Bicycle Built for Two

by Duncan, Alice

  “Open up, Kate,” came Walter’s voice. He sounded worried. “Something’s happened.”

  Oh, God. Fearing the worst—that her mother had died—Kate flung the door open. Sure enough, her brothers stood there, flanking Mary Jo, whose face still appeared flushed from sleep.

  “They asked at the desk for my room,” Mary Jo explained. “I said you were waiting for Alex in his room.”

  “Yes,” Walter said in patent disapproval. “But we can discuss that later. Right now, we need to talk about something even worse.”

  Even worse than what? Kate didn’t ask, knowing what her brother meant. He didn’t approve of Kate’s residence in a single gentleman’s room, no matter how innocent the reason, and even if the young gentleman wasn’t there. Kate stepped aside, allowing all three people entry. “What’s wrong?”

  “You’d better sit down, Kate,” her brother Billy said. Always more sympathetic than his older brother, Billy smiled at Kate in understanding.

  She appreciated him a lot. Nevertheless, she declined his invitation. “I don’t have to sit down. Is it Ma?”

  Both of her brothers shook their heads. “It’s Pa,” said Billy.

  In spite of herself and her unwillingness to be thought to be doing anyone else’s bidding, Kate sank into her chair. “What about Pa?” The only thing she could think of that would have put the serious expressions on her brothers’ faces was that Pa had done something horrid. Like hurting Alex. Her heart began aching like a sore tooth.

  Walter had been standing beside the bed as if checking to make sure no one had been doing anything unsavory on it. With his back still to Kate, he said stiffly, “He’s dead.”

  Kate’s brain executed a twirl of confusing. “Um . . . I beg your pardon?” If their father was dead, why were the boys looking so worried? Kate would have expected them to be dancing in the streets.

  Billy heaved a gigantic sigh. “It’s Alex,” he said, fuddling Kate the more.

  “Alex? I thought you said it was Pa?”

  Walter turned around. “It’s both of them. The police are questioning Alex about Pa’s death. Evidently, they were fighting, and Pa fell out the window of your apartment.”

  Mary Jo gasped.

  So did Kate.

  “So,” Billy said, taking over from his older brother, “I think it would be a good idea for you to come down to the police station with us. We just left there. Sol Schneider’s the one who fetched us. Mickey O’Brien called on him as soon as it happened.”

  Kate was having a hard time making heads or tails of this story. “But what was Pa doing in my apartment?”

  “Tearing it up, apparently,” Walter said drily. “You know Pa.”

  “Yeah,” said Kate, pushing herself up from her chair. “I know Pa, more’s the pity.”

  “Well, I guess none of us will have to worry about him any longer,” Billy said brightly, as if he were trying to cheer up his siblings.

  Mary Jo gasped again and clutched her dressing gown at her throat. Sliding her a look, Kate understood why she’d gasped. Innocent little Mary Jo couldn’t conceive of anyone being pleased about a parent’s passing. Which just went to show one more time how their lives differed in every single particular.

  Because she felt she owed at least a partial explanation to this child, this sister of the man she loved, Kate went over to her and put a hand on her arm. “I’m sorry, Mary Jo. I guess I’ll have to go with my brothers. We’ll be back as soon as possible.”

  “But what about Alex?” Mary Jo sounded panicky.

  “I guess he’s at the police station.” Kate slid a glance at her brothers, both of whom nodded. “Yes. He’s at the police station. I’ll—we’ll—” They’d what? Kate had no idea. Feeling helpless, she looked to her brothers for assistance.

  “I’m sure it’ll be all right, Miss English,” said Walter politely. “I’m sure it was all our father’s fault, and that any misunderstandings can be cleared up presently.”

  “Absolutely,” Kate agreed with more force than she felt. She couldn’t even conceive of Alex doing something wrong, but anything having to do with her father must be suspect.

  “Our father’s a no-good buzzard,” Billy said, grinning as he did so. “And Alex is a good guy. I’m sure there’s not going to be a problem.”

  Kate wished she shared her light-hearted younger brother’s optimism. “Right. I’ll walk you back to your room, Mary Jo. Just wait there, and I’ll be back as soon as possible.”

