“If we investigate with the information you gave me today, we’ll have to find out the name of the man Nora wrote about in her diary. We won’t be able to conceal his identity.”
“I know what you’re getting at, Miss, but I don’t see any way out of it. The Kennys will always hold their heads up, no matter what. Promise me … promise me you’ll find whoever killed my daughter. Promise me you’ll prove Tim Fahey is innocent.”
“I can only give you my word that I’ll do my best, Agnes. Mr. Hunter and I will do all we can.” She stood up and walked out from behind Geoffrey’s desk.
Agnes got to her feet also, allowing herself to fall into the comfort of Prudence’s arms. Only when they heard two male voices on the other side of the door did they break apart.
“He’s disappeared, Prudence,” Geoffrey announced, rushing into the office. He noticed Agnes, came to an abrupt halt, and held out his hand. “My condolences, Mrs. Kenny. Once again my condolences.”
“Agnes has brought some important information to us, Geoffrey.”
“Tim Fahey has disappeared.” Geoffrey ran a hand through his dark hair, a rare gesture of frustration. “No one at the Tombs knows where he is, who took him away, or what happened to him. There’s not even a record he was ever there.”
“But we saw him! Yesterday,” Prudence exclaimed.
“Nevertheless, he’s gone now. We may never see him again.”
Agnes Kenny gave a low wail, as desolate and desperate a sound as they had ever heard. She crossed herself, then fell to the floor in a dead faint.
CHAPTER 8
Prudence and Geoffrey were among the first passengers to board the early Staten Island ferry on Sunday morning. Yesterday’s good weather had held; the day was clear, crisp, and cold, blessedly free of biting wind and scudding gray clouds. Prudence wore the heaviest outdoor boots she owned, a walking suit that allowed more freedom of movement than most of her costumes, and a small black hat whose veil blurred the features of her face.
“He looked right at me,” she explained to Geoffrey, lifting the veil while they talked. “I’m sure he’ll recognize me, but for a few moments I’ll have the advantage of surprise.”
“We don’t know how much Nora told him about you.” Geoffrey thought that no amount of veiling could disguise her slender height and graceful way of walking. He’d insisted that she carry an ivory handled derringer in her reticule. The umbrella hooked over her arm had a steel tip that could disable a man if applied to the right spot. He’d also taught her how to bring it down hard enough to fracture an arm.
“Unless he asked questions about why she was going to Manhattan, there was no reason for them to talk about the MacKenzie family.”
“Your father was a famous judge, Prudence. Everyone on Staten Island knew about the house he built there to save his beloved wife from the city’s bad air. And that she died anyway. If the man we’re after is an islander, he’ll know the story.” It always surprised him when Prudence naively assumed that no one was interested in her or her family. There had been a time when the MacKenzie name appeared regularly in the gossip columns.
“I hadn’t thought of that, but I suppose it’s true.”
“I’m just asking you to be careful. I’ll stay as near as possible and still be out of sight, but it will take me a few moments to get to you.” A knife could open a fatal wound in seconds, a bullet was even faster. “If he seems angry or agitated, step back out of his reach. I’ll be watching.”
“I don’t think I’ll have anything to fear once he knows who I am,” Prudence assured him. “If you’re right and Nora did tell him about me, she would have spoken as a friend. He cared about her, Geoffrey. You read the diary.”
“What I read were the lovesick prattlings of a girl who lost her head when she gave away her heart and body.”
“I don’t believe either of them killed her, not Tim, and not this secret lover. I think the murderer is somewhere in the city, holed up in his den preparing for his next victim. I know he’s a monster, Geoffrey, just like the London Ripper. But unless we find out more about where Nora went last Saturday when she got off the ferry, we may never find him.”
“Don’t assume anything about anyone, Prudence.”
He meant well, but it was annoying to be treated like a schoolgirl who hadn’t learned all of her lessons. She’d already made a near fool of herself when’d he’d asked if she planned to visit Windscape on this trip. After the cemetery, perhaps?
