He looked at the page and paled. “Where did you find this?”
She was already closing his door. She leaned against it. “On my desk.”
“On your desk?” His eyes widened.
“In my bedroom. I had just returned from following my client’s husband—to a cemetery!” she cried. “Bragg, there is going to be another victim.”.
Bragg stared. It was a moment before he spoke. “The killer delivered his warning to you—not to me or to the police. I want you off of this case.”
She cried out. “But that’s impossible!”
“Is it? Do you have any more doubts that we are dealing with a madman?” He lifted the telephone. Francesca listened as he asked Inspector Murphy to meet him in his office. He then said, “Have we located Sam Carter yet? . . . All right. Pick up Mike O’Donnell. Bring him to headquarters. Charge him with anything you can think of. I imagine a drunk and disorderly will do. I’ll be down shortly.” He hung up.
Francesca had folded her arms across her chest. “Did they find Sam Carter?”
“No.”
“Now we must hope that Mike O’Donnell is our man. Bragg? I know this is unlikely, but is Kathleen buried at the Greenlawn Cemetery on One Hundred and Third Street?”
“No. She’s buried downtown. Surely you do not have some reason to believe that Stuart is involved in these murders?”
“No.” Relief did fill her. It crossed her mind that she must ask Lydia what her husband had been doing at that cemetery, but she would do so at another time. “How can I help?” she asked quietly. “Please, do not tell me I cannot!”
“Francesca.” He put on his jacket. “Someone delivered this death threat to you. Carter, O’Donnell, and O’Connor all know you are working on this case. Who else knows?”
She hesitated. “My brother.”
“Who else?”
“No one,” she said. “Except for your officers.” Suddenly she recalled Bartolla’s presence last night at the house. “And Bartolla Benevente.”
He clearly dismissed that. “Perhaps Maggie Kennedy has told a friend or friends about asking you for help?”
“I can ask her,” she said thoughtfully.
“That is what you can do then,” he said. “But not tonight. I imagine she will be at the funeral tomorrow. Which servant put the poem on your desk?” He took her arm and guided her to the door.
“I haven’t had time to ask.” Suddenly she froze, balking at leaving the room. “Bragg, my parents are at home. You cannot come round now and start asking questions.”
“Unfortunately, I will have to do just that, unless you can learn which servant put the note on your desk. I must interview him or her, the sooner the better.”
She was relieved. “I will inquire tonight. Shall I call you the moment I learn anything?”
“Leave Peter a message. I may not be home for some time,” he said.
She followed him down the hall. “Do you expect O’Donnell to confess?”
“No. But I shall pressure him and watch him squirm.” He eyed her but called, “Peter! I am off. Where is Katie?” He sounded suspicious and irritable now.
Peter had appeared in the doorway of the dining room, with Dot in hand. The little girl grinned at them. Francesca could not smile back. “She is in the kitchen, refusing to eat,” he said.
To Francesca’s amazement, Bragg stalked past Peter. Francesca followed him into the kitchen. He paused before the little girl, who glanced at him with a sullen expression. “Do you think to starve?” he demanded.
She didn’t respond.
“Frankly, I could hardly care whether you eat or not,” he said. “I am not a rich man, and that leaves more for myself.”
She glowered at him.
“I did not ask to have you and your sister brought here. In fact, tomorrow you shall both be sent to another home.”
The stare was unwavering. Or did she quickly blink?
“I look forward to the day. Why would I want to keep such a sullen child in my home, one who thinks to starve herself to death? Not to mention the fact that your sister is annoyingly messy. So do not eat. Go to your new foster parents tomorrow hungry. Perhaps they will be even poorer than myself.” He looked at Peter. “Have them ready to leave this house at nine A.M.”
“Bragg?” Francesca was disbelieving.
“I have had enough,” he said, stalking out.
Francesca did not move, stunned and incredulous.
Tears filled Katie’s eyes.
“It’s all right,” Francesca began soothingly.
Katie picked up her fork and stabbed at a piece of meat, then glared at the doorway where Bragg had disappeared.
