by BJ Hoff
The photographer shook his head. “I’m looking forward to it. As soon as you advise me of a convenient time for Mrs. Platt, I’ll make plans for a private sitting in her home.”
Sara’s father nodded, then gave Michael a little nudge. “Good. You’ll hear from me soon.”
Outside on the street, silence descended and hung over the four for a noticeably long time. Finally Winnie, ever sensitive to the moods of those close to her and always adept at breaking the tension, turned to Michael with a bright smile. “Why, Michael, don’t you look positively thunderous! Was it really that bad, getting starched up and polished to have your portrait made?”
Michael blinked. “What? Oh no. No, perhaps not,” he answered vaguely. “I expect I was thinking about something else.”
For just an instant his eyes met Sara’s. Then he looked away.
That night, long after Sara had fallen asleep, Michael was still fully awake and restless. Finally he eased out of bed and, shrugging into his robe, crossed the room to the double doors that opened onto the balcony.
He stepped outside and stood looking into the night. Even for August, the air was warm and close. Not the slightest hint of a breeze stirred the enormous old oak trees surrounding the house. Yet the sky looked strangely heavy and low-hanging, as if it might open at any moment with a downpour.
As he stood gazing down on the stone walkway below, his thoughts were as dark as the night itself. He found himself wondering if he had made a foolish mistake, choosing to stay with the police force rather than taking up the political gauntlet previously held out by Simon Dabney.
If Mathew Brady had been right, if Walsh were actually to make a serious foray into politics, what could he hope to accomplish by staying on the force? The police were all but powerless when it came to crooked politicians.
Countless professional hoodlums already controlled much of the political world. Patrick Walsh would only add one more to their ranks. He had already attained considerable power, through his dishonest business practices and the intricate web of corruption he had woven throughout the city and the state.
Michael had been careful never to underestimate the influence of his old enemy. Patrick Walsh had, after all, almost gotten his clutches into Michael’s son, Tierney. He exerted real power over the small-time crooks who populated his nefarious rackets across the state. Walsh pulled the strings of any number of local puppets at Tammany Hall as well. He could probably gather all the votes needed for any political office he set his sights on.
Politics would be a logical move for Walsh—a move that would only serve to make him more powerful, more dangerous, than he already was. Once he attained political position, there would be no stopping him. He would simply continue to rise, like a poisonous gas, beyond all possibility of containment.
Michael raked a hand over the back of his neck. His head throbbed from sleeplessness and tension. He could not bring himself to entertain the thought of Patrick Walsh completely beyond the reach of justice—unencumbered, free to wreak his depraved will in any manner he chose.
As things stood now, there was still the chance of trapping Walsh in his own unscrupulousness. But a lowly policeman—even a police captain—would have little hope of ensnaring a prominent politician, no matter what his offenses against society might happen to be. There was every likelihood that Walsh would manage to continue as he had in the past, keeping up the appearance of respectability while managing to stay one step ahead of the law.
Michael gripped the railing in front of him with both hands. He refused to accept the idea that a snake like Walsh could escape justice indefinitely. There had to be a way to stop him. There had to be.
Walsh would eventually make a mistake. He might be clever in his own way—cutthroat smart with all the scruples of a hyena. But at some point he would slip up.
Michael planned to be there when he fell.
13
Unwelcome Arrivals
I hardened my heart
For fear of my ruin…
I hardened my heart,
And my love I quenched.
PADRAIC PEARSE (1879–1916)
Ruth Marriott arrived in New York on Saturday. It took her until Monday to gather the courage to confront Patrick Walsh.
She passed the weekend in a dingy hotel room in a district called the Bowery. According to the desk clerk, she was within walking distance of the hotel where Patrick kept his offices. But as she turned the corner of still another unfamiliar street, she worried that the clerk might have given her wrong directions.
By now she was beginning to wish she had followed her original instincts and spent some of her traveling funds on a hack. The August heat was oppressive, and her stomach felt more queasy with every step. If she didn’t find Broadway soon, she would have to turn back.
But she couldn’t turn back. She had come all this way to confront Patrick. The money he had sent would not last forever, and when it was gone, then what would she do?
As she walked, she gradually became aware that her surroundings were changing. Instead of taverns and freak shows, the buildings lining the street appeared to be small shops and decent, if not overly prosperous, businesses. Even the pedestrians around her looked to be more respectable, in marked contrast to the loud, dirty reprobates a few blocks back.
Perhaps she was headed in the right direction after all. Patrick’s hotel would almost certainly be in a much finer neighborhood than where she was staying.
Unless he had lied about that, too.
Had he ever told her the truth about anything? From the beginning, he had deceived her with the worst lie of all: that he was an unmarried man. He had pretended to be a widower with adolescent children. Only when he learned about the baby had he told her the truth, that he did indeed have two children—and a wife who was very much alive—and thus could hardly be expected to take responsibility for her or her child.
Her child. As if he had had no part in the unthinkable situation in which she now found herself.
