by R. J. Koreto
“Now you’re thinking smart, Alice. You can’t hate a man you’re indifferent to. Only one that you really love.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” said Alice, almost accusing Mariah. But my sister just smiled.
“No, it doesn’t. But it’s true, anyway.” She sighed. “I don’t know how much of a fool this Delilah was, but she’d have to be a great one if she was counting on a married man. That’s the thing about married men, hon. If you’re having an affair with one, you know right at the beginning he’s not reliable.”
Alice raised an eyebrow at that. If there was one thing everyone agreed on, it was that Brackton was unreliable. I wondered if they would put that on his tombstone.
“I don’t know if there’s anything more I can say,” said Mariah. “But if you need any more marriage advice, just stop by.”
“Thank you, Mariah. You really have been very helpful.” Alice suddenly smiled and seemed very pleased with herself again, which made me wonder what she had figured out.
Mariah gave me a light slap on my cheek like she’s been doing ever since we were children. “Keep an eye on her. Thanks again for breakfast.” With that, she left.
“All right, Miss Alice. I see that look at your face. You’ve figured something out,” I said.
“I think so. After all the politics and the affairs and jealousies, I think it comes down to some very petty things, actually, involving four people: Delilah Linde, Victoria Brackton, Lynley Brackton, and Simon Rutledge. Two of them are dead. One of them might be next. We think we know who was supposed to die, but we can’t be sure. There are too many lies, and Mariah showed me there are emotions here I can’t really know.” She shook her head. “But I’m sure of one thing now—Simon Rutledge saw something. I know that from the reenactment, although I didn’t want to say in front of everyone.”
“What did he say? If we’re sure one of those four is the poisoner, why didn’t Rutledge say anything, if not at the time, then to me or the police later on? Especially after the second murder.”
“No one saw that as likely to happen. Except the murderer, of course. And something else is interesting, Mr. St. Clair—we don’t know if the same person killed Lynley and Delilah. If Delilah committed the first murder—she didn’t have a glass, like we had been told, so her hands were free—was she killed in revenge?” Alice just shook her head, and we were quiet for a while. I was used to the words just pouring out of her like a river; Alice tended to speak as quickly as she thought. But when she finally spoke again, it was in a slow, deliberate way. “In the end, Mr. St. Clair, it should be very simple. That’s what the reenactment showed me. Three people and one witness. It comes down to three people and one witness.”
“He saw the murder, Miss Alice? That would mean he’s trying to protect the killer. I don’t see why. Why protect someone trying to kill Victoria Brackton? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Maybe it wasn’t a murder, and maybe Mrs. Brackton was not the target. Let’s say it was Lynley all along, and he wasn’t murdered as much as he was executed.”
I thought about that for a few moments. In Laramie, where I wore a badge, crime was simple. Someone had once used a team of horses to rip the door off of a liquor warehouse, and a day later, the Sennett brothers, who never had a penny in cash between the pair of them, were found passed out drunk with empty bottles of good whiskey hidden in their hayloft.
But here we had a secret society, a Japanese baron, and the biggest man on Wall Street. But most of all, we had the rich. I know Mrs. Cowles said I should’ve learned something about them while working for the Roosevelts, and I suppose I had, but I also realized that unless you were one of them, you never really understood them. They didn’t think the same way as the rest of us.
I didn’t like the look in Alice’s eye or where she was going with this. “You know something, Miss Alice. Tell me.”
CHAPTER 33
“I … I just don’t know where to go from here,” Alice said, not quite answering me. “There is no proof, and no way of getting any. Only four people knew, and two of them are dead. The other two aren’t talking. They won’t. They can’t.”
“But you know?” I asked again.
“I might … after what Mariah told me…” She was lost in thought, as if she’d barely heard me. We stayed quiet for a while, then she seemed to come back from wherever she had gone. She had a glint in her eye when she looked at me, and I should’ve realized then and there where this would be going.
“Miss Alice, I think you know more than you’re saying.”
“I don’t know anything. It’s only what I think. You’re the lawman. You know you have to have to proof to go to court.”
Especially for people like this. You didn’t need proof for people like Cathleen and Peter, just a suspicion. But you needed a solid witness to get someone in Society sent away. They didn’t betray each other, not in public, anyway.
