The Charity

by Connie Johnson Hambley

  “You bastard!” she whispered in disgust. “You’ll rot your days in jail for what you did.” She rubbed away the vision of Sarge’s face with cold fingers.

  The thick envelopes were placed deep into the inside pocket of her coat; the jewelry, picture and Christmas ornaments returned to the box. She pressed the buzzer and waited in silence.

  A few minutes went by, and she pressed the red button again, this time leaning on it for nearly a minute. The clerk finally appeared at the door. She had lost a considerable amount of her perkiness.

  “Are you all finished? So soon?” The woman was looking at Jessica with widened eyes. It was only an afterthought that she remembered to return the box to its locked cubical.

  Jessica’s eyes narrowed and watched the demeanor of the woman carefully. Why the change? “Yes. Thank you. I’ve left everything there for now. It was like a little time capsule. It seemed for a moment as though someone reappeared from the dead and I could almost touch them... like a ghost. Do you know what I mean?”

  The clerk’s hands shook so violently that she dropped her large ring of keys. “Oh? Um. No. No. Not at all. I have never experienced such a thing.” Her eyes darted around the room. She wanted to stare at Jessica, but forced herself to keep looking away, not wanting to stare into the eyes of a murderer.

  Jessica watched, transfixed. Damn it. The news broke. She smiled. “You have been very helpful. Thank you.” She tried to exit the room.

  The shaking woman fumbled her way into her path. “Oh! Um! Please, don’t you need to sign some papers or something?” She caught herself. “I mean... I need you to sign some papers. Wait here, and I’ll bring them to you.”

  Jessica brushed past the quavering banker. “You are so kind. No. I’ve got to get going. Thank you.” She stopped and turned. “I almost forgot! Do you see my key anywhere on the floor? I think I dropped it.” The banker automatically turned to look for her customer’s lost key. Jessica shut the door and braced a chair against it.

  She walked up the stairs and into the bank lobby. The manager was in deep discussion with the security guard. Glancing at the clock, she saw that she had been there one hour. She knew any news about her had not been released before she entered the bank. Chances were they were still trying to figure out if they should or even could detain her. Jessica was lucky that the safe deposit boxes’ records were old and not readily available which made verifying who she was that much more difficult. It gave her needed seconds to leave.

  The security guard raised his head and looked in the direction of the stairs. He missed her by a split second. She shoved her hair under her hat and pulled the brim down over her eyes. She walked out of the bank quickly, forcing herself not to appear in any way rushed or bothered. She hoped the guard assumed she was still downstairs with the luckless clerk. Jessica briskly walked two blocks over before she began to run. It was several blocks later that she hopped on a bus and made her way to a back seat.

  The air in the bus was almost too hot, making rivulets of condensation run down the windows. Jessica took her warm fingers and smudged a small clear circle on the steamed glass. Several police cars with lights and sirens wailing raced back up the street. There was no way she could return to Shea’s camp now. She had walked a long distance to the closest town and taken a cab into Salem exposing herself to too many eyes in the process. The cabby would report her, and the area would be combed with both police and glory seekers. Everyone in the greater Boston area would be looking for her. It would be safer if she left the state. But first, she had to get the contents of the safe deposit box to Shea. He was wrong about her father being willfully involved in the schemes. He wanted out, and she had to prove his innocence to Shea.

  She rode the bus for half an hour or more while deciding what to do. It was getting late in the day, and the sun was setting. The weather promised to be unwelcoming, with thick clouds adding to the rapidly building darkness. With her face on every television and newspaper in the area, it would be impossible to hide. Cold fingers of panic began to lace themselves around her heart.

  The situation was closing in on her ability to think. If she went to Shea’s office, either the police or members of the Charity would be there. According to what Sarge had said, the Charity had members sprinkled throughout the police force and the courts. She knew what Shea said was true. If she was arrested and thrown in jail, she’d be dead within days, probably just hours.

  At least on the streets she was alive. Jessica decided to stick to her old tactics. They had worked in getting her this far. She hoped that they would be effective a little while longer.

  Shea sat back at his desk and watched the sky slowly darken. Anger swelled in him. Innumerable attempts to call Jessica at the camp fueled his growing frustration. The news broke that the Murdering Heiress was alive and out somewhere, exposed. His jaw became rigid with the certainty that it would be only a matter of hours before he would get a call that she was dead. Fool! If only she had listened to him.

  Just moments before, he was enjoying a brief moment of success. The legwork he had done on the lighter turned up gold. The light bore the stamp of Shreve, Crump and Low, an exclusive jeweler which catered to the needs and whims of the very wealthy. There, an erudite man of sixty years by the name of Sebastian Cabot helped locate the record of the original purchase. The lighter was purchased by an ‘M. Connaught’ over twenty-five years ago. The engraving was unique, and the artwork for the engraver was supplied at the time of order. It was an original sketch, and neither it nor anything like it was ever used on any other article. Except for one.

  It seems that about seven years ago, an older gentleman by the name of Magnus Connaught came in and wanted a replacement lighter for one that had been given to him as a gift from his son and lost. It was the only other time a lighter of that design with that particular engraving was made.