Francesca started.
Katie glared at her and jammed the piece of beef into her mouth. Another glare followed with little or no apparent chewing action.
Peter caught Francesca’s eye. She understood that he wanted her to leave. Francesca did so, but at the last moment she glanced over her shoulder and caught Katie swallowing. She grimaced as if she were ingesting medicine.
“That was a bit harsh, don’t you think?” Francesca said to Bragg in the hallway.
“My mood is not a pleasant one,” he responded. “Dot still dislikes me—now I suspect she is following her sister’s lead. I have simply had enough. Is she eating?” They stepped outside. The temperature was dropping precipitously, and Francesca shivered.
“Yes, she is, or at least, she did take one bite.”
His hand shot up to hail a cab, and she saw him hide a smile. Then, appearing stern and grim again, he said, “She hasn’t eaten for two days. I had Dr. Byrnes over.”
“Oh, dear,” Francesca said. “I didn’t realize it was so serious.”
“It is.” The cab was approaching, the bay in its traces trotting down the icy cobbled street. “There was another poem, Francesca,” he said.
“What?” she gasped, his abrupt statement so surprising her that she stumbled on a patch of blue ice, but righted herself by grabbing onto him.
He steadied her as the hansom halted at the curb. “There was a poem found in Mary O’Shaunessy’s room—the room she slept in at the Jansons’.”
For a heartbeat she could only stare. “Oh, dear God. What did it say?”
He smiled grimly at her. He said, “ ‘A sigh, one whisper, a lie. Two lasses, good-bye.’ ”
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 10,1902—NOON
In order to attend Mary O’Shaunessy’s funeral, which had been arranged by her priest and Maggie Kennedy, Francesca would have to miss her afternoon class. There was no possible way she could return from St. Mary’s downtown where the service was being held and make her class or even a part of it. The realization, as she traveled across town in a quickly hired cab, was sobering: she was so far behind now in all of her classes that she might have to take a leave of absence for the semester. It was either that, give up sleuthing, or fail.
But the semester had only just begun, and while Francesca was new to criminal investigations, her previous experience with both the Burton Abduction and the Randall Killing had shown her that cases could be solved swiftly. It took but one big lead. There was a chance that they might find the madman behind the Cross Murders at any time, and then she would be able to recover her grades.
As long as another case did not come her way.
As Francesca’s cab pulled up at the curb in front of the gray stone church on East 16th Street, she pondered the fact that her own maid, Bessie, had found the envelope with the poem in it on the calling card tray in the front hall. Whoever had left it there—and Francesca assumed it was the killer—had simply walked into the house to do so. His audacity was frightening.
Two men were entering St. Mary’s Chapel. She paid her cabbie and alighted; unlike the funeral she had been to only a week ago, these men were in rough wool coats and black wool caps, not dark suits and bowler hats.
Francesca entered the church. Inside, the mass had begun, and she quickly took a seat in the back on th
e aisle. She quickly scanned the crowd, which was thin. She did not see Mike O’Donnell, but perhaps he had been picked up last night and was already in custody. Bragg sat in the front pew, with Peter and the two girls. Francesca did not know why she was surprised to see them all there, but she was. Yet the girls had to attend their mother’s funeral. So much had happened so quickly that somehow Francesca hadn’t thought of it. And even from this distance, Francesca could see that Katie’s tiny shoulders were ramrod straight. Was she crying? Had she cried at all since her mother had died? Francesca’s heart went out to them both, lurching hard, with incredible sadness.
The Jadvics were present as well. Mrs. Jadvic and her elderly mother sat in the second aisle, with a man Francesca assumed was Mrs. Jadvic’s husband.
Francesca saw a number of young working women in the center aisles, and she assumed they were Mary’s friends and co-workers. Then she squinted with suspicion at a man in black with a head of white hair. Was that Father O’Connor? She felt almost certain that it was. But why would he be present?
He claimed to have met Mary once.
Suddenly the woman in the black hat and veil in front of her turned. She smiled a little at Francesca. “Hello,” she whispered.
