What the Dead Leave Behind

by Rosemary Simpson

  “Very nice. Very nice indeed. I wonder how Victoria did it.”

  “Did what?”

  “Killed him. Murdered her dear old rich husband. Got him out of the way. After convincing him to rewrite his will. How much of his estate came to her directly?”

  “A very substantial portion. But it’s also in a trust.”

  “Then she wasn’t as clever as she thought she was. Or perhaps he was simply more stubborn. The only thing you don’t know is how McGlory fits in. Am I right?”

  “There’s a lot I don’t know, Ned. The few facts I am sure of are parts of a puzzle that won’t lock together until the missing pieces are found.” He hesitated. “You’re not the only one who thinks there’s something too convenient about the Judge’s death, but there isn’t any proof. Right now we’re concentrating on finding out whatever we can about the stepmother’s background to force her out of the role of trustee. She had to have been holding something over the Judge, something that would destroy his reputation and force him off the bench. It makes sense that she’s dirty, too. She blackmailed him into marrying her. But murder?”

  “I think we’re in for a long night, Geoffrey. There’s no point going to Armory Hall until ten or eleven o’clock.” Hayes stood up and walked to the fireplace. Pulled the bell cord that hung to one side. “I’ll have Tyrus bring us coffee and sandwiches. You might as well start at the beginning and tell me everything.”

  * * *

  “It’s the largest concert saloon and dance hall in the city,” Billy McGlory boasted. One foot on the bar’s brass foot railing, diamond stickpin flashing brilliance every time he moved, sporting a patterned silk vest as green as the hills of Ireland, the owner of Armory Hall looked out over a sea of hard-drinking, hard-living customers and smiled. He could calculate to the penny the profits he’d make on any one night just by doing a quick count of the house. Average for a weekday evening, he decided. “Keep the champagne coming,” he told the bartender, then led the way down the length of the bar, past the tables grouped around the dance floor where couples at all levels of sobriety clung and steered one another about. Two men together was the specialty of the house. On the second floor of the Armory ran a wide balcony open to the dance floor below for the orchestra, studded on two sides with doors to private assignation rooms and larger parlors where more guests could be accommodated. It was said that you could buy anyone and anything at Billy McGlory’s once you paid the fifteen cent general admission price.

  McGlory led them up a broad staircase to the second floor, then to a door he unlocked with a key hanging from his gold watch chain. “We won’t be disturbed here, gentlemen. And it should be relatively quiet tonight. No cancan dancers, no boxing matches, no beauty contests. No special show.” He stood aside, waiting for Ned and Hunter to precede him, leaving the door open for the waiter who was coming up the stairs behind them carrying champagne and crystal glasses.

  The room was both a parlor and an office. A round oak poker table and chairs stood to one side, a cluster of black leather easy chairs and small tables to the other. A fire had been lit earlier in the evening; gas lamps flickered on the walls. Wallpaper and carpeting were deep burgundy; all of the wood gleamed with fresh, fragrant polish. Billy McGlory’s private retreat had been furnished with the best that a lot of money could buy.

  “Did Ned tell you what he did for me, Mr. Hunter?”

  The champagne glasses were full; a second uncorked bottle sat in ice beside the first one. French champagne. Billy McGlory served himself only the best; his customers made do with what they could afford.

  “Not the details.”

  “I took a knife in the gut. Most men don’t recover from that. But most men aren’t lucky enough to have Ned Hayes drag them off the street like he did me. I was being stitched up and hidden before the fighting stopped and the arrests started. No doctor, either. He carried me to a conjure woman who sewed me up like a purse, dowsed me in a potion that burned like fire, and prayed spells over me that no white person has ever heard before. I healed, I healed up as good as I ever was, and when I could get back out onto the street, I took care of what needed to be done.”

  “I think you embroider that story a little bit more every time you tell it, Billy.” Ned turned to Geoffrey Hunter. “Even Mama Oshia couldn’t have saved him if the knife had gone in just a few inches over. The fellow who stabbed him wasn’t good at what he was doing.”

