Oh yes. Up to five years, I expect. It’s a shame, but that confession will be difficult, if not impossible, to overcome.”
“But he doesn’t want to overcome it. That’s what frightens me. He feels guilty even for Guy’s murder, which he didn’t commit. But he isn’t the type of man who will be able to shrug off the guilt he’s been carrying. He’s a broken soul.”
“Ah! I see now why you’re distressed.” He leaned toward me. “You’re new to this world, Miss Faulk. Believe me, I’ve dealt with all sorts. Men suicidal with guilt and grief. Men who have killed their wives, who swindled their friends, who, in short, have committed the wor
st felonies and indecencies. They all have one thing in common.”
“What?”
“Resilience. Whatever their sentence, and however just or unjust they consider it, all jailbirds start to look at the blue sky beyond the prison bars. The guiltiest dream of parole, that second chance. Even the confessed murderer on death row hopes for pardon. Believe me, at some point, Ogden McChesney’s thoughts will wend once again toward California. And perhaps when he’s freed he’ll have a few years left of his life to go there. It’s my job to make sure that the state’s electric chair doesn’t cut off his chances to make that transcontinental journey.”
I wanted to believe what he said, but I remained doubtful. I’d never seen a man so distraught.
“You’ll still help him?” Mr. Faber asked me.
I thought of Aunt Irene, and how grieved she would be if the situation were hopeless. For her sake, I needed to adopt a little of Mr. Faber’s cynical optimism. “Of course,” I said.
But even as I accepted Mr. Faber’s answering smile, I writhed a little at my duplicity. I’d said I wouldn’t run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. Yet here I was, almost a policewoman, vowing to aid the criminal defense.
* * *
Finding out who killed Guy wasn’t all that I needed to accomplish in the week before I started my new job. Aunt Irene’s book wasn’t finished yet, and I didn’t want to leave her without any help. Friday afternoon, I hit upon an idea for killing two birds with one stone. I ran the idea past Aunt Irene and she agreed with me, so on Saturday morning I got up, dressed, and went to see Jackson Beasley.
Miriam didn’t answer the door this time. Jackson did. He held a newspaper in his hand, opened to an article about Ogden McChesney, publisher, being held in custody for arson and the murder of his business partner. Every paper I’d seen at corner stands or in the hands of newsboys had at least one article about Mr. McChesney. The headlines were full of fire puns—PUBLISHER SCORCHES PARTNER, that sort of thing—but I didn’t get a close look at what particular rag Jackson had picked up.
He slapped the paper by way of greeting. “Did you know about this?”
I nodded.
“I couldn’t believe my eyes.” He beckoned me in, then closed the door. “That old hypochondriac—a murderer!”
“He’s not, though.”
He pointed to the newspaper. “It sounds as if the police are fairly certain. And to think I actually felt sorry for him at the funeral, when he looked so frail. The old faker.”
“He’s terribly remorseful about the fire—”
Jackson snorted. “I’m sure he is, now that he’s been caught.”
“But he swears he had nothing to do with Guy’s death.”
He shook his head and sank into his usual chair. He gestured for me to take one nearby. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t your little investigation be at an end?”
Letting the dig pass, I sat. “I came to see your wife. I have a proposition for her.”
His brows rose at that. “Unfortunately, she’s not here. She’s at work—cleaning houses.” That last was added bitterly, as if he found his wife’s doing menial labor an affront to his dignity. “Latin doesn’t pay bills.”
“Can she type?” I asked.
He frowned. “Yes, very ably.”
“Good. My aunt is in need of a typist. I was doing it for her, but I have a new job.”
“Bully for you. Another publisher?”
“The New York Police Department. I’m going to be a policewoman.”
His astonishment was almost comical. “A policewoman? You?”
“Why not?”
He couldn’t come up with an answer. “Well, well. I suppose I should congratulate you. And now Miriam will have a chance to start something new, as well. I wish it were that easy for me. Guy was my connection in this city, even if he treated me more like a lackey than an equal most of the time.” He sighed. “And now even that small connection’s been cut, thanks to McChesney’s infernal greed. Murdering a man for money!”
“But he didn’t.”
“Oh, I know. You were a pet of his and can’t bring yourself to believe it.”
“Yes, there was fire insurance money . . . but if all he’d wanted was money he would have taken the three thousand dollars and not set fire to the building at all.” I was thinking as I spoke, turning the scenario over in my mind.
“Three thousand dollars?” Jackson blinked at me. “What three thousand dollars?”
“That’s the amount Leonard Cain paid to Guy when he visited the office that last night. The police haven’t found it in Mr. McChesney’s accounts, or in their search of his house.”
“Three thousand dollars,” Jackson repeated. “Guy had three thousand dollars when he died?”
“If Leonard Cain can be believed. Granted, that’s a big if.”
