Lies That Comfort and Betray

by Rosemary Simpson

  One more try. She’d take another look and then tomorrow, after they’d gotten Father Brennan off, she’d send for Jerry Brophy and his mop and pail.

  *

  “I’ll be back in a few minutes, Father,” Mrs. Healy said as she slung her coat over her shoulders and grabbed the string bag she always took to the greengrocer’s.

  “Are you all right?” Father Kearns asked. He’d wandered into the kitchen for a cup of tea to take back to his desk just as the housekeeper came up the cellar stairs, her face as pale as though she’d had some great shock. He took the basket of vegetables out of her hands and set it on the table.

  “I’m fine, Father. But I’ve got to get another horseradish for the dinner tonight. You know how Father Mahoney loves his horseradish.”

  “Isn’t that what this is?” He held up a knobby root.

  “It’s gone too strong,” Mrs. Healy replied, snatching it from his hand and tossing it back into the basket.

  She didn’t offer to put the kettle on for him, just marched out of the kitchen and down the hall like a soldier on a mission.

  *

  “I’ll leave the cellar door unlocked for you, Kevin. I swear to God Almighty if it’s what I think it is, we’ve got a murderer in the house.”

  Kevin unfolded himself slowly from his cardboard and newspaper shelter. He hadn’t been able to explain to Mr. McGlory why he was reluctant to leave the alleyway across from Saint Anselm’s, but the saloon keeper had slipped him a couple of coins and waved him off. He hadn’t anything pressing for Carney to do at the moment; the final weeks before Christmas were slow for saloons. Gamblers, drinkers, and fornicators got religion at this time of year. It gave the card sharks, the bartenders, and the whores a chance to rest up.

  “Tell me what you think it is, Mrs. Healy.”

  “I don’t like to say it out loud, Kevin. Not till we’re sure. But I can tell you I never put those bits and pieces in those urns, and I never hid the urns back behind what I canned last summer. The tops aren’t sealed with wax. That’s why the smell’s been getting out.”

  “How bad is it?”

  “I noticed it, and she’d be bound to,” Mrs. Healy said, reaching down to pat Blossom’s head. “But maybe nobody else, at least not for a few more days. Sometimes the laundry will leave a moldy smell when the weather’s bad and the furnace is acting up. No one has any reason to go down there except me, and since Father Mahoney had Jerry Brophy put a lock on the door, I keep the key in my pocket during the day.”

  “What about at night?”

  “Well, the key has to be in the door, doesn’t it? In case of an emergency.”

  “There you are then. Someone’s been down there at night when all he had to do was turn the key in the lock. I’ll take a look for you.”

  “I wish you would. I’m that scared.”

  *

  Dominic Pastore bought a first class ticket on board the USS Augusta as soon as Billy McGlory sent a messenger to tell him about the mysterious monsignor and what had been found in the cellar of Saint Anselm’s rectory. There wasn’t time for decent false papers, but first class passengers had the run of the ship and were rarely disturbed when anything untoward happened in steerage. He’d have to do the best he could and then disappear as soon as the boat docked.

  McGlory ordered Kevin to burn the contents of the urns Carney brought to the back door of Armory Hall and never tell a soul what he’d found and what he’d done with them.

  “Shouldn’t there be a priest?” Carney asked.

  Blossom knew instinctively that what she would normally have gobbled down with great gusto was this time so different that she risked not being forgiven if she set her jaws to it. Or even showed too much interest. She realized that the first time she caught a whiff of the parts and the tiny unborn pups the girls had left behind and decided not to draw her human’s attention to the fragrant cache another human had so painstakingly hidden.

  “Say a prayer if you want, Kevin. You’re as good as any priest in the eyes of God.”

  So Kevin and Blossom bowed their heads over the fire he built in a small barrel behind the saloon. He shooed off the curious cats who slunk past and flung rocks at the few rats brave enough to venture out in the daytime. Blossom barked a quick explanation to the dogs; she was feared and respected, so even the fiercest curs turned tail without a snarl of disagreement.

