“I knew you were up to something when you asked for her address!” Robert cried in a rare show of energy.
Miss Giddings leaned forward, her hands clutching the edge of the thin mattress. “How . . . And did you . . . ”
I shook my head. “No, I didn’t find it. But your sister caught me snooping in her room—another boarder let me in—and Aunt Johnene told me I’d be lucky if I didn’t end up dead in an alley!”
“You sure aren’t afraid to stick your nose in everybody’s business,” Flora noted, pulling another dress out of the case. I couldn’t tell if she thought my being a busybody was a good or a bad thing. “I hope you at least learned something.”
“No, I didn’t. Except that I should ‘watch’ myself.” I shot Miss Giddings a guilty look. “Sorry.”
Miss Giddings grew even more solemn—not only because I’d failed to be of any help. “Oh, Johnene.” She wasn’t angry or accusing. Just wistful. “She’s been jealous of me since we were little girls, and it has twisted her up inside. She probably thinks she’s doing right, refusing to cooperate.”
I didn’t understand. “How so?”
“I think Johnene has truly come to believe that I’m wicked and deserve punishment,” Miss Giddings explained. Her cheeks reddened again. “And perhaps I was wrong to see Charles when I knew my sister liked him.” She averted her gaze, looking out through the bars. “That wasn’t very nice of me . . .”
“She should still help you,” I said. “I mean, Mr. Bessemer never would have stayed with her!”
Miss Giddings smiled wryly. “I’m sure Johnene doesn’t see it that way.” She grew serious again. “Please be careful, Isabel. Don’t get yourself in trouble over me.”
“I won’t,” I promised, although I felt like I was already in some trouble—with both Aunt Johnene and Robert’s father. “But you’ve gotta do everything you can to help yourself,” I told her. “You’re innocent. It might not be fair that a bunch of guilty women have walked free just because they’re pretty, but you didn’t hurt anybody. Please, pick out a good outfit for your trial.”
Robert was breathing steadier, and he pulled himself more upright. “You should listen to Isabel,” he urged his mother. “She reads the papers and knows a lot.” He glanced at Flora and offered her a grudging compliment too. “And Flora seems to know about how to dress nicely.”
“I choose my own outfits for Bakery Pride, and I’ve modeled for L’il Miss and Mister, too, for their advertisements,” Flora said, heaping more praise on herself. As if we hadn’t already heard the part about the bread, or needed to know that she’d also trotted around preening for a store where rich people bought their kids’ clothes. “Just let me help you.”
Miss Giddings frowned. “Flora . . . why do you want to help so badly? Are you that certain I didn’t kill your father?”
“Yes, I am,” Flora confirmed, offering Miss Giddings the silk crepe dress again. “And I think you should wear this. The shade of brown goes well with your eyes, and the cut will make you look fashionable, but will show that you take the trial seriously, too.”
“That is pretty nice,” I said, adding my two cents.
Miss Giddings hesitated, then rose. “Okay.” She had more color in her cheeks and a tiny bit more spark in her eyes. “I always did love this.” She took the dress from Flora and held it up to herself, smoothing the fabric against her gaunt frame.
I was worried that she might be too skinny to pull off the outfit, but I said, “You’re gonna look really pretty.” Hesitating, I added nonchalantly, “You might wanna eat something between now and the trial. Just to keep your strength up.”
“I brought you matching shoes,” Flora noted, rooting in the suitcase for a pair of stylish pumps. She set those on the floor. “And do your hair up. Your curls are as frizzy as Isabel’s.”
“Hey . . .” I started to protest, but my hair was a mess.
“There’s a woman in cell one fifty seven who used to be a hairdresser,” Miss Giddings said. “They say she stabbed her husband, but she seems very nice to me. I’m sure she’ll help me.”
I hoped the lady in cell 157 didn’t have to use scissors on Miss Giddings.
Apparently Miss Giddings wasn’t worried about that. She had turned her attention back to Robert, who was being his usual quiet self. Maybe even more silent than normal. “You should get home now, Robert,” she urged him. “I don’t want you to overdo it.”