It was Maggie Kennedy. Her eyes were red, as was the tip of her nose, and Francesca realized she had been crying. They briefly squeezed palms. “I need to speak with you before you leave, after the mass,” Francesca said softly.
Maggie nodded and turned back to the front of the church.
Suddenly Francesca felt that she had attracted attention, possibly for whispering during the service. She looked around and saw a woman in a well-made navy blue coat, a matching hat pulled low over her face, its half-veil shielding her features, looking her way. The woman seemed familiar. Francesca stiffened. But the woman in navy blue instantly turned away.
Who was that? Francesca thought, disturbed and racking her brain. And whoever it was, she did not belong there, at the funeral, as her clothes were those of a gentlewoman.
Francesca and Maggie paused outside the church. It had begun to flurry; the news was calling for heavy snow later that night. “How are you?” Francesca asked as the fat white flakes drifted slowly about them.
“I am fine, thank you,” Maggie said evenly, but she did not appear composed and her tone was hoarse. “Thank you for taking care of the girls,” she added. “I was so worried about them.”
“It was the least I could do. I only wish that I could have brought them home with me.” She smiled a bit, but could not tell Maggie why that hadn’t been possible. “Maggie, I do have a few questions for you, but I am a bit worried about Katie. Has she always been sullen and even hostile?”
Maggie shook her head no. “She has always been a bit difficult, a bit defiant, but she became very angry when Mary took the job at the Jansons’. Mary and I spoke about it—Mary was so worried about her. Apparently Katie wasn’t able to understand that Mary simply had to sleep out. She started ignoring her mother and her sister—or lashing out at them, and others, in anger. She lost her appetite. She lost weight. Mary was so worried. She would bring her treats on Sundays when she came home, hoping to get her to eat! We discussed this time and again, Mary and I. Mary thought that Katie felt that Mary was abandoning them. Mary tried to explain to her again and again that she wasn’t going anywhere, that she would be home every Sunday, but Katie could not or would not accept it.” Maggie’s eyes filled with tears. “Now she isn’t coming home, not on this Sunday or any other one,” she said huskily.
Francesca could not speak for a moment. “What should we do? Last night Bragg got her to eat . . . I think.” Actually, for all she knew, Katie had taken one bite and that had been the end of her meal. And she was so thin to begin with.
“Perhaps I can speak with her now, briefly? And perhaps I can visit the girls next Sunday? I could take them out with my own children; we could go the zoo or some such thing.” Maggie brightened with hope.
“That is a wonderful idea,” Francesca said, recalling that Maggie’s son Paddy was about Katie’s age. The mourners were filing past them as they spoke, while leaving the church. “Maybe I could join you as well.”
“Of course you could, Miss Cahill,” Maggie said.
“Maggie, have you mentioned to anyone that you have enlisted my aid in solving Mary’s murder?”
Maggie seemed surprised by the question, and she took a moment to think about it. “No, I don’t think that I have,” she said slowly.
Francesca paused as the woman in navy blue hurried past them, her head down, making it impossible to try to see who she was. Francesca turned to stare after her. She was certain she knew that woman.
The woman was heading toward the curb, where three private carriages were lined up, alongside Bragg’s motorcar.
Maggie murmured, “Is that Lizzie O’Brien?”
“Who?” Francesca shot. “Do you know that woman?”
Maggie suddenly shook her head. “No, it can’t be. If it were Lizzie, she would say hello to me.” Tears filled her eyes again. “Besides, she is getting into that carriage.”
Francesca turned in time to see the woman being ushered into a carriage that seemed new by a dark-haired servant in tan trousers and a long black coat. The servant climbed into the driver’s seat, picking up the reins and unlocking the brake.
Francesca turned back to Maggie, taking her hand. “You are taking this so hard. Do you wish to sit down?”
She shook her head, and it was a moment before she could speak. “I have not been able to get over what I read in the papers yesterday,” she said.
“What is that?”
Maggie looked up at her, her blue eyes filled with grief. “When I came to you for help, Miss Cahill, I had no idea that the same man had murdered Kathleen.”