  “And won’t have the opportunity to get any better.” McGlory smiled, a charming, winsome Irish smile that made him look like a mustachioed altar boy. “The New York City Police Department didn’t like it too much that one of their own detectives crossed over to the other side, so to speak. Not that they all don’t have their hands out every week, regular as clockwork. But this time a reporter saw what happened and made it his business to follow up. Got the whole story and printed it before I could convince him otherwise. The mayor yanked Ned’s badge before the ink was dry on the presses.”

  “I told Billy if it hadn’t been that, they would have gotten me with something else. I don’t seem to be the kind of man who fits well into a uniform. I’m told I wasn’t the sort of officer who was a credit to the Confederacy, and even when I traded in my nightstick for a detective’s badge I wasn’t able to squeeze myself into the police mold. I couldn’t let a man die when I knew he could be saved. It didn’t matter who or what he was. That’s what they couldn’t forgive me for.”

  “I pay my debts, Mr. Hunter. Whatever else they say about Billy McGlory, anybody who knows me will tell you I pay my debts.”

  “Not too much longer, Billy. It won’t be too much longer. Throw me the biggest damn wake New York City has ever seen and we’ll be square.”

  McGlory shook his head, then crossed himself, Catholic enough to believe that heaven might listen and answer a prayer, even from the likes of him.

  “Show him the card, Geoff.”

  McGlory read both sides, smiled as if he’d been expecting something like this, then held it to his nose for a moment. “I thought her scent might be on it,” he said. “She’s one of the ones who doesn’t know the meaning of the word enough. Always greedy. Grabbing with both fists. Holding on. Too much perfume, too much champagne when she drank, too many lies told to too many men.” He handed back the card. “I’m surprised this got past her. And I’ll be sorry to my dying day that she got it out of me.”

  “Something about Judge MacKenzie?”

  “I’d had too much to drink. And the woman knew how to wring a man dry. Body and soul. Dry as a bone. She was like one of those snakes that coil themselves around you and squeeze until there’s nothing left. I didn’t even remember that I’d talked until much later. The Judge knew she had to have gotten the information from me or someone close to me. It was too late to stop her by then; she’d gotten what she wanted. But at least he knew the truth of it. When he asked me, I told him.”

  “His daughter wants me to find out whatever I can.” Hunter thought he could guess what Prudence should never have to know about her father.

  “That would be the child who was left motherless when the Judge’s first wife died. A man loses more than a warm spot in bed when his woman passes over.”

  “What did you have on him?”

  “He and a lot of other people lost all their railroad stocks in the Panic of ‘73. After Jay Cooke declared bankruptcy that September, the railroads started failing so fast, you couldn’t keep up with them. The stock wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on. When he needed cash money, he didn’t have anything left to liquidate.”

  “He had other investments, other properties.”

  “What he had, Mr. Hunter, was a wife who’d been diagnosed with consumption. He’d bought land on Staten Island to build her a house, then overnight his capital was gone. He needed money to save Miss MacKenzie’s mother. The New York Stock Exchange was closed for almost two weeks. Nobody was buying anything, even if you had something to sell. He was a desperate man. And it just so h
appened I needed a big favor. In a hurry. We got a case moved into his court; I paid him what he needed to build that house and my man went free. The Judge never sold his Staten Island house, even after his wife died. You could say it was his conscience, a reminder to him of how far a man would go when he didn’t seem to have any other choice. You don’t need to know any more than that.”

  Hunter took from his inner breast pocket a copy of the wedding photograph Prudence had smuggled out of the house. He held it out to McGlory, who took it, grimaced, then passed it along to Ned.

  “She’s a beautiful woman,” Ned said quietly. “To be a snake, I mean.” He handed the photo back to McGlory.

  “The name she was using at the time was Ronnie, short for Veronica. I didn’t hire her, so she wasn’t one of my regulars. She had class, a lot of class. You could tell it just by looking at her. I don’t think she came in here more than five or six times, all told. I could tell she was trouble, but she was beautiful. You’re right about that, Ned.”

  “I think she came after you deliberately, Mr. McGlory. I think she knew you had judges on your payroll. All she needed was the right information about one of them.”