Obviously, he assumed that sending a sum of cash by his contemptuous messenger would be enough to extricate himself from any further responsibility. The note had been matter-of-fact, with no hint of what they had once meant to each other. The money should “cover her medical bills and help her to get by until she could make arrangements for herself and the child.”
He had even gone on to suggest that Ruth not have the baby at all. There are women who take care of such things, he had written in the same cold-blooded style. You’d do well to consider that an option.
The very thought made Ruth feel ill. How had it come to this, that the man who only months ago had claimed to adore her—who had promised to marry her as soon as his children were older—could now so casually suggest that she abort their child?
Patrick Walsh had taken her heart, her trust, her innocence, and left her with nothing but a crushing burden of shame—and a child he refused to acknowledge.
How could she have been so naive, so foolish? So wicked…
That’s what Mother would call it, once she knew. Wickedness. She would turn her chilling, accusing look on Ruth and denounce her for the sinner she was. Then she would piously offer to pray for her and suggest a fitting penance for her transgressions.
Ruth was determined to keep her condition a secret from her mother for as long as possible. Her own shame and humiliation was bad enough. She didn’t think she could endure the degradation her mother was certain to heap upon her.
Besides, Mother would demand that she give up the baby. Not for a moment would Amelia Marriott take the chance that her daughter’s disgrace might become common knowledge to her ladies’ society or her meddlesome neighbors.
She wouldn’t do it! She wouldn’t give her baby away! She regretted what she had done with Patrick…oh, how she regretted it! But she would not allow her child to suffer for her mistake. Somehow, she would take care of her baby. She would find a way.
Yet there was no one to whom she could turn for
help. She had no friends, no family other than her mother.
When she made the decision to become Patrick’s mistress, she had grown increasingly secretive. She had isolated herself until finally the only thing left to her had been her work and the clandestine life she shared with Patrick.
That life was gone and soon even her job would come to an end. It would be impossible to hide her condition much longer; the moment she told the administration the truth, the school would terminate her without notice. There was no place in an exclusive girls academy for a pregnant, unmarried teacher.
Somehow she had to convince Patrick to commit himself to provide for the baby’s future. This resolve, combined with her growing desperation, had finally motivated her to come to New York and confront him. But now, as she turned the corner onto Broadway and saw the dark brick facade of the Braun Midtown Hotel looming just ahead, she felt an almost paralyzing wave of apprehension.
When she reached the hotel she stood in front of it for a long time, staring at the structure’s solid imposing front, remembering all the times she had written to Patrick at this address.
“I spend far more time at the office than at home,” he had told her. “I’ll get your letters sooner if you send them to the hotel.”
She had believed him. Now anger mingled with shame as she realized how quickly she had fallen prey to his lies, how easily she had allowed herself to be deceived.
With her eyes fixed on the sturdy double doors of the hotel’s entrance, Ruth knotted her hands together at her waist. He should pay. He should pay for his treachery, for the unconscionable way he had manipulated and used her. It was only right that he pay.
Yet she knew she was no match for Patrick. If he remained unmoved by her plea for help, there was ultimately nothing she could do to persuade him. Nothing.
Except for the one thing she truly did not want to do…
Swallowing down a hot swell of nausea, Ruth repeated Patrick’s Staten Island address, information she had managed to get from one of the hotel messengers. At last, pulling in a long, shaky breath, she started toward the entrance of the hotel.
Jess Dalton looked up from his desk, smiling with pleasure at the sight of Nicholas Grafton in the doorway.
“Well—Nicholas! Kerry was just asking about you last night. Where have you been keeping yourself?”
The two men had become good friends over the past two years and had taken to dropping in on each other unannounced, when time allowed. Jess found even the briefest visit with the kind physician both pleasant and renewing.
As he got to his feet, his chair banged against the wall behind him. The room that served as his office in the Bowery chapel was actually not much more than a closet. His considerable size made it seem even smaller than it was, but he had grown accustomed to the cramped quarters. Besides, he spent precious little time behind a desk these days.
“We’ve been missing you,” he said, going around to shake hands. “Nothing wrong, I hope.”
Before the doctor could reply, another man—this one a stranger—stepped into the room. Jess looked at him with interest. Only then did it occur to him that Nicholas’s demeanor was uncommonly grave.
The stranger, like Nicholas Grafton, was not overly tall, but his stocky build made him appear a much larger man. Young, with fair hair and a pale complexion, he had the kind of piercing stare that hinted of boldness, even a certain arrogance.
As Jess waited for an introduction, he puzzled over the distress he sensed in Nicholas. His friend’s expression seemed almost apologetic when he finally spoke.
“Jess,” he finally said, his voice low, “this is Colin Winston.” He paused. “Elizabeth Ward’s brother.”
Amanda’s uncle…
Jess suddenly felt light-headed. His heart plummeted, then raced. Stiffly, he extended his hand to the unsmiling Winston. But the younger man ignored the gesture, and after an awkward moment, Jess dropped his hand back to his side.
