Reluctantly, Gina descended the stairs and moved toward them, trying to think what to say. Luckily the man, who was probably in his early fifties, spoke again. “May I ask how you knew my brother, Marty Doyle? You look familiar.”
Gina gulped. This was Marty’s brother, which meant, of course, that this was another of her mother’s cousins. For a moment she gaped at him, unsure what to say and feeling completely addled.
The old woman surveyed her keenly, then swatted the man lightly on the arm. “Of course she looks familiar, you numbskull. Sometimes my son Eddie’s a bit of a dunce, aren’t you, Eddie?” She continued to eye Gina’s features. “I recognize that wayward chin, that defiant look. You have the same look in your eyes that my niece Molly had, just before she ran off with that Italian fellow and wrote herself right out of the family.”
Gina stiffened. “That ‘Italian fellow’ was my father, Frank Ricci. I am sorry, Mrs. Doyle, for your loss. I was here to pay my respects, and I was just leaving.”
“Turning your back on the family?”
“No more than they turned on us.”
“Your mother made her choice to go with your father. She chose a life without us.”
Her son was still trying to work it out. “You’re Molly’s daughter. That makes Mother your—”
“Great-aunt,” Gina and Mrs. Doyle said at the same time.
They didn’t have very long to ponder the significance, as the driver of the funeral coach called out that he was ready to start the processional to the graveyard.
Mrs. Doyle straightened her shoulders. “This is not the place or time to go into this. You will join us at my home. Eddie, give the girl our address. I’ll not have it any other way.” She spoke firmly, and Gina found herself accepting a business card from Mr. Doyle with the address scrawled on the back. “We’ll be there directly after the burial. Do join us. There is much we need to discuss.”
* * *
Trying to maintain a sense of calm, Gina walked up to the Doyles’ home right at one o’clock, just as nearby church bells tolled the hour. She’d spent the last hour, wandering aimlessly around outside the church, trying to overcome a growing sense of panic and fear over the upcoming meeting. In the back of her mind, she’d known she might meet some of Marty’s relatives—her relatives—but now that this was actually happening, she was feeling nervous and tongue-tied.
She consulted Mr. Doyle’s card, to make sure she was at the correct address, even though it was obvious from all the people dressed in black and carrying covered dishes. She kept her fingers crossed that Roark would not be there.
Quickly straightening her coat and hat, Gina hoped she would look presentable when she entered the house. It was then that she noticed some men in dark suits standing by the door.
Their movements reminded her of how Gooch and Little Jimmy moved and acted at the Third Door. Were they guards? For a moment, she wondered if she was supposed to know a password. What would happen if she didn’t?
“Get a grip, Gina,” she muttered to herself. Approaching the men, she asked, “Is this Mrs. John Doyle’s home?” She felt stupid and nervous. Should she show them the card from Eddie Doyle?
She needn’t have worried. One of the men gave her a terse nod and cocked his head. “Inside.”
Inside, she walked into the grandest home she’d ever seen, with a gleaming wooden staircase rising gracefully to the second floor, a parlor to the right, and a closed-off room to her left. Everywhere mourners clumped together in murmured conversations and muffled laughter. As she walked into the parlor, she passed a huge table full of heaping trays of food. Ham, Irish soda bread, corned beef sandwiches, tiny cookies. On another table by a floor-to-ceiling window, there was a great glass tureen full of soup, and another full of a pink frothy liquid that looked like punch. In another corner, there was still another tureen with a number of glasses near it. Men were gathered beside it, pouring themselves a familiar-looking brown liquid. Whiskey.
With her stomach growling, she took a china plate from one end of the table and began to stuff it full of meats, cheeses, and salads, not caring if she was transgressing convention or propriety. She went to a corner table to eat, while still watching everything around her.
Could any of these people be her relatives? Should she try speaking to anyone? Right now, she just wanted to stuff her mouth full of food.
She was in midbite when a white-haired man approached her. “Miss Ricci?” he asked.
Trying to swallow the huge chunk of brown soda bread, she just nodded.