  “She never came back after that night I shot my mouth off. I never saw her here again.”

  “How did she know who to target, Geoff?”

  “Mr. McGlory has a history of passing unscathed through the New York City court system. All she had to do was go to the Herald‘s morgue and read back copies of the newspapers. It wouldn’t have been difficult. She was looking for a McGlory henchman who should have been convicted, but wasn’t. And a judge who was spending a lot of money. Put the two together and take a chance. She won the toss.”

  “She blackmailed him. That’s why the Judge married her.” Ned’s blue eyes sparkled like an excited child’s, the pupils slightly larger than before. He’d need something soon, but for the moment, the opium hunger was gnawing at his vitals a little less viciously than usual.

  “I think we’ll find that Veronica, or Victoria, whatever her real name is, had one goal in mind from the beginning. She wanted respectability, money, and a place in New York society. The only way she could get them was through marriage, so she studied the market, singled out her prey, and pounced. I don’t know where the brother figures in, but we’ll find out.”

  “She never came in alone. There was always a man with her. Heavyset. The kind you’d expect to have to pay extra for his whore. The one in the picture.”

  “He’s calling himself Donald Morley now.”

  “Doesn’t sound familiar. If she gave me a last name, I don’t remember it.”

  “You did a good thing tonight, Billy.”

  “I pay my debts, Ned.”

  CHAPTER 14

  There were always errands to be run, but most of the time it was the footman or the bootboy who set off down Fifth Avenue to deliver a message or make an urgent purchase. It was considered unsuitable for a female servant, particularly one of the younger ones, to be out on the street alone. You never knew who might want to take advantage, even in as elegant a residential neighborhood as where Judge MacKenzie had built his unostentatious brownstone. Four stories tall, with classic Greek columned portico and tall, narrow windows, it sat squarely and solidly on its oversized lot, the ivy that had reminded Sarah of the green hills of Staten Island allowed to climb freely on all of its walls.

  It was still early, that narrow hour of grace between the end of breakfast and the resumption of every day’s endless chores. The servants had been up since five, working quietly in the downstairs rooms while the family slept. Before the bedroom bells began to ring insistently, the staff caught its collective breath, ate Cook’s first hearty meal of the day, and scattered to enjoy the only moments of privacy they were likely to have before bedtime.

  Colleen slipped out of the service entrance at the rear of the mansion, where a cobbled courtyard stretched between stables and carriage house to the kitchen entryway and the delivery chutes for coal and wood. A high wall to one side of the space enclosed Sarah MacKenzie’s small city garden, as perfectly trimmed and planted in the years after her death as though its mistress were still there to stroll the narrow paths.

  She didn’t think anyone had seen her. She’d oiled the kitchen door so it didn’t make a sound when she opened or closed it, but Colleen was uneasy nonetheless. She’d had the oddest feeling the last day or so that someone was watching her. All the time. Saying nothing, doing nothing. Just watching. Yet no matter how many times she stopped what she was doing to spin around and catch the watcher in the act, there was never anyone there. Nerves, she decided. Miss Prudence’s case of nerves had passed itself on to her.

  She wished she had time to stop by the stable before she left; James Kincaid was as calm and reassuring a presence as the large, docile horses he groomed and drove. They’d talked about Miss Prudence over the cups of tea Colleen brought out to him, and reluctantly agreed that it would be easier and safer if it were Colleen who carried most messages from their young mistress to Mr. Hunter. “I’m sorry it has to be you, lass,” he’d said, reminding her that he could still pass on a note or a message coming in the other direction, “but a horse doesn’t need the farrier but a few times a year.” They both knew that if Victoria MacKenzie called for her carriage and Kincaid wasn’t there to drive her, he’d be shown the door without delay or discussion.

  Colleen had Miss Prudence’s note slipped between the palm of her hand and her glove. Invisible. Impossible to drop. Four blocks north to the Fifth Avenue Hotel between 23rd and 24th Streets where Mr. Hunter lived in a suite on the third-floor front. She’d been there and back twice before, safely out of the house, safely back in again. Together she and Miss Prudence had thought of the perfect excuse for being out. Just in case she got caught.