“It’s closed for the winter,” Prudence had mumbled, “and I didn’t bring a key.”
He’d had the grace not to point out that the Kennys would lend her their key since she was, after all, the rightful owner of the property. And he didn’t question why she was avoiding the house where she and Nora had created so many happy childhood memories.
Despite his courtesy she’d wanted to snap out a sharp retort in a voice that dripped venom, but it was not something she was good at. Yet. She contented herself with watching the water and the Lady in the Harbor.
The waves eased her temper and Lady Liberty stiffened her spine.
*
The cemetery stretched downhill from Saint Brendan’s toward the water, as windswept and dotted with Celtic crosses as any to be found in western Ireland. Sea grasses resistant to salt air grew wild along the white pebbled paths; here and there a stunted native holly tree bent against the constant sea breeze. The dark green leaves and bright red berries provided splashes of welcome November color.
Prudence lingered among the crosses and more modest gravestones, but none of the parishioners arriving at the church for Sunday Mass turned aside to join her in paying respects to the dead. The only recent grave was Nora’s, unmarked except by the rawness of the mounded earth that hadn’t begun to settle yet and the wilting wreaths and bouquets of hothouse flowers that had decorated the altar at the funeral service.
Geoffrey was close by, concealed inside the gravedigger’s shack amidst a welter of shovels, picks, sod cutters, woven baskets, and canvas covers to keep the rain out of freshly dug holes. He watched Prudence through gaps between the planks of the poorly constructed door. If necessary, he could be at her side within seconds. Minutes ticked by like hours. The only sounds were the voices raised in song inside Saint Brendan’s and the squawk of seagulls. Prudence paced to ward off the chill.
Mass ended, the church doors opened, and as the Irish Catholics of Saint Brendan’s streamed out, plumes of cigarette and pipe smoke rose above their heads. Father Devlin shook the men’s hands, blessed small children and infants, and exchanged greetings with the women. A few families climbed into horse drawn traps, but most of them walked briskly along the roadside toward homes that were warm and fragrant with banked fires and slow cooking stews. It was too cold a day to linger, despite the bright sun and cloudless sky. When the last parishioner had gone, Father Devlin disappeared into the rectory, though not before shading his eyes with one hand as he looked toward the cemetery.
Prudence had ducked behind a tall plinth as soon as the initial Mass-goers appeared on the church steps. At first she thought the priest had seen her, wondered who she was, and shielded his eyes from the sun to get a better look. Then she realized that his face was turned away from her, angled toward a figure approaching the rearmost stone wall of the cemetery, a shadowy form half hidden in the dense shade of a grove of thickly forested pines. Prudence flattened her body against the angel topped stone column and listened for the sound of approaching footsteps.
She heard the creak of a rusty back gate, then the measured crunch of leather on gravel. The wind carried a scent Prudence could not identify, deeply foreign, redolent of sandalwood and crushed sage. Before she could decide whether to step out of her hiding place to confront whoever had chosen such a seldom-used entrance into the cemetery, Prudence was grabbed from behind and pressed tightly against a man’s hard body. He lifted her feet from the ground and spun them both toward the gravedigger’s shack where Geoffrey exploded through
the door too late to save her.
“Don’t come any closer.” The stranger’s voice was firm, calm, unhurried. His arm tightened around her neck.
Geoffrey dropped his hands to his sides, stood stock still and silent. Waiting. His eyes were locked on her assailant’s; neither man moved a muscle.
“My name is Prudence MacKenzie. Nora worked for me, but she was also a good friend when we were children. If you’re who I think you may be, you have nothing to fear from me or from Mr. Hunter.” It was the only thing Prudence could think of to say. Geoffrey’s eyes didn’t shift to hers, but she felt a warm current of approbation wash over her. Well done. Keep talking.