  Shea could feel the hot sting of hatred rise in his throat. If he had just another hour, maybe less, he would have been able to file the pleadings against Magnus Connaught and the yet unnamed murderer for the slaying of Gus Adams. With linkage of all of the other gathered evidence topped by the physical evidence of the lighter, probable cause for the murder shifted from Jessica Wyeth to Magnus Connaught. The pleadings would have been filed on a sleeping case. No mention of Jessica and his contact with her would ever have been made or need to have been addressed. It would have been clean. Just so clean.

  But the media circus had already begun, forcing him to play the game on their terms, not his. He wondered if he made a critical error in not including the conspiracy to murder and accomplice to murder charges in Magnus’ original complaint and arrest warrant. No. That would have tipped his hand too early and given his opponent a chance to alter evidence. Shea wanted to avoid the media until he was ready. Someone tipped them off, and he had a good idea who it was.

  “Hey. Some news, huh?”

  Shea looked up and saw Abbey standing in his doorway with a sheaf of papers in her hand. Her straight dark brown hair swung back and forth in strings around her face—proving she was a workaholic who focused more on legal issues than appearance. “Right. Some news. Do you have some questions, or do you just want to pick my brain on how it felt to be a rookie who let a murder suspect escape?”

  “Kinda touchy aren’t you? Naw. I just heard that new secretary of yours screen about fifty phone calls. Every reporter is calling with every conceivable ploy to talk to you. She’s a wreck.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “All of the radio and TV stations are broadcasting Jessica Wyeth’s description hourly. The afternoon papers were held until her photograph could be placed on the front page. There’s an office pool to guess the number of sightings in the first twenty-four hours. Wanna join?”

  Jesus H. Christ. “No. Creating hysteria will only get her killed.”

  “Seems kinda late to worry about that. My hunch is that it was that sher
iff guy who tipped off the media. What do you think?”

  “Right. I wouldn’t reopen the case, and he needed concrete sightings and evidence before the commissioner would give him manpower or support. It fits.”

  “Kind of a coincidence, don’t you think?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean you had us file those complaints against Magnus and ordered us to keep the murder stuff under wraps until you gave the go-ahead to file them. At the same time, the Heiress is said to be back from the dead. Someone might think she contacted you or something. You could get disbarred.”

  “Don’t be stupid.

  “Just reopen the case now and get the heat off. Otherwise, it’s ‘Tabloid City’ for you as the rookie cop that let the murderer get away and was too embarrassed to reopen the case years later. C’mon. Get with the program. Having you file the complaint against her is a courtesy to you as well as a legal necessity. No other attorney could just pick up the facts as they are and make headlines with them. As her case stands now, there is enough probable cause to have a warrant sworn out for her arrest. But your approval as the chief representative for the prosecution is required.”

  “Crim Law 101. Is this what you wanted to talk to me about?”

  Abbey did not flinch. “We went through the documents you got from the search of Connaught’s place. I found what we needed to support the charges contained in the indictments for tax evasion and aiding and abetting. The research you did will help on the embezzlement counts. There was a lot of stuff in those boxes.”

  “Right. Just as long as you got what you needed.”

  She turned to leave, tossing a stack of papers and photographs on his desk. “I don’t know what you want to do with these. We found them among Connaught’s papers. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Yeah. Right. Later.”

  Many old photographs, mostly faded color snapshots, lay scattered across his desk. Family photographs taken at various gatherings throughout the years laughed up at him. One photograph jumped out more than the others, and he picked it up to look at it more carefully. It was a faded portrait of a father standing between two sons, with the mother standing closest to the younger son, arm around his shoulders in an almost protective gesture. Each boy was in their late teens, most likely. The man was unmistakable as a young Magnus M. Connaught. The woman was not the woman Shea saw in the dining room last night. Shea had heard that Connaught’s first wife had taken her own life and that he had remarried. He assumed that the woman in the picture was Connaught’s first wife and mother of the two boys pictured. The older boy was not recognizable by Shea. It was the younger one that most caught his eye.

  Shea took a long hard look at the young face and imagined what it would look like twenty or so years later as a fully-grown man. There could be no mistaking the characteristics of the eyes. The strong jaw line was clearly present. The eyebrows creased in a straight line across his forehead.

  Every event over the past weeks became much, much clearer.

  Sheriff Michael Conant was indeed the son of Magnus Michael Connaught.

  Jessica hopped off the bus and took the T the rest of the way into Boston. She did not have a clear plan yet as to what she was going to do. Several calls to Shea at his office were blocked by the secretary. His home answering machine had two messages on it, both in the prearranged code phrases. There was only the smallest chance that they would be able to rendezvous and that she would be able to give him the documents from the safe deposit box. Still, it was a chance she had to take.

  Being back in Boston within walking distance of Shea’s office increased the likelihood of connecting with Shea and getting caught. It was a risk she had to take. If he could only clear a window of fifteen minutes, she could deliver the papers and leave the state. It was suicide to stay, but she could not trust any other way of getting him the papers. After all, didn’t that Granger guy get his hands on the lighter?