  “You can say that I gave you permission to go to mass at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. To pray for your mother, who’s ill.”

  “It’s too far away, Miss Prudence. All the way up to Fifty-first Street.”

  “Isn’t there anything closer?”

  “Saint Anselm’s. It’s small and just off Twenty-second. But if anyone sees what direction I’m going or coming back from, it would make sense.”

  “All right then. Saint Anselm’s.”

  “I can say she took a bad fall and injured her back. They’re not sure she’ll walk again. So that’s what I’m praying for.”

  She set her face in the doleful look she’d practiced in the small mirror hanging above her washstand, wrapped her shawl around her shoulders, then set off walking as quickly as she could without breaking into a run. Speed attracted notice. All she wanted was to get to the Fifth Avenue Hotel as fast as she could, place Miss Prudence’s note in Mr. Hunter’s hand, and return safely to her dusting and polishing.

  Colleen wasn’t sure what exactly was wrong in the MacKenzie house; she just knew in the marrow of her Irish bones that there had been a great sadness there. And a great evil. The presences had never left. She could feel them sometimes in the night, when even though she was exhausted from all she’d had to do during the day, she woke in a wintry cold bed and could not lull herself back to sleep.

  There, just ahead, rose the gleaming white marble of the Fifth Avenue Hotel. It dwarfed everything around it, reduced Colleen to the stature of one of the little people who caused so much trouble in Ireland. She scurried past the doorman and the bellboys, a familiar figure to them now, streaked through the lobby, and disappeared into the stairway to the third floor. She didn’t think she’d been followed, but she stood for a long two minutes in the third-floor corridor waiting for someone else to emerge from the stairwell. No one. Only then did she move to ring the bell of Mr. Hunter’s suite.

  “What do you have for me today, Colleen?” Geoffrey Hunter stepped out into the hallway as he ushered Prudence’s messenger into the suite. He stood listening for footsteps, gauging the emptiness in both directions. Nothing. No one. Satisfied, he stepped back inside and closed the d
oor.

  “Just this, sir.” Colleen pulled out the folded note she’d been tempted to read but hadn’t. She handed it to Mr. Hunter, her fingers trembling.

  “There’s nothing to be afraid of, Colleen. Miss MacKenzie and I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  “I know, sir. But—”

  “But what?”

  “I’m not good at keeping secrets, sir. Cook says she can tell when I’m trying to hide something just by looking at me.”

  He laughed then, but it was a reassuring sound, not at all like the threatening mockery she heard so often in the MacKenzie household. Mr. Morley, Mrs. Barstow, Mr. Jackson, they all laughed with the same sharp edge that made her uneasy. Colleen watched Mr. Hunter scribble an answer to Miss Prudence, then fold the hotel stationery in half and seal it into a hotel envelope.

  “Looks official, doesn’t it?” he commented, writing Miss Prudence MacKenzie on the outside of the envelope in a measured, clerkly script. “Give this to her as soon as you can. Try to do it without anyone noticing, but if you sense that someone is watching, don’t bother to hide anything. That’s the worst thing you can do. It confirms suspicions. Just hand over the envelope and go on about your business. Do you know what to say if someone asks why you’re carrying messages to her?”

  “No, sir. We didn’t plan for that. Just that she gave me permission to go to mass.”

  “Say that on your way back from church, I met you in the street and asked you to deliver this note. I was in a hurry, and I gave you a quarter to run the errand for me.” He put the envelope and the coin into her outstretched hand, pressed her fingers around them, and smiled again. “Nothing to worry about, Colleen. Even if someone were to read the letter, it’s all open and aboveboard. Miss Prudence will understand what I mean; she knows to read between the lines. You’d better be on your way now. You don’t want to be out of the house too long.”

  “There’s something else, sir.” Miss Prudence had made her promise not to mention the gas incident to Mr. Hunter, but Colleen had fretted over it every step of the way to the Fifth Avenue Hotel. If she didn’t say something now and anything happened to Miss Prudence, she’d never forgive herself.