It took Francesca a moment to absorb the implications of Maggie’s statement. “Wait a moment. You also knew Kathleen O’Donnell?”
Maggie nodded. “We were best friends, Mary, Kathleen, and myself.” She smiled then, as if a good memory had come to mind. Then she said, “And Lizzie, too. But Lizzie moved away two years ago. No one has heard from her in at least six months.”
Francesca stared at her, wide-eyed. Maggie had been a best friend of both murder victims? And all three were poor, single, hard-working women of Irish descent? The possibility struck her then with brutal and terrifying force.
Maggie Kennedy could be the madman’s next target.
“I don’t have to tell her the truth,” Francesca said stubbornly.
Bragg folded his arms across his chest. “If your theory is correct, then Miss Kennedy may well be the murderer’s next target. In which case, your parents have every right to know what is happening under their very own roof.”
They were arguing quietly outside of her father’s study. As it was Monday, Andrew was long since gone to his office on the southern tip of Manhattan. Julia had just left the house for a luncheon, and Maggie was inside Andrew’s study. Francesca had insisted Maggie come home with her. “Mama will have a conniption fit if she learns of my involvement in this investigation. Why can’t I tell them that Maggie is staying here in order to complete the wardrobe I have ordered?”
“Francesca, I have stationed two roundsmen in front of your house!” Bragg exclaimed with exasperation.
“Miss Cahill? Commissioner?” Maggie had come to the doorway. “You said you wished to speak to me. It is late. I must go to work.” Her cornflower blue eyes were worried.
Francesca and Bragg locked gazes. They had yet to explain to Maggie that her life might be in danger—and that she simply could not go about her business as if it were not.
Bragg sighed and took Maggie’s arm, guiding her back into the study. “Mrs. Kennedy, it is best if you stay with Miss Cahill for a while. We believe your acquaintance with Kathleen O’Donnell and Mary O’Shaunessy may put your own life in danger.”
It took Maggie a moment to grasp what he had said. “What? But how could my
life be in danger? I have no idea who would do this!” she cried.
Francesca wondered what Bragg would say next. She edged closer.
“Could Mike O’Donnell have done this? Did he hate his wife for her abandonment?” Bragg asked.
She blinked. “I think he did hate Kathleen, but that he could murder her in such a way, I find it hard to believe!”
“What was his relationship with Mary like?”
If possible, Maggie blanched even more, no easy feat. “You think Mike is the killer?” she gasped.
“Please,” Bragg said gently. “I am asking you what you think.”
She sank down on the sofa. “I . . . I don’t know. Mary was a warm and wonderful person. She never had anything unkind to say about anyone. Except . . .”
“Except for her brother?”
She flushed. “She did not speak of him, period. And that, in itself, said volumes.”
“What did that say?”
She wet her lips. “It said that she did not care for him at all, Mr. Bragg. And . . .” She stopped abruptly again, flushing.
“Please. Spare no detail,” Bragg said softly.
Maggie seemed upset. Francesca sat down beside her, taking her hand. “We have every reason to believe that the killer will strike again,” she whispered.
Maggie met her eyes, and tearfully she nodded. “I didn’t like him. But . . . one night, when he was drunk, when he and Kathleen were still together, he made improper advances toward me.”
Francesca met Bragg’s golden gaze. He seemed to nod at her. “And . . . ?” he said.
She looked at her knees. “He was rather insistent, but I eluded him. I have avoided him ever since. And to this day,” she choked, “Kathleen does not know. It is a terrible secret that I have kept.”
Francesca put her arm around her.
“I must go to work,” Maggie said. “I shall be fired if I miss any more time! I have four children to feed.” She started to stand, glanced past Bragg toward the doorway, and she abruptly sat back down.
Francesca glanced at the door as well, realizing that someone had paused there. Her heart sinking, she felt sure it was Julia. But it was not. Evan stood there looking as if he had just gotten up, which perhaps he had. But even sleepy-eyed, he appeared rather rakish in a brown suit, his red tie askew.
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