“I know who you are,” the man said. He nodded toward Geoffrey. “If you have a weapon on you, take it out slowly and drop it on the ground.”
Geoffrey drew his Army Colt .45 from the holster where it nestled against his ribs, stooped, and laid it carefully in the grass. He’d modified the gun in several ways, the most important being a hair trigger. “A fraction of a second can mean the difference between living or dying,” he’d explained to Prudence.
“Now kick it toward me.”
“That’s not a good idea,” Geoffrey said.
“Do it.”
“Suppose I empty the chambers and the barrel.” Not waiting for an answer, Geoffrey knelt down, spun the cylinder, and ejected six bullets into the palm of his hand. He laid the empty Colt and its now harmless missiles back on the ground. Standing up gradually, he was careful not to make any sudden or threatening movement.
He glanced at Prudence, then turned his attention to the man holding her. “Miss MacKenzie is telling you the truth,” he said. “We don’t mean you any harm, but we have questions about Nora and what happened to her that only you can answer.”
“Please,” Prudence said, “I promise I won’t scream or try to run.” She thought of the derringer nestled in her reticule. “I can’t do you any injury,” she lied.
She felt the pressure of his arm around her body ease. He let her go and stepped back beyond her reach.
“Did Nora tell you about me?” she asked.
“Often,” he answered. “You can pick up the gun and put it back in its holster,” he instructed Geoffrey. “Hand the bullets to me.”
“Agnes Kenny told us she thought someone had been visiting Nora’s grave,” Prudence said.
“Every day since it was dug.”
“You were at the back of the church during her funeral.”
“I had to come. I couldn’t have stayed away.”
“She wrote about you in her diary,” Prudence told him. “But she never mentioned a name and she was careful not to describe you.”
“I didn’t know she did that, kept a diary,” he said. His eyes hardened and a muscle twitched along the line of his jaw. Plainly he didn’t like the idea that anyone else had been privy to what should have remained secret. Pride wouldn’t allow him to ask Prudence what Nora had written.
“Her mother found the journal. She and I have both read it. So has Mr. Hunter.” Prudence decided that nothing but the full truth would get and keep this man’s trust. “Nora was afraid that if her family found out, especially her father or her brothers, they would make sure she could never meet you again.”
“I’m Sicilian,” he said, as if that explained everything.
“Why did you attack me?” asked Prudence, “if you knew who I was?”
“I watched your partner hide in the shed. He was obviously hoping to take someone by surprise. I had to be sure it really was you.” He gestured toward the veil covering her face. “Nora showed me a picture.”
Prudence raised the veil and deftly pinned it to the crown of her hat. She could feel the weight of the loaded derringer in her reticule, but she thought it was probably useless. Geoffrey had told her that the smaller the pistol the less accurate the shot except at very close range.
“Will you answer some questions for us?” she asked.
“The police have already arrested the man who murdered her. Why do you need to ask questions?”
“Tim Fahey did not kill Nora,” Geoffrey said.
“Agnes Kenny has asked us to prove his innocence and find the real killer,” Prudence explained. “Surely that tells you something.”
“Perhaps only that they’re all fools to believe him.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Prisons are full of men caught bloody red-handed who go to the gallows denying they’re guilty. It means nothing.”
“He loved her,” Prudence said. “He was beaten within an inch of his life, but he didn’t confess. The police used thumbscrews. Nothing they did could make him admit that he’d hurt Nora in any way. Or even that they’d quarreled. And he didn’t know about you.”
“You speak of him as though he’s dead.”
“Fahey has disappeared,” Geoffrey said. “He was arrested, subjected to the third degree, then made to vanish overnight.”
“You’ll never see him again if the police don’t want him found. The ocean is deep and a body doesn’t last long where there are fish to feed on it.”
“We have feelers out. Someone saw or heard something. There’s always a snitch if there’s enough money to buy him.”
“Maybe Fahey deserved what he got.”