  “Well, I really think I ought to go with you,” Mary Jo said, sounding as if she was going to be stubborn about it. “After all, we’re talking about my brother, too, don’t forget.”

  Kate eyed her without favor. Her nerves were crackling like fat over an open fire, and she didn’t want to have to fuss with a spoiled adolescent rich girl right now. “Listen, Mary Jo. My father just died, and I want to find out what happened. I don’t want to wait for you to get dressed. We’ll be back as soon as possible, bringing Alex with us.” She prayed she hadn’t just lied.

  But Mary Jo was having none of it. She said, “I’m going with you. It will only take a few minutes for me to dress. Don’t go without me. Alex will be furious if you leave me here alone.”

  Kate knew that was only one more argument and that it probably held no weight, but the notion of Alex getting mad at her didn’t appeal. “Oh, for heaven’s sake! All right, I’ll help you. But if you dawdle, I’m leaving without you.”

  Kate hustled Mary Jo to her room and threw clothes at her. Kate blessed her brothers for not scolding her about being impatient with the girl. Both Walter and Billy were inclined to get chivalrous at inconvenient times, and Kate didn’t feel like being scolded any more than she felt like waiting.

  Before they left Mary Jo’s room, Kate plucked up her own hat and shawl and threw them on, willy-nilly. Then the Finney siblings and Mary Jo English hurried out of the hotel, into the cab Walter and Billy had waiting, and rattled on to the police station.

  Kate, who had no decent gloves to wear, chewed on her nails all the way there. Mary Jo looked as if nothing this exciting had ever happened to her, and it was all Kate could do not to shout at her.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The police station was a depressing and dingy place. And it smelled bad. Alex’s nose wrinkled at the aroma, which reminded him of despair: old sweat, carbolic, and vomit. Drunks, he deduced, and was glad he’d never taken to drink. A pang of regret that his beloved Kate had grown up in such difficult circumstances smote him.

  Kate. He’d like to lay her over his lap and paddle her luscious rump for being so idiotic and obstinate. Imagine, refusing to marry him because she imagined she’d ruin his life. As if she had the power to do that.

  Hell’s bells, he’d managed to ruin his life all on his own, by killing Kate’s dipsomaniacal, revenge-obsessed father. Although what he thought he needed to be avenged for still eluded Alex.

  With a sigh, he decided he’d better pay attention to the questions being asked of him.

  “So, you’re saying Mr. Finney was already in the room when you got there?” A bushy-mustachioed police sergeant was asking the questions, and a younger policeman, who seemed to be in awe both of his sergeant and of Alex, was taking notes.

  The relative courtesy of his inquisitors led Alex to believe that he was being treated better than most of the people who ended up being taken to the police station on suspicion of murder. “Yes.”

  “And you say there were other people there, too? Witnesses, that is to say?”

  “A crowd had gathered there, yes, and some of the men were trying to get him out of the room.” Alex knew good and well that other policemen had questioned the bystanders, but he didn’t point this out to the sergeant, sensing the man would react negatively to such statements from him.

  “And the room is his daughter’s place of residence. Is that correct? Her apartment, that is to say?” Mustache squinted at Alex, as if he were trying to catch him in a fib.

 
“Right. I’d gone there to get some things for her to wear, because she’s staying with my sister at the Congress Hotel.”

  The policeman seated next to the sergeant allowed his eyebrows to lift. Alex turned a quelling stare upon him, and the young man’s eyebrows behaved again at once. Good thing, too. “Miss Finney and I,” said Alex in a voice as lethal as he could make it, “are engaged to be married.”

  “Is that so?”

  The sergeant probably could have looked more surprised, but Alex doubted it happened often. He was pretty certain the other policeman was as astounded as he’d ever been.

  “Yes,” he said. “That is so.” His tone dared either man to say anything about his proposed marital plans.

  “I see.” The sergeant cleared his throat. “Do you believe you said anything to provoke the man, Mr. English?”

  Alex snorted. “He was already provoked. He was behaving like I’ve seen infuriated bulls behave. He was throwing Miss Finney’s belongings everywhere. I’m surprised he didn’t paw the ground.”