  When it was over, Kevin poured the flakes of ash into a shiny wooden box Mr. McGlory had given him. It was inlaid with mother of pearl, the prettiest thing Kevin had ever seen. He would bury the box and its contents in the graveyard of Saint Anselm’s, right at the foot of the statue of the Blessed Mother. He thought the girls would like being close to her, especially Miss Sally Lynn.

  On Mr. McGlory’s orders, Kevin sent Blossom off to find a carcass somewhere; there were always dead things lying around in the alleys. She brought him back a rank and barely nibbled cat and the two rats it had killed before their bites brought it down. He skinned and gutted the bodies with great care. Then he told Mrs. Healy she’d been mistaken about what she thought she saw and smelled.

  “It’s probably Jerry Brophy’s doing,” Kevin explained to a disgusted Mrs. Healy, showing her the three small urns, apiece of cat liver, and the strips of meat he’d rolled in the dirt to put the appearance of age on them. “He caught the things and cut them up as bait for his rat traps, then forgot where he put them. The great amadán.”

  “But why would he use the urns? Suppose someone found out? And what happened to whatever was inside?”

  “They were empty. That’s why he used them. You know how he is, always scrounging and cleaning and saving every scrap of this and that.”

  “What’s to be done then?”

  “I’ll just clean the urns out in the rubbish bin and put them back in the crypt. I wouldn’t bother mentioning it to Jerry at all, if I were you, Mrs. Healy. He won’t remember, and you know how he gets when he thinks someone is making fun of him. The man has a temper, for all he acts so holier than thou.” Kevin packed everything away in a piece of burlap he’d found rolled up behind the rack of Mason jars. She didn’t ask what it was or where he’d gotten it.

  “I feel like a fool, Kevin.”

  “We wouldn’t want this to get out, would we? It’s sure Jerry won’t say a word and neither will I.”

  “I’ve a dinner to fix, and I’d better get on with it.”

  “We’ll all be back to normal soon, Mrs. Healy.”

  “I’ll have to say a prayer for thinking such a terrible thing about him, but I can’t pretend I won’t be glad to see the back of Father Brennan.”

  “Maybe he’ll choke to death on some cod bones tonight and save you the trouble.”

  “God forgive you, Kevin, for wishing the death of a priest.” She snorted indignantly, then bent down and kissed his dirty cheek.

  Blossom wagged her tail invitingly and got a pat on the head.

  *

  “So Father Brennan is leaving for Boston tomorrow,” Ned mused. “He gave the last rites at two of the murder scenes, but no one saw him anywhere near Madame Jolene’s.”

  “There’s something about him that sets my teeth on edge.” Prudence tried to smooth the frown from her forehead, but couldn’t manage it. “I don’t think I can put a name to it, but it’s definitely there. Geoffrey?”

  “Let’s go over the whole thing one more time, starting with Joseph Nolan, who may not have killed anyone, but whose actions certainly brought about his own death.” He knew that once the discussion began, neither Prudence nor Ned would give up until they’d tested and discarded one hypothesis after another. They’d examine every detail of the case until it all made sense. “I think Josiah needs to be a part of this.”

  “I agree,” Prudence said, getting up from the conference table to ask the secretary to leave his desk and join them. “He was very brave at the Carousel.”

  Josiah brought his stenographer’s pad, his pencils, and a tray of coffee, absurdl
y pleased to have been invited to contribute his perspective to this most puzzling case. Miss Prudence had made it clear that they wanted him to do more than just take notes.

  “We know that Joseph Nolan believed he killed Sally Lynn,” Geoffrey began, “and that he was prepared to kill Prudence and Josiah rather than have his perversity revealed to the world. He’d been going mad for years; when he finally broke, he lost all touch with reality.”

  “No loss there,” Ned declared.

  “The same hand mutilated all three women. Does anyone disagree?”

  No one did.

  “Then it couldn’t have been Nolan because we know where he was the night Nora Kenny died.”

  “Could he have climbed out of bed, dressed himself, and gotten out of both Sally Lynn’s room and the brothel without anyone hearing him?” Prudence sounded doubtful.