“Allow me to introduce myself. I am Hiram Dern, a friend of the family and their attorney. The Doyles asked me to have you join them in their study when you arrived. Follow me, if you would. I don’t like to keep them waiting.”
Reluctantly, Gina abandoned her plate of food, hoping she could retrieve it later.
She followed Mr. Dern down a long corridor to a back room. It opened into a large study full of gold-embossed books and gleaming dark wood. Mrs. Doyle and Eddie Doyle were seated on fancy chairs around a low table, along with another much older gentleman with thick white hair, bright blue eyes, and red cheeks. A dour-looking woman dressed in a somber gray dress was seated beside Mrs. Doyle. Her hair, pulled back in a severe bun, showed she was not a flapper or a New Woman. Nor was she a woman born with prewar gentility. This was a woman with presence, a woman who brooked no nonsense. She was probably in her thirties or early forties and had the air of someone who would rather be outside than in a room seated on a sofa sipping tea.
Eddie stood up when she entered, and Mrs. Doyle gave her a terse nod. “Prompt, at least,” she commented. A cookie and a cup of tea were untouched in front of her.
He extended his hand toward her. “Gina,” he said. “How good of you to join us. I’d like to introduce you to my father, your great-uncle John Doyle.”
“Forgive me, my dear,” the white-haired man said. “I cannot get up and about like I used to, particularly after the funeral. I will ask you to sit beside me, so that I can see you more clearly.”
With a start, she recognized her brother in her great-uncle’s features.
“What is it?” he asked, seeing her expression.
“It’s just that you remind me of my brother, Aidan, who passed in the Great War.”
Instinctively, everyone in the room made the sign of the cross.
The woman in the dark uniform coughed. The sound caused everyone to turn to her.
Mrs. Doyle turned to her. “Let us not forget to introduce you to your mother’s cousin, Marty’s sister, Nancy. She’s a spinster.”
Nancy Doyle grimaced. “Thank you for that, Mother. Also, let us not forget, a police woman. On the force for twelve years.” Although she seemed to have announced her employment with a bit of a jab toward her parents, there was also pride underlying her words.
Surely there were very few women on the police force, Gina thought as she regarded the woman. She must have joined during the war, when the young men around her were conscripted to fight overseas. That she had been allowed to remain on the force later was likely a testament to her fortitude. But it was hard to make sense of that right now. Her head spinning from meeting all these new relatives at once, Gina could only smile wanly at Nancy.
Nancy did not return her smile. “How long have you known Marty?” she asked, her eyes narrowing. “We understand that you work at the Third Door, too.”
There was no pretense that she worked at the pharmacy or any other such hooey, Gina noticed. “How did you know that I work there?” she countered. “Did Marty tell you about me?”
Nancy’s look of pain looked real. “None of us have spoken to Marty for a very long time.”
Mr. Dern exchanged a look with Mrs. Doyle. “How long did you know Marty? Was he friendly with your father? Is that how you came to work at the Third Door?”
Gina noticed that no one had answered her question. Maybe Gooch had told them. Still, she answered the attorney’s question. “I only me
t Marty a couple of weeks ago, when I first started to work at the Third Door. Shortly after, he told me he was my mother’s cousin. I wish I had known him better. I am…” She hesitated, not wishing to divulge too much. “I’m interested in learning more about photography. I would have liked to learn from him.”
Another speculative glance followed, this time between Nancy and her grandmother.
The attorney nodded. “How did you come to work there? Perhaps Marty mentioned it to your father? They don’t exactly put adverts in the paper, do they?”
“No,” she said slowly, remembering Marty’s indignation with the Signora. “My friend told me that they needed another girl there.”
“A fortuitous coincidence, then,” Mr. Doyle said, clapping his hands together.
Gina smiled at her great-uncle. He, at least, seemed genuinely pleased to meet her. “I suppose,” she replied. “Marty told me that he didn’t want me working there.” She bit her lip then and looked away. She didn’t know why she had said that.