Looking at Robert, I realized it was a little too late for that. He wasn’t getting blue, but he had very dark circles under his eyes. And we had a long way to go, just to get him back to the automobile. “Yeah,” I agreed. “We should get going.”
Robert nodded, and Miss Giddings helped him stand up. They wrapped their arms around each other for a long time, the way they’d done when we got to the cell. Long enough that I—and even Flora—looked away to give them some privacy.
Then Robert took his crutches and we started our slow way out of the cell, which a guard quickly locked, making an awful clank. Before we were five feet down the corridor, Miss Giddings called after us.
“I love you, Robert. Please don’t worry about me.”
He stopped and stiffened, then turned slowly around, but he didn’t say anything. I was pretty sure he was trying to keep from crying.
Then Miss Giddings looked at me. “Has anyone approached you about testifying yet, Isabel? You know you have to testify, right?”
It was my turn to freeze in place.
How had I forgotten that?
Chapter 83
“I THOUGHT YOUR MOTHER LOOKED PRETTY GOOD,” I fibbed to Robert, who was next to me in the back seat of Uncle Carl’s big sedan. I was starting to get used to the bulletproof quiet—and to having an adult drive me around. Too bad Robert wasn’t more comfortable. Although the auto had a heater, like Detective Culhane’s police car, the cold was starting to bother his lungs again. “She sure seemed happy to see you,” I added. “Probably the happiest she’s been in jail.”
“She . . . she was worried,” Robert said with effort. “I made her more worried . . . by going.”
Flora was riding in the front seat, and she turned around. “You got us into the jail, and now your mother’s going to look better for the trial. You had to do it. She couldn’t go before a jury in some old housedress!”
“Thanks . . . Flora,” Robert said.
Maybe they would’ve been fine as siblings after all.
Or maybe not.
“Did I hear you say you’re gonna testify, kid?” Uncle Carl asked. His jowls were, as usual, flapping, and his breath, like always, smelled terrible. “You’re a witness?”
I assumed that I was the “kid” in question since I had been fretting about taking the stand. “Yeah, I guess I’m testifying,” I told him. Then I sank down in the seat. “I don’t know how my mom’s not gonna find out about that.”
“Cat’s . . . out of . . . the bag,” Robert managed.
“Gee, do you think so?”
“Why do they want you on the stand?” Uncle Carl snorted his bulldog laugh. “What can you tell anybody?”
“I was first on the scene,” I reminded him. “And since then I’ve been investigating. I have all sorts of things to say.”
“Oh, yeah?” He glanced over his shoulder, his eyebrows arched. “What kind of things?”
“Well, I went back to that building you drove us to and found footprints in the dust. And I searched the alley, too, and found clues in the snow, including—”
“Isabel!” Flora cut me off abruptly. “The lawyers and the judge won’t let you just talk, you know. You’re only allowed to answer questions at a trial. You can’t just say anything you want.”
I leaned forward. “How do you know about trials?”
Flora shrugged. “Everybody knows how trials work.”
Robert and I shared a look that said, Maybe everybody who grew up with gangsters!
I sat back in my seat. “Well, I’m gonna say everyt
hing I want to say, even if I have to do it fast, and nobody’s gonna shut me up until I’m done.”
“The judge’ll shut you up,” Flora predicted. “And the lawyers.”
Why was she suddenly not on our side?
“Don’t you want me to tell about—”
Flora spun around again, fast. “I’m just telling you that you’re only supposed to answer the questions, or the judge will shut . . . you . . . up.”
“All right, all right,” I grumbled, crossing my arms. “You don’t have to get all snippy about it.”
We rode the rest of the way to Robert’s house in silence. For some reason, I felt uneasier than usual for him when we left him to nap on his couch.
And I got even more anxious when I got home, where there was yet another envelope waiting for me, stuck in the crack between the door and the frame.
A letter that I was really glad my mother hadn’t seen, because it was marked “Official Summons.”