  The sergeant frowned, but the younger policeman grinned. He didn’t look up, apparently not wanting to risk his superior’s disfavor, and he kept writing.

  Alex went on, “Her brothers had warned us that their father had been released from jail, and we were worried for her safety and that of their mother.”

  “Her mother?” Mustache squinted at Alex.

  “Yes. Mrs. Finney is at present staying at my farm with my own mother.” There. That ought to give both men pause.

  “I see.” The sergeant’s squint thinned further, and Alex decided to become more aggressive.

  “We took her there because her health is bad and her husband is a menace.” This time he directed his killing stare at the sergeant. “The police evidently don’t believe in guaranteeing the safety of Chicago’s citizens unless the citizens have lots of money, and the Finney ladies don’t.”

  The sergeant cleared his throat, stroked his mustache, and tried to appear dignified. “Now, Mr. English, that’s not so. It may seem so to some, but it’s not.”

  “Right,” said Alex in clear disbelief.

  The sergeant chose not to argue, and went back to the matter under investigation. “So, would you say Finney was drunk?”

  Alex shrugged. “I don’t know. I understand that’s his standard of behavior. He drinks and then beats up his wife and children.”

  “Yes,” muttered the sergeant, as if he didn’t want to admit it. “We’re familiar with Finney at the station. Too familiar with him for my comfort.”

  Alex grunted.

  “Guess we won’t be troubled by him again, though, Sarge,” said his younger, more guileless companion cheerfully. The sergeant glowered at him, and the young man sobered and turned his attention back to his notebook.

  “But you took a swing at him?” The sergeant looked as though he’d finally asked the most important question in this entire interrogation, the one he’d been building up to and one from which he expected to achieve results.

  “He swung at me first,” Alex said promptly. “There were lots of witnesses. I assume other police officials have already questioned them.”

  “Yes, well . . .” The sergeant cleared his throat again. “Right now we’re talking to you, Mr. English.”

  “Right.” Alex would have rolled his eyes, but he didn’t want to aggravate his slow-witted inquisitor.

  “So, in essence, what you’re telling me is that this whole thing was an accident,” the sergeant said. He directed a scowl at his associate, who licked the point of his pencil and wrote something else in his notebook.

  “I guess,” said Alex. “He challenged me when I told him to get out of Miss Finney’s room. He was tearing it up. I don’t know if he was looking for something in particular, or if he only wanted to destroy her things, but I suspect the latter. From what I’ve heard of him, he was a resentful, belligerent bully, and he didn’t like the fact that Miss Finney had taken the care of her family unto herself.” There. Let the police argue about that, if they dared. “He charged at me, I dodged, then he swung, I hit him, he staggered back, and went out the window.” And there was all that blood. He suppressed a shudder when he remembered that arcing rainbow of blood.

  “Yes. So others have said.” The sergeant and the other policeman exchanged a glance.

  A knock came at the door of the interrogation room in which Alex had been taken. The younger policeman rose and went to the door. Alex heard another officer standing outside the room say, “It’s the Finneys and Mr. English’s sister. Come to see the sarge and the prisoner.”

  “I’m not a prisoner,” said Alex, feeling cranky. Damnation, what were Kate and Mary Jo doing here?

  “Of course not,” said the sergeant. He’d risen and gone to the door and now frowned at the policeman at the door, who cowered back.

  “Sorry, sir.”

  As he faded away, Kate burst into the room, right smack past the sergeant, who was taken aback. She was followed by Mary Jo, Walter, and Bill, who also ignored the sergeant, whose dignity suffered as a result, and who scowled after them.

  “Alex!”

  Ignoring the policemen, his sister, and both Finney boys, Alex surged up from his chair and caught Kate in his arms. “God, Kate, I’m so sorry about all this.”

  When she hugged him hard and didn’t seem inclined to let him go, Alex mentally revised his statement. If killing her father had this effect on his darling Kate, he wasn’t sorry at all.

  He’d never say so.

  “It’s not your fault, Alex. I know it wasn’t your fault.”

  “True. Let’s hope the police see it your way.”