The attorney nodded. “Protective,” he said, looking around at the others, as if this confirmed something for him.
The others exchanged another glance. Clearly, a hidden conversation was occurring, one to which she was not privy. She waited for someone to elaborate, but no one did.
She turned back to her great-aunt, who was still looking at her with curiosity and something else. “Please, Mrs. Doyle,” she said. “Why did you ask me to see you?”
Her great-aunt nodded at her lawyer. “I’ll let Mr. Dern explain.”
The lawyer cleared his throat. “Martin Liam Doyle, having died without issue, has designated you his primary beneficiary and heir.”
“What?!” Gina searched their faces. Was this a joke? An odd joke, to be sure. Indeed, they all looked solemn. Nancy seemed put out but not surprised.
Mr. Dern continued. “His will left everything to your mother, Molly O’Brien, who, it seems, was his favorite cousin. Turns out, he never updated his will, even after her death. I was going to inform you tomorrow, and then you showed up at the funeral today.”
Nancy and Eddie both gave a little grunt at the attorney’s words, the sullen sounds lingering in the air.
“Marty did tell me that my mother had been his favorite,” Gina agreed, looking at Marty’s brother and sister. “I’m afraid I don’t understand what this means.”
A snort again, this time from Nancy.
Ignoring the sudden tension, the attorney continued. “Since your mother has passed, her inheritance will pass to her issue, which means you and your brother, Aidan. Since your brother passed in the Great War, you are Martin Doyle’s primary beneficiary.”
Behind them, Nancy muttered something under her breath that Gina couldn’t quite catch.
This time the lawyer wagged a warning figure at Nancy before continuing. “Thus, this means that Mr. Doyle’s possessions will pass to you, as you are above the age of majority,” the lawyer continued. “This will, of course, be after the funeral and interment costs and all other debts are paid. There may be very little after that,” he warned her. “Assuming that we can confirm your identity.”
“Of course. I didn’t know, I didn’t expect—” Feeling helpless, Gina let her voice drop off. Marty’s family, her family, continued to size her up, regarding her as one might view a strange animal.
Mr. Dern continued in his dry way, as if she had not spoken. “Mr. Doyle leased two flats in one of the buildings above the Third Door, as you may know. One of them was his personal apartment, and the other he used as his photography studio. His rent has been paid through June, as he had a specific relationship with his landlords,” the lawyer continued. “You will of course inherit all of his furniture and other effects, whatever those may be.” After scrutinizing her face, he turned to Eddie. “I think Miss Ricci could do with a drink.”
“Of course,” Eddie replied, as he hastily poured some whiskey into a glass and placed it in her hand. “This must be a shock.”
The others watched as she took a deep gulp of the liquid, which burned her tongue and throat unmercifully.
“Is it a shock for you?” Nancy asked. “Are you quite sure that you knew nothing of this bequest?”
Gina took another deep gulp, and the hot, bitter taste of whiskey washed uncomfortably down her throat. “I knew nothing about it.”
“You have to admit,” Nancy interrupted, “that the timing of Marty’s death is fortunate. For you.”
“Fortunate?” Gina asked. “Whatever do you mean?”
“Your father is no longer able to fix things like he used to, is he?”
“Why, no,” Gina began, surprised that Nancy knew about this, but her uncle Eddie cut her off.
“You and your father, you are in deep financial trouble, are you not?” he asked, regarding her closely.
“Yes, well,” Gina stammered, “no. I’d just gotten the job. We’re doing well enough.” Gina stood up then, anger coursing over her. “I didn’t even know about Marty, let alone about this inheritance. To say it was good timing, well, that is terrible. I have no other family, and I would have liked to know him! I would like to have found a connection to my mother again.”
Tears as hot as the whiskey burned in her eyes. “I don’t know what you might be accusing me of, but I certainly did not ask or expect anything from Marty, who I only just met. To say I was here for anything else at all, well, that impugns me, him, and worst of all my mother.” Gina set down the glass down hard on the edge of the desk. “If you’ll excuse me.”