  “I’m willing to agree that it’s very likely he did not leave Sally Lynn’s side that night.” Ned didn’t sound pleased with the concession.

  “I saw Joseph Nolan die, and I don’t regret for a moment witnessing it,” Josiah put in. “I would have killed him myself had I been able to.”

  “He’s dead, but he’s unlikely to have murdered three women. He was just a bastard too tainted by evil to deserve to live.” Ned turned to Prudence. “I apologize for the language,” he said.

  “According to the newspapers the case was declared officially closed when Nolan had the misfortune to be mauled by an unidentified dog,” Josiah said. “Fahey and McGuire have been released.”

  “As far as we know, Blossom never recognized the killer’s scent,” Prudence contributed.

  “Blossom strikes me as a dog who doesn’t consider it necessary to inform her humans of every thought and discovery.” Ned had once had a dog nearly as smart as Kevin’s. A very long time ago.

  “Let’s move on to Jerry Brophy.” Geoffrey didn’t think anyone would consider his suggestion seriously, but it had to be made.

  “Nothing for him or against him,” Prudence said. “He lives alone, and apart from his cleaning mania, might be considered fairly normal.”

  “He killed his wife,” Ned stated with absolute certainty. “His kind usually does, though they’re rarely apprehended.”

  “She died of a fever,” Josiah reminded him, paging back to earlier notes.

  “He probably poisoned her,” Ned continued. “But he was clever enough to do it when there was fever in the tenements and another death wouldn’t be noticed.”

  “It wouldn’t take much planning,” Prudence conceded.

  “I grant you he may have contributed to his wife’s passing,” Geoffrey declared. “From what we’ve learned about her, she didn’t treat him half as well as she did her clients.”

  “They paid her,” Prudence said. “Brophy’s never been known to spend any of the money she must have earned. What happened to it?”

  “Perhaps he scrubbed it clean,” Josiah said. “Coin by coin.”

  “Brophy couldn’t have killed them. He wouldn’t have been able to tolerate blood on his skin or his clothing. Remember what we were told he did for his wife?” Prudence reminded them. “He cleaned up after her, scrubbed the table where the abortions were performed, settled nerves, and collected fees. Does that sound to you like someone who could slit throats and empty out bellies?”

  “I agree,” Ned said. “As strange and perhaps even as despicable as Jerry Brophy may be, and except for ridding himself of his wife, he doesn’t have what it takes to murder in cold blood.”

  “Father Mark Brennan, who sets Prudence’s teeth on edge,” Geoffrey said. “We know Father Brennan is attractive to all of the women who go to church at Saint Anselm’s.”

  “He may be one of those priests who gets moved from parish to parish more frequently than the average,” Josiah said. “The lawyers who represent the archdiocese are closemouthed; their cases never reach the courts.”

  “An affair?” questioned Prudence.

  “Something that won’t bear scrutiny,” Ned agreed.

  “But I don’t think he’s our killer,” Geoffrey said.

  “He has something of Joseph Nolan in him,” Prudence said. “Internal conflicts that pull him in several different directions at once.”

  “The pastors who get him transferred out of their parishes probably consider him a weak or even a bad priest, but obviously not weak or bad enough to do any more than move him along somewhere else,” Ned agreed. “Nolan went mad. I don’t see that in Brennan’s future.”

  “A faceless, nameless killer who’s still roaming the streets of the city,” proposed Geoffrey. It was his penultimate proposal and they all knew it.

  “The kills would have to be random then,” Prudence continued. “All of the links we’ve discovered over the past weeks would have to be purely coincidental, meaningless.”

  “Not necessarily. We just have to admit that the killer is clever enough to hide his face and conceal his name. Perhaps forever.” Ned tried to catch Geoffrey’s eye, but Hunter was engrossed in the Pinkerton exercise of applying logic to crime. “No one is that smart. Or that lucky.”

  “So we finally come to Neil Slattery, owner of a tailor shop that supplies household staff with uniforms and does alterations. Whose mother performed abortions there. And who has disappeared.” Geoffrey always brought them back on point.