  Snow began to fall in the tiny flakes that signified a large storm. Jessica looked at the growing veil and remembered the excitement such a snowfall would spark within her. From her memories of the perfect New England winters, to the champagne powder the Utah ski slopes were famous for, such a snow always meant adventure. Jessica huffed at the irony of what the adventure was for her now.

  The next twenty-four hours would be crucial in determining her life. The thought sunk her down onto a granite partition in front of an office building, normally a settling spot for workers to sit while enjoying a springtime lunch. With the snow increasing in volume, spring seemed a century away.

  Jessica had done all that she could for the next few hours. Viable alternatives were scarce. With her face plastered all over the TV and newspapers, contact with people must be kept to a bare minimum. No hotels. No shelters. Those places crawled with people, increasing the likelihood of someone recognizing her. Spending the night on the street in a blizzard was not the most welcome choice, but her only choice. She made a mental inventory of what she had on her.

  Much of her cash was still taped to her. Pockets of money remained squirreled away in some public restrooms around the city, but she doubted there would be a chance to go back and collect it. She had enough to buy a ticket to just about anywhere and to stay in a hotel. For now, both were out of the question.

  Several layers of clothes meant that she could withstand being outside for a while without being concerned with dealing with adverse effects of frostbite or hypothermia. Government Center did not afford the same luxuries as the mountains out west. While in Utah she had gotten a great deal of experience in winter camping and survival in the elements. Staying warm in Boston was going to be considerably easier than staying alive.

  A significant period of time elapsed before she snapped out of her thoughts. She was covered with a surprisingly thick layer of snow. Rush hour had passed, and the few people that slipped and skidded down the slushy sidewalks gave the lone seated figure only the briefest of glances. Unfortunately, that was all that was needed.

  It was a strategic error to rest in such a public place, a mistake that was brought on by increasing fatigue. Anyone sitting still in a blizzard stands out like a sore thumb. In the same second that she snapped out of her reverie, she surveyed the scene. At first, it appeared that her presence was unremarkable to most people. As she allowed herself to sense what was going on around her, she became aware of something across the street.

  She got to her feet slowly and shook the snow off, using the motion to get a better look at the source of the feeling without being obvious. A young boy, about fourteen years of age, was trying equally hard not to be noticed by her. It was no use. Jessica recognized him immediately as the urchin from the hotel and the one that the residence clerk at the Y described. He was walking around in a slow circle, keeping an eye on Jessica while trying to look disinterested. A telephone booth glowed dimly in the falling snow. He must have already made the call. Damn it. Luck was definitely running out. So was time.

  She walked up the street slowly, feigning both injury and fatigue. A cab stand was only a block or so away in front of one of the better hotels. In this weather, she doubted a cab would be available, but she made her way to the stand anyway.

  Rounding the last corner, she used the large plate glass window of a small store as a mirror to check the street behind her. The image was slightly distorted, but she could see the boy hunched up to the driver’s side window of a large car. His body language told her that he was telling the driver about her. Her heart began to pound when the car slid its way toward her. She began to run.

  She heard the neat, shrill whistle of the doorman summoning the last of the cabs to the canopied entrance of the Parker House, a grand hotel situated on a small side street. The properly attired sentinel went back inside to tell the waiting guest that indeed a cab was on its way. Jessica did not waste a second.

  The cabby was startled as the do
or of his vehicle was thrust open and a snow-encrusted figure blasted in.

  “Hey! Ya get outta heyah! I’m waitin’ for a fare. Go!” The older man’s voice was hoarse with a cold. His mild European accent was heavily tempered with the tones of the South Boston dialect. He must have been in this country for a while.

  Jessica slammed a fist full of twenty-dollar bills onto the plastic partition separating the cabby from his passenger. “This is just so you’ll go, now! I’ll pay triple the meter and there’s more in it for you if you lose that car that’s behind you. Now please go. NOW!” She fumbled with an additional wad of cash to emphasize her promise. The cabby smiled and floored the accelerator. The taxi sashayed away from the curb, leaving the whistling doorman sliding furiously after them in the blizzard.

  Jessica could see the headlights of the other car whip after them. Her heart was in her mouth as she watched one of its passengers jump out and get close enough to her cab to grab a hold of its bumpers. Like a kid playing in a winter’s first snow, the man used the slippery streets to be pulled along behind the cab like a water-skier.

  “Wherah to?” the cabby inquired calmly.

  “Oh! Um. Back Bay. Then circle back to the South End.” Heart pounding, she kept one eye on the direction of the cab and the other on the determined face of their pursuer, clinging to the frozen car.

  It was no use pretending to be calm. “Please! Please! Can’t you get rid of that guy?” Her ice-cold panic was plainly visible.

  Large brown eyes with dark eyebrows laced with gray repeatedly glanced in the rearview mirror at her and the man gripping the car. The cabby reached for his radio and called his dispatcher. He watched as his passenger froze while he notified his base that he had a fare and would be making several stops. He met the eyes of the frightened young woman through his mirror.

  “You de Heiress dey been talkin’ about?” he inquired almost casually.

  The street skiing man inched his way onto the back trunk of the cab.