“No, he didn’t,” Prudence said. “He loved Nora as deeply as you did. Perhaps more.” She hoped the comparison would make him angry enough to drop his guard. When she saw his lips tighten and thin to a narrow line, she knew she had succeeded. “They were going to be married after Christmas.”
“No. She wouldn’t have gone through with it.”
“We’ll never know.” Prudence stepped back from the thunderous look directed her way. She didn’t want him furious enough to throw all caution to the winds, just sufficiently roused to want to prove her wrong.
“Nora went into Manhattan to work for you, Miss MacKenzie.”
“You can’t hold me responsible for what happened to her.”
“She had no other reason for being there.”
“Are you certain?”
“We met the day before she left. Last Friday. She was looking forward to seeing her friend Colleen again, excited about being off the island for a few days.”
“What else?”
“Nothing.”
“You must have talked about the wedding. It was only two months away.”
“Once. We spoke of it only once. She said she wanted to let Tim Fahey down easily because she’d known him since they were very young. Nora was the kindest person I’ve ever known. She couldn’t bear to hurt anyone. Being in love with me was tearing her apart. She knew what it would do to her family. She made me promise not to bring up the marriage again until after she’d broken the news to Fahey. I didn’t like it, but I did as she asked. She said she planned to tell him after she got back from her stay on Fifth Avenue.”
“Had she changed during the past few weeks?” Prudence asked. “Did she seem worried or upset about anything?”
He thought for a moment, then nodded his head reluctantly. “Something was on her mind. I caught her staring off into the distance with an odd look on her face, as if she were gazing into the future. I teased her about it, but I thought it was nothing more than concern about Fahey. I even wondered if she’d decided to tell her friend Colleen what she intended to do.”
“Where were you on Saturday night?” Geoffrey asked.
“I have an alibi, if that’s what you’re trying to find out.”
“You know our names,” Prudence said. “Won’t you tell us yours?”
“Dominic Pastore.” The abrupt shift had caught him off guard, but once he gave up the information, he realized it didn’t matter. All they had to do was describe him and anyone on the island would be able to identify him. The Pastore family was well known, well respected, and feared. Dominic was the tallest of his father’s five sons and the handsomest, though all were slender, with powerfully muscled shoulders and long legs. What
distinguished him from his brothers was the menacing but tightly coiled energy that was also his father’s most striking characteristic.
“I was here on Staten Island,” Dominic said. “At a cousin’s wedding.”
“Nora was killed around midnight,” Geoffrey told him.
“The party didn’t break up until well after that.”
“And I suppose you have witnesses who will testify you were there the entire time?”
“As many as you need.”
“Is there anything else you can tell us about Nora?” Prudence asked. She could feel tension crackling between the two men. She hadn’t thought of it before, but they were very much alike, these two, though Geoffrey was at least ten years older, more polished and urbane. The younger Dominic would have to grow into the kind of worldliness that only came with age and experience.
“If Fahey didn’t kill her, who did?”
“We don’t know, Mr. Pastore,” Geoffrey said. “The police consider the case closed. We disagree.”
“She was killed at midnight, you say?”
“That’s the coroner’s best estimate.”
“What was she doing out alone at that time of night? Why wasn’t she safely inside your house, Miss MacKenzie?”
“We think she arrived there, but no one answered the door when she rang the bell. She left a basket on the doorstep, then went somewhere else. We’ve talked to all of the staff, including Colleen, but no one has any idea where she could have gone.” Nothing about this case made sense to Prudence.
“You’re sure about Fahey?”
“He didn’t do it,” Geoffrey said.
“If he did, and if your meddling helps him evade justice, I’ll take care of him myself,” Pastore said. “It will give me great pleasure.”
“Mr. Hunter is an ex-Pinkerton,” Prudence said. “They don’t meddle, Mr. Pastore.”
Lies That Comfort and Betray Page 8