Alice was thinking along the same lines. She suddenly scowled. “I’m not letting this go. I’m not just going to wait for Captain O’Hara to get pushed into picking the wrong person because it’s convenient. That’s a cowardly way out. You know it is, too. Do you think my father would allow such a … a … weak solution to something like this, to let killers go free, while poor men paid the price?”
“Of course not, Miss Alice.”
“I’ll need to think on this. There must be some way we can fix this. I need something to distract me. One day isn’t going to make a difference. We’ll keep busy this afternoon, and then we’ll make some plans over breakfast tomorrow. We’ll both give it some thought tonight. Does that sound like a reasonable course?”
Then I made a mistake. Actually, two mistakes. Big ones. First, I trusted her to be sensible, when all I was doing was giving her more time to think of something outlandish. The second mistake was suggesting an activity that I knew would amuse and distract her but in the end, was only going to get her worked up. I wanted to make her happy, but I really should’ve known better.
“Miss Alice, if you don’t have any other plans today, how would you like to learn how to shoot a revolver?”
“Really? Right now?” The aristocratic hostess who had organized that morning’s reenactment disappeared, and the little girl came back. She actually jumped up and gave me a hug, then stepped back to give me a serious look. “Just when I am about to despair of you, you come up with something like this. I knew you wouldn’t let me down.”
I still didn’t like the way this was playing out. I suspected she knew more than she was telling me, and I resolved to keep a close eye on her.
* * *
I drove Alice to an unmarked building near the Hudson—actually, an old warehouse—that Mr. Roosevelt had turned into a shooting range to encourage police officers to improve their marksmanship. I used it myself to keep in practice. There were half a dozen officers there when we entered, and Alice practically skipped in. The men gave us more than a look or two—the cowboy and the girl.
I knew the sergeant on duty, and he had a spare Colt New Police revolver, the weapon Mr. Roosevelt had introduced as standard issue when he was commissioner.
“New recruit, St. Clair?” he asked.
“If she passes the test,” I said. I showed Alice how to properly load and handle the revolver so she wouldn’t kill anyone. “Now, patience, Miss Alice. This isn’t the Wild West. Aim and squeeze.” It took a while, but after a few shots, it seemed clear Alice had inherited her father’s skill, and with proper guidance, each shot was better than the one before.
Meanwhile, word got around on who she was, and the other cops stopped what they were doing and gathered around her, offering encouragement and cheering her on, which she loved almost as much as the shooting.
“All right, that’s enough for one day,” I said, seeing her hand was beginning to tire. The cops gave her a round of applause, Alice curtsied, and we headed back outside.
“Imagine if I knew who the murderer was. Or murderers, if t
here is more than one,” she said as we headed back to the motorcar. “If we were out West, I could just shoot them, couldn’t I?”
“For God’s sake, Miss Alice. What would your father say? He’s devoted his whole life to creating and defending proper civil law in this country, and you want to walk up and shoot someone because you think they’re a killer?”
“No, not just like that. You know what I mean. Like in Wyoming, where we’re both armed and we do a fast draw, only I’d be faster.”
“Oh, you would be? Pity you weren’t at the O.K. Corral. You’ve been reading too many dime novels. They make it sound like it’s a daily happening. First of all, fast draws have always been a lot less common than Eastern writers would like to think, and second, you can’t just pull a gun on someone. You have to wait for the other guy to reach first.”
“Why?”
“Because if someone reaches for a gun and the lawman then reaches for his, it’s self-defense. But if the lawman reaches first, it’s murder, and it doesn’t matter if he’s wearing a badge.”
Alice stopped, her hand on the door of the motorcar. “Thank you. That is a very useful distinction, Mr. St. Clair,” she said quietly and looked into the distance.
I should’ve noticed the look on her face and seen it coming then. Although Alice had been dodging her aunt and father with half-truths and incomplete explanations, I thought I knew what she was up to, but I was only right most of the time.
Not much happened the rest of the day. We had lunch downtown; Alice bought us knishes, which she loved. We talked about things other than the murders, and she was cheerful, so again, my guard was down. She said she was going to spend a quiet evening inside but advised me to be at breakfast at eight sharp. I got myself some dinner under the El and turned in early for a long and untroubled sleep.