“Guy borrowed five dollars from me the week he died.” He sputtered at the perceived effrontery. “I gave it to him. I thought he was broke.”
“He was short of funds—at least until Cain paid him the money.”
“You mean the money was right there in the office?” Jackson asked, still trying to believe it.
I nodded. “Mr. McChesney says he didn’t know about the money. The police assume it burned in the fire. Maybe it did.”
Jackson bleated out a laugh. “Expensive kindling.”
I couldn’t think of anything more to say on the subject. I stood. “When Miriam comes back, will you have her call my aunt? If she’s interested in the job, that is. I’m sure my aunt will pay her generously, and she can start as soon as she wants.”
“Certainly.”
“You still have my aunt’s number?”
“Somewhere,” he said, absently.
From my satchel, I retrieved a pen and paper and wrote the number down again. I handed it to him.
Jackson insisted on seeing me out. “Do you think Guy hid the money after Cain gave it to him?” he asked as we went down the stairs.
“Impossible to say. The police don’t know what time that night he was killed. So perhaps he had time to stow the money somewhere. He might have repaid a debt to someone, or even given it away. We might never know.”
“Three thousand dollars.”
I sympathized with his fixation on the money. To a struggling man, the idea of three thousand dollars slipping out of the world, benefitting no one, was unbearable. Cruel, almost. Like a beggar watching a restaurant throw uneaten meals into a rubbish bin.
As he opened the front door to let me out on the stoop, a man’s angry shout drew our attention.
“Beasley!”
Jackson released a groan of dread.
Brandishing a newspaper, Ford Fitzsimmons steamed toward us full-tilt. “You rotten bastards!”
Jackson and I both recoiled. I hadn’t expected to be sworn at in the street, even by a man who’d tried to kill me. Jackson, equally offended, made a weak protest that was soon overwhelmed by a spew of righteous anger.
“That fire was set on purpose,” Ford said, as if we were responsible for it. “And who’s going to pay? Who?”
“Get yourself under control, old fellow,” Jackson replied.
His drawl just seemed to aggravate Ford’s indignation. “Oh, yes—by all means, let’s be gentlemen. It’s a gentleman’s world, isn’t it? Handshakes and cigars—‘and isn’t it just too, too unfortunate that we’ve lost your life’s work, Mr. Fitzsimmons. It showed such promise. What a shame.’ You’re all alike! No one cares about the writer, the artist.”
From this tirade, I deduced that Jackson hadn’t been able to lay hands on Ford’s manuscript in progress.
“I didn’t set fire to your manuscript,” Jackson said.
“But your boss did. Deliberately. Same as if he’d taken my manuscript from my hands and put a match to it.”
“He didn’t burn down a building as a personal affront to you,” Jackson said. “You’re no worse off than you were. It’s unfortunate that this happened,
but think of it this way—you were given an advance for a book that was never published.”
Ford cackled, almost maniacal. “Wonderful! I was paid two hundred dollars so you could destroy my book. Which I now have to try to create all over again—an impossible task. That’s not what I had in mind when I signed the contract.”
“It’s not what any of us had in mind,” Jackson assured him.
“I should sue!”
“Sue whom?” I asked. “Or what? Van Hooten and McChesney no longer exists.”
Ford turned his disgusted gaze at me for the first time. “McChesney’s a friend of yours, isn’t he? Or a friend of that old bag aunt of yours. Well, let me tell you, I’ll be at his trial and I’ll whoop with glee when they send him to death row. Guy was an idiot, but by God, he never would have destroyed me the way that old man has.”
I scowled at him. “Whooping with glee won’t bring your manuscript back.”
“No, but it will feel like justice.”
“A man’s life for a book,” I said.
“That’s right. And until I have that satisfaction, I intend to file suit against everyone in this town with the name McChesney or Van Hooten.”
He stalked off in an undiminished blaze of fury.
Jackson shook his head. “He’d never believe it, but I’m sorry for him.” He sighed. “It was a pretty good book, too.”
A pretty good book. By a perfectly detestable man.
* * *
My next errand took me back to Myrna Cohen’s. She opened the door a crack, saw me standing in the dark hallway, and immediately tried to push it closed again. I held it open with my palm. “I just want to speak to you.”
“I’m done talking about Guy.”
It was Hugh I was more curious about now, though. “This is a professional visit,” I said. “I need something made.”
She looked me over, trying to judge whether she could trust my word. Reluctance written all over her face, she stepped back. “A dress?”
“A policewoman’s uniform.”
Her expression became wary. “You said you were a secretary.”
“I was. I’ve just been hired by the NYPD and I need a uniform. Could you make one? I have a picture.” A very crude picture, sketched from the policewomen I’d seen downtown. I dug it out of my satchel and handed it to her.