Yup. I, Isabel Feeney, was gonna get on that stand and defend Miss Giddings’s life. And no matter what Flora said, nobody was gonna shut me up.
Or so I thought.
Chapter 84
IT WAS SNOWING THE NIGHT BEFORE MISS GIDDINGS’S TRIAL STARTED, and the city was strangely quiet, as if everybody were holding their breath, worried for her.
I knew that wasn’t really true—in fact, the people who were even aware of the case, thanks to Maude’s articles, either didn’t care at all or were excited to see a pretty young woman fight for her life. Trials were big entertainment in Chicago, not unlike mobsters’ funerals. Lots of folks considered the courthouse a theater, where they could go see live drama for free. Not too long ago, when two rich kids named Leopold and Loeb got tried for killing another boy just for the thrill of committing murder, the courtroom hadn’t been nearly big enough to hold everybody who wanted to get a seat.
No wonder the rest of the country thinks Chicago is the murder capital of the world.
Bending, I picked up the small stack of newspapers at my feet, giving up on selling them for the evening. The snow was falling harder, and the few folks walking by had their heads bent down and their collars pulled up against the storm. Nobody was stopping to buy a Tribune, and I needed to get home and sleep. I had to be at the courthouse early the next morning, since a witness could get called at any time.
I guess I have to tell my mother what’s happening.
Sighing, because I was going to be in big trouble and my mother would have more to worry about, I tucked the unsold papers under my arm, once again glimpsing Maude’s story about Miss Giddings’s trial. The article—JURY TO DECIDE IF IT’S NOOSE FOR “PRETTIEST” SLAYER—was small, but it was on the front page, and there was a picture of Miss Giddings from when she’d first been arrested. She looked really pretty, if wide-eyed.
Hunching my shoulders against the wind, I started tramping through the snow, heading back to old Mr. Rozzoli’s newsstand to return my extra Tribs. But after I’d gone about ten yards, I stopped, right at the end of the alley where Mr. Bessemer had gotten shot.
It was a potential shortcut, one I sometimes used to use, but it had always made me a little nervous. And I definitely hadn’t passed through after dark since the murder.
What’s wrong with you, Izzie? Are you that scared of Aunt Johnene or that big bully Albert Rowland?
I was, but I didn’t want to admit it, even to myself. So, taking a deep breath, I decided that, given how bad the storm was getting, it was time to stop being frightened of a place that hadn’t really changed, except in my imagination, and I trudged into the darkness.
Immediately, the hairs on the back of my neck started to prickle, but I kept going.
And when I was halfway through to the other street, I heard a noise.
Just like Miss Giddings must’ve heard right before the man walking next to her had been murdered in cold blood.
Chapter 85
AS I STARTED TO RUN, CURSING MY OVERSIZE BOOTS, I tossed the papers to the wind so I could pump my arms.
Maybe I was screaming, too, which didn’t drown out the sound of footsteps right on my heels and heavy breathing, like the person chasing me was also struggling.
“No!” I cried, my heart pounding and cold sweat pouring down my back. “No, don’t . . .”
Then, arms flailing, I stumbled on something—right before everything went black.
Chapter 86
“ISABEL, CAN YOU HEAR ME?”
I felt someone shake my arm gently, and heard my mother’s terrified, if quiet, voice rousing me.
“I’m tired,” I grumbled, turning my head away. But the movement sent a powerful jolt of pain through my skull. Even so, I could hardly manage to move or cry out, and I weakly mewed, “Ow . . .”
I wanted to know where I was and what the heck had happened to me. It felt as if my head were wrapped in a turban, like I was Rudolph Valentino in his famous movie The Sheik. But I was mainly desperate to keep sleeping.
Probably the only thing that could’ve made my eyes pop open right then was hearing my mother growl, in a tone I’d never heard before, at somebody else in the room. “You . . . you had something to do with this, didn’t you?”
Chapter 87
“MAUDE, WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?” I ASKED, CONFUSED. “And why is Mom mad at you?”
Maude, who was uncharacteristically pale, opened her mouth to speak, but my mother interrupted, squeezing my arm. “Just rest, Isabel,” she urged. “Please.”