  “You found Nora’s carpetbag in his apartment.” Ned was ticking off the points against Slattery on his fingers.

  “Slattery had to have been the monsignor we saw walking from the rectory into the church when Alice Nolan was supposed to become his next victim,” Geoffrey continued. “What he was wearing distracted us. His disguise worked.”

  “Davey, the boy who sometimes minded the counter in the tailor shop, said he saw Mr. Neil wearing a cassock and biretta with red piping. He was clear on that, though not too much else,” Prudence admitted.

  “Alice Nolan never saw the man who drugged her and carried her down to the crypt,” Ned contributed.

  “Brennan and Slattery are both tall, slender men, though in Slattery’s case all we have to go on is how the few neighbors who would talk to us described him. At a distance I imagine it would be easy to mistake one for the other. That’s another thing that threw us off. When you see a man wearing a cassock, you immediately think priest.” Geoffrey shook his head ruefully at the deception.

  “If it was Slattery, why did he risk going back to Saint Anselm’s? He had to have known we suspected him,” Prudence asked.

  “He went to destroy what remained of his victims. Maybe he thought he could remove the contents of the urns from where he’d hidden them in the basement of the rectory.”

  “We interrupted him. He wasted time looking for Alice, and then he heard us upstairs. He fled out the cellar door into the alley.”

  “He’s the only link we have between Saint Anselm’s, the three killings, and the attempt on Alice Nolan. He’s the only commonality that makes sense.” Ned slapped one fist against the palm of the other hand.

  “We’ve got men at the steamship offices and the railroad station,” Geoffrey reminded them. “If he tries to buy a ticket, we’ll have him.”

  “Even under another name?” Prudence asked.

  “He needs papers to leave America for Europe, if that’s the direction he decides to head. He’ll have to chance using his own because he won’t have time to buy false ones.”

  “He doesn’t need papers to buy a train ticket,” Ned said.

  “My gut is telling me that Slattery has decided it’s time to go home, back to Ireland. He can disappear there in a way that’s not possible in this country. The neighbors all say he still has a strong Irish accent. That’s not something he could hide once he gets out of the city.”

  “Excuse me,” Josiah said. He disappeared into the outer office and came back a few moments later, followed by a man dressed in the clothes and cap of a dock worker.

  Geoffrey shook his hand and introduced him to the others.
“Bill and I were Pinkertons together,” he said, pulling out a chair for the new arrival. “Sit down and tell us what’s up.”

  “Your man had a contact down on the docks, just like you thought. A clerk in one of the ticket offices. I was told there was some talk about the clerk’s sister and a merchant seaman a few years back, but nothing ever came of it.”

  “Slattery’s mother did abortions,” Ned said. “We think he did, too, after she died.”

  “He’s got a ticket on the USS Augusta, due to sail in two days. What’s interesting is that he’s not listed on the passenger manifest. I got a look at it and he’s not there. My guess is that the clerk will add him at the last moment, just before the ship sets sail.”

  “Second class?” asked Ned.

  “He’d be safer in steerage,” Geoffrey said. “He could blend in with the other Irish going back where they came from.”

  “I couldn’t find that out,” Bill apologized. “Money changed hands, that much I do know.”

  “I don’t think he’ll attempt to pass as a first class passenger,” Prudence said. “Second class would be a great deal more comfortable than steerage, and he could keep to his cabin during the day. Perhaps feign seasickness.”

  “I’ll see what I can learn.” Bill laid an envelope on the table. “I bought these as soon as I was sure. The Augusta is a decent ship, but she’s not as fast as some of the newer ones.”

  “Seaworthy?”

  “So I’m told. And her captain has a good reputation,” he added. “Let me know what names you decide on and I’ll have you added to the first class manifest.” He hesitated, but Pinkerton training took over. “I’m not sure it means anything, but another first class ticket was bought around the same time I got these. It’s unusual in first class for someone to decide to sail at the last minute. Just thought I’d mention it.” He smiled and stood up. “Two can play at this game.”