He could not have been more shocked. He had known that little Amanda supposedly had an uncle somewhere on the Continent, but after months of unsuccessful attempts to contact him, the attorneys in the States and in England had given the go-ahead to initiate adoption proceedings.
From the moment they took her into their home the previous winter, little Amanda had stolen both Jess’s heart and Kerry’s. Within days after the death of the child’s mother, they began to discuss the possibility of adoption.
Nicholas Grafton had written numerous letters to Amanda’s grandfather in England, but it seemed that Edward Winston’s rejection of his daughter and her family was irrevocable. Every attempt to contact him was met by absolute silence.
As it happened, Lawrence Hancock, the attorney Jess had retained, eventually learned that Amanda’s grandfather was dead. Moreover, the child’s uncle—and her only living relative—had also been estranged from his elderly father for years. Colin Winston’s whereabouts were unknown.
Until now.
“Jess?”
Nicholas Grafton’s voice snapped Jess back to the present.
“You know that Mr. Winston is…Amanda’s uncle.”
“Yes,” Jess said faintly, unable to venture more.
“He has come—” the doctor’s voice faltered for an instant. “For Amanda. To take her…back to England with him.”
Jess thought he would choke on the pain that knifed through him. “I see” was all he could manage. Abruptly he turned his back on both men.
His first thought was of Kerry—this would surely devastate her. Amanda had been like her own little girl from the first time she held her. Her delight in the child grew with every day that passed, and the bond between them was beautiful to behold.
His next thought was of himself, for he also adored the sunny little girl. He had come to call her his “curly-top,” and he delighted in having a small daughter who seemed to consider him quite a prize. When she ran to him in the evening and stretched her arms up to be lifted onto his shoulder, no matter how difficult his day had been, he was suddenly renewed.
He could not imagine coming home to a house without Amanda.
Woodenly, he walked back to his desk and dropped into the chair. Lacing his fingers together, he sat staring at his hands for a long time. When he finally looked up, Nicholas was watching him with a look of undisguised sympathy, Colin Winston with an expression that appeared openly hostile.
“I plan to sail just as soon as I can make the arrangements,” Winston said, his voice curt. “You’ll prepare the child, I presume?”
Jess stared at the man. He suddenly felt very cold. Cold and weary and bereft, as if the sun had just gone down on his spirit.
Patrick Walsh drained still another cup of coffee. His nerves were already jangled, his mood vile, and he knew the coffee was a bad idea. But he was in no frame of mind to deny himself.
Hunched over his desk, he stared at the front page of the paper, which trumpeted yet another “achievement” on the part of the subcommission headed by Lewis Farmington. In particular, the article lauded Farmington’s son-in-law, Captain Michael Burke, for his “vigilance and tenacity in bringing to justice those perpetrators of villainy against the innocent and unsuspecting.”
The glowing article went on to explain that most recently Captain Burke had been instrumental in exposing the abuses of the Chatham Charity Women’s Shelter. Its director, Ethelda Crane, was presently under investigation for misuse of both private and state funds—among other criminal charges. In the meantime, the shelter had been closed and its residents moved to other facilities.
Related to the same case was the opening of yet another investigation that involved a religious organization under the direction of one William Butterby—known by members of the sect as “Brother Will.” A number of alleged offenses on the part of Butterby, including improper advances to female parishioners, had come under the scrutiny of the courts. Butterby was also suspected of some form of collusion with the aforementioned Ethelda Crane.
&n
bsp; Patrick Walsh had no interest in the Chatham Women’s Shelter, nor in the careless dolts who had managed to get themselves entangled by their own stupidity. But he was sick to death of reading about the accomplishments of the emigrant subcommission—and in particular the heroic exploits of Captain Michael Burke.
He should have followed his original instincts and had Burke finished off long before now. That thick-necked cop had been like a buzzard on his back for years. In the past few months the bad blood between them had finally reached a boiling point. Burke didn’t even try to dissemble about his intentions: he was out to destroy Patrick Walsh by any means.
So far the bulldog policeman had managed to accomplish little more than to put a couple of Patrick’s men in jail—where they had been summarily murdered before they could talk. But Burke had recently brought closure to two lucrative operations, including a highly profitable slave auction—and in the process stirred up speculation about the Walsh “enterprises.” As a result, some of the Tammany bosses had begun to make disgruntled noises.
Patrick knew that real power—the kind of power he aspired to—lay not in financial control alone, but in political influence coupled with great wealth.
He was already a rich man; his prosperity continued to increase despite the paltry efforts of boorish policemen like Burke. But his larger ambition was to expand his rackets empire, while at the same time marshaling the even greater power to be found within the political arena.
Not for a moment did he intend to let an inconsequential police captain stop him.
He crumpled the front page, then tossed the rest of the newspaper to the floor. Something had to be done about Burke. It was nothing but foolishness to risk the man’s further interference.
Patrick began to fantasize about what sort of torment he might inflict upon his nemesis before actually putting an end to him. On impulse he unlocked the middle drawer on the right side of his desk and sat staring at the pistol he carried back and forth between his home and the office every day.