With effort, I shifted to see that Mom wore her cleaning uniform, and I finally realized that I was in the hospital, where she should have been working, not sitting at my bedside.
Then my eyes, which had had been drifting shut again, suddenly opened wide when I caught a glimpse of Detective Culhane standing, arms crossed, at the foot of my bed. I recalled how he’d reminded me of the Grim Reaper the night I’d first met him, and I got a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach, as if he might actually have come to claim my soul.
I pulled my blanket up to my chin, only to notice Detective Hastings standing in a corner too.
“Hey,” I greeted him, managing a weak smile.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, for once not getting silenced by Detective Culhane. “You okay, Isabel?”
“Not really,” I admitted. Sitting up straighter, although that made the throbbing in my head worse, I looked around at the assembled adults. “What happened to me? Why are you all here?”
“That’s what I want to know,” Mom said, her voice low and angry. She was glaring at Maude, as if a certain famous reporter was responsible for me getting attacked in an alley. Fortunately—or maybe unfortunately—I was gradually remembering the events that had taken place . . . who knew how long ago. All I knew for sure was that I’d been walking in the dark, then running, then . . . clunk. “What is going on here?” Mom demanded. “Why is my daughter injured? Who did this?”
“Mrs. Feeney . . .” Maude was close to stammering, and she didn’t have her notebook out. She turned to Detective Culhane, her eyes pleading. “James . . .”
“Believe me, Mrs. Feeney,” Detective Culhane said with much more confidence. “I fully intend to find out who harmed Isabel.”
I dared to look at him again, and although he was frowning, he seemed more worried than angry. Less like someone ready to snatch my soul and more like a concerned father. That was when I realized that I hadn’t been murdered, so why was the Homicide Division involved?
Rubbing my head, which was covered by a big bandage, not a turban, I looked between Detectives Culhane and Hastings. “I didn’t get killed,” I pointed out. “So why did you come?”
“What happened to you might very well be related to a homicide,” Detective Culhane informed me.
“But you said the killer is already caught,” I reminded him. “You’re sure it was Miss Giddings.”
It had taken me less than a minute to make him want to bonk me on the head, but he held his temper in check—becaus
e he’d grown fond of me, in his own gruff way. I could tell. “You rest your brain, Miss Feeney,” he suggested. “Let Hastings and me take care of investigating—as I’ve urged you, several times.”
“What if I might have some ideas . . .”
There was warning in Detective Culhane’s voice. “Isabel, I just told you . . .”
Maude intervened on my behalf. “James, perhaps you should listen to her. You need to hear Izzie’s story at some point.”
“Her story,” he clarified. “Not her theories—”
“I told you, Albert Rowland threatened me,” I said, talking over him. He needed to listen to me. “And then Aunt Johnene, when I sneaked into her boarding house looking for the gun—”
“What are you talking about, Isabel?” my mother interrupted, sounding even more alarmed. “A gun?” She addressed Detective Culhane. “Why does my daughter know a reporter and two police officers? Why is she talking about guns?”
“Mrs. Feeney . . .” Maude had regained her composure, and her voice was soothing as she moved closer to the bed. The contrast between the two women was striking. My mother’s frizzy, graying hair and cheap hospital-issued dress paled even more than usual in comparison with Maude’s smart skirt and silk blouse, her glossy black bob, and a pair of bright red pumps. Maude was tall to begin with and she loomed even larger given that my mother was sitting. Maude met my gaze for a moment, as if she was asking permission to explain, and I nodded because I knew she’d do a better job than I could.
“One of Isabel’s regular customers, Colette Giddings, was at the scene of a shooting a few weeks ago—not far from where Izzie was selling papers,” Maude told Mom. “Your daughter—very bravely—ran to help, although it was too late. A man, Charles Bessemer, was killed.”
My mother’s fingers tightened on my arm, and she gave me a sharp, apprehensive glance but let Maude continue.
Isabel Feeney, Star Reporter Page 17