  “They will.” And with that, Kate disentangled herself from Alex’s embrace and turned on the sergeant like a whirlwind. Alex hadn’t seen her in her full-fledged Kate-from-the-streets, just-let-me-get-at-him mode since shortly after they’d met. He watched with interest and a fair degree of amusement.

  “Sergeant Maguire, you know darned well that Alex didn’t do anything wrong. You’ve arrested my father how many times for being drunk and disorderly? And how often have you had to chase him out of our house after he hit my mother? And how dare you keep Alex imprisoned in this filthy police station? Darn it, you let my father out time and time again when he’d almost killed people. You ought to give Alex a medal for finally ridding the world of some bad rubbish!”

  Since Mary Jo had gasped in horror and astonishment shortly after Kate began her tirade, Alex decided to go to his sister’s side. He frowned at her to let her know he wouldn’t countenance any interference from her. Besides, this was classic Kate, and he loved her for it.

  “Oh, for Pete’s . . .” Her brothers hurried up to flank their sister.

  It looked to Alex as if Walter and Bill weren’t so enamored of their sister’s assertive tendencies. Walter tried to take her by the arm, but she shook him off. “Kate,” he said, a placating ring to his voice.

  Placation wouldn’t work; Alex would bet money on it. He watched as Bill tried it anyhow. “Kate . . .”

  “Leave me alone!” She shot her brothers such a vicious glower that they both backed up a couple of paces. Turning back to the beleaguered sergeant, she poked him in the chest with her finger. “You know good and well that my father was a worthless piece of—” Casting a quick glance at Mary Jo, Kate went on, using words Alex imagined she’d edited on the spot. “—junk. He was a no-good drunk, and from what my neighbors have told me when we were coming in here, he was tearing my place apart. Alex was defending me, which is a darned sight more than any of you people have ever done.”

  “Now, Miss Kate, that’s not—”

  “It is, too, true, and you know it!”

  Her cheeks had taken on a pure-fury crimson flush. To Alex, she was the most beautiful, desirable woman in the world. Since he was pretty sure the sergeant didn’t agree with him, he felt it would be prudent to interfere before Kate got arrested for annoying an officer of the law. “It’s all right, K
ate. The sergeant was only asking a few questions.”

  She whirled around again and faced him, her chest heaving and her body trembling. “Are you sure, Alex? Because I won’t allow you to suffer for my father’s sake. Or mine. Darn it, you’ve been so good to us. They can’t possibly believe you killed him for no reason, can they?”

  “Actually, I didn’t kill him at all. It was an accident.”

  “Oh.” She appeared disappointed for no more than an instant. “Well, then, it’s even more ridiculous that they’re holding you in this filthy hole! They aren’t going to try to pin a murder charge on you when it was an accident, are they?”

  “Of course not,” Sergeant Maguire muttered. When Kate gave him a withering scowl, he spoke no more.

  Alex said, “I don’t know how they could. There were too many witnesses to what really happened.”

  “Even if there weren’t witnesses,” Kate said firmly, sending another glower at the sergeant, “they couldn’t actually believe it. Herbert Finney was an animal.”

  Mary Jo pressed a hand over her mouth. Her eyes were bulging in shock and disbelief. Alex patted her on the shoulder, but spoke to Kate. “But if anybody’d had that much sense, you wouldn’t be here, Kate.” He grinned, hoping he wouldn’t further rile her, but unable to help himself.

  “As if that mattered,” Kate grumbled. With lowering brows, she spoke again to the sergeant. “So, are you planning to keep Mr. English here all night, or are you going to pin a medal on him and let him go?”

  Sergeant Maguire sighed heavily. “He can leave, I guess.” Turning to Alex, he said, “Will you be staying at the Congress Hotel, Mr. English?”

  “Yes.”

  “If we have any more questions, we’ll be in touch with you there.”

  “Good enough.”

  “You’ll have to sign a written statement.” The sergeant looked as if he didn’t approve of having the subject of his inquiries leave before he told him he could go, but didn’t quite dare protest.

  Alex wondered if it was his good reputation or Kate’s hellish disposition that had swayed the sergeant. He thought he knew. “That’s fine.” He experienced a twist of cynicism. If he were a poor man, the sergeant would doubtless have used force to detain him. Policemen didn’t dare beat up on rich men.