Her great-uncle stood up then, a smile on his lips. “Gina, you’re quite wrong.”
Gina glared at him. “Wrong how?”
“That he was the only connection to your family, to your mother. We’re so very sorry to have said good-bye to Marty, but we’re very glad that you’ve come back into our lives. Your parents did you wrong by keeping you away all these years.”
Gina stiffened. “My mother said her family cast her out. That you cast her out. Even Marty told me that you would be unlikely to welcome me.”
There was a shuffling among her relatives, and her great-uncle laid a hand on his wife’s arm. “Let’s move past that. We are in a different era now, are we not?” With considerable effort, he held out his elbow for Gina to take. When she hesitated, he leaned over and drew her hand onto the crook of his arm.
Nodding to the lawyer to open the heavy oak door, her great-uncle pulled her through the ornate doorway. “Come, my dear. I should very much like to introduce my great-niece to the world.”
CHAPTER 11
When Gina returned home from the luncheon, she was exhausted. So many new cousins and aunts she couldn’t even make sense of it all, some smiling, some looking at her in suspicion, some giving her little hugs, others turning away from her. She’d stayed at the Doyles’ home for another hour before she grew too overwhelmed and left, only to discover it had begun to snow. After waiting to no avail for the bus, she ended up walking along the bus route, catching it with just two miles to go. At least she’d managed to save her shoes from getting ruined.
“Papa?” she called out, dropping her bag and keys on the table. She wanted to talk things over with her father right away. She knocked on her father’s bedroom door and went in. To her surprise, the room was empty. That was odd. Her father didn’t usually venture out on his own these days.
Gina went to the flat above hers and knocked on her neighbor’s door. “Mrs. Hayford,” she called. “It’s me, Gina.”
The door opened slightly and a middle-aged woman looked out. “Hello, dear, what is it?”
“Have you seen my papa?”
“Oh, yes, dear. I believe he went out,” Mrs. Hayford replied, pulling her shawl closer around her as the chilly wind swept through the open door.
“Where did he go?”
“Down to the barbershop, I heard him say.” She shook her head. “Guess he wanted a shave and a trim.”
“More likely he just misses his pals,” G
ina replied. Although on the one hand she was glad that her papa felt up to seeing his friends, on the other, she felt a bit miffed that he’d ventured out into the growing storm without her.
Slipping on boots, Gina set out for the barbershop over on Carpenter. Although her father’s palsy was manageable, it was hard not to worry that he might take a treacherous spin on the ice and break a bone—or worse. Within a block, she regretted that she had not changed out of the thin black dress that she had worn to the funeral. The snow had starting coming down harder and the wind had begun to pick up, so that the chill burrowed right into her bones.
When she arrived at the barbershop and opened the door, a little bell jangled above her head. The shop was full of thick masculine aromas—men’s facial soap, cologne, sweat. She was immediately an object of the men’s interest when she walked in, blowing on her hands and stamping the snow from her boots.
“Hey, Gina,” the barber called, stopping in midshave. As always, her dad’s longtime friend Al was dressed in his crisp white jacket and black bow tie. He jerked his thumb toward the back of the room. “Your pop’s over there.”
She found her father sitting on a black leather chair in the back corner of the shop, clouds of wispy gray-and-black hair blowing about him on the floor. She did like seeing his face neatly shaved, without any of the cuts he often inflicted on himself. The banter that had stopped when she entered the room soon resumed. The shop looked darker than usual. “I think Al needs to screw a few lightbulbs in,” she joked to her dad.
Following her glance toward the burned-out electric lights in the ceiling, he gave her a meaningful look. “Shhh,” he said, putting his fingers to his lips. “Turns out that Al made a deal that wasn’t on the up-and-up.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, plopping down in a red chair next to her father. Commonwealth Edison wasn’t a business particularly known for making deals with its customers. You paid or you didn’t. For sure if you didn’t, your electricity was cut. That was it. No deals to be had.
Murder Knocks Twice Page 14