* * *
I felt a little bad the next morning that I hadn’t spent one minute thinking about who could’ve been a poisoner, or how, or why, but I figured that Alice might’ve have calmed down a bit. When it was really important, Alice saw reason.
She was cheerful enough when she greeted me at the door, not confused and dreamy like she was much of the day before. “Come in, Mr. St. Clair. My aunt and I were just sitting down to breakfast. Eggs and bacon this morning, and toast with orange marmalade.”
“Very nice,” I said, and I followed her into the breakfast room. “Good morning, ma’am,” I said to Mrs. Cowles.
“Good morning, Mr. St. Clair.” She gave me one of those quick but deep looks, like she could see into my soul. There was no keeping secrets from her, not in the long term. I carefully sat down and helped myself to coffee. I thought that if Alice was excited about some new plan, she’d be a little more anxious about getting rid of her aunt so we could get started, but she chattered with her aunt about other people in Society, her father’s recent visit, a possible visit to the museum—anything but the murders.
And then the doorbell rang. Mrs. Cowles raised an eyebrow. “Another breakfast meeting, Alice? Are you sure I won’t be in the way?”
Alice ignored the sarcasm. “Of course not,” she said, and I realized from Alice’s look that she knew who was on the other side of the door. Had she gone around me and invited Captain O’Hara to join us, after all? As usual, I got up and joined the maid to open the door.
It was Mariah.
I was quiet for a moment before asking, “What are you doing here?”
“Alice invited me. Didn’t she tell you? She probably figured it wasn’t necessary and wanted to avoid an argument.” When I got over my surprise, I noticed she was wearing a good dress, much nicer than you needed at breakfast. A pale rose showed off the black ringlets of her hair.
“Mariah, I’m so glad you could come,” said Alice, joining us in the foyer. “Join us at the table while the eggs are still hot.”
“Miss Alice, when did this happen?” I asked.
“Yesterday. I sent Mariah a letter with an off-duty porter.”
I had a lot of questions, but there was no asking while Mrs. Cowles was around. Now I was the one who wanted her out of the way.
“Aunt Anna, you remember my friend Mariah Flores from yesterday. She’s Mr. St. Clair’s older sister.”
“Of course, a pleasure to see you again,” said Mrs. Cowles. “Do take a seat.”
I looked around at everyone. Alice and Mariah looked pleased with themselves, and Mrs. Cowles was curious. I cleared my throat.
“My sister is here at Miss Alice’s invitation, Mrs. Cowles. I don’t want you to think I was presuming,” I said.
“Don’t be silly,” said Alice. “My aunt knows Mariah is my friend and is here at my invitation.”
“Alice’s friends are always welcome here,” said Mrs. Cowles. “I am only sorry that I have morning appointments and am unable to ask Mrs. Flores for the many childhood stories I am sure she has about Mr. St. Clair.”
“Another time, perhaps,” said Mariah.
“Tell me,” continued Mrs. Cowles. “Are you as adept with firearms as your brother?”
I spilled my coffee.
“Who do you think gave him his first lesson?” said Mariah.
“So you have earned the friendship and respect of my niece, and you can handle a revolver? It’s a shame the Secret Service doesn’t employ women, or we could’ve engaged you as her bodyguard.”
Mariah seemed pleased at the compliment, even as Alice pouted. “But that wouldn’t be fair to Mr. St. Clair,” she said, laying a hand on my arm. “He’d miss me too much.”
“Indeed,” said Mrs. Cowles, giving Alice and me meaningful looks. Talk turned to the weather and how the city was changing now that cars were replacing carriages, but I just kept glancing back and forth between Alice and Mariah. After a few minutes of this, Mrs. Cowles stood. “I must go now. Mrs. Flores, a pleasure seeing you again. Alice—we’ll talk later.” Those last three words weighed heavily, and I knew they’d come back to haunt us. She left the breakfast room, and a few minutes later, we heard her leaving the apartment.
“Finish up. We need to be on our way,” said Alice, so pleased with herself I thought she’d kick up her feet. She happily took another piece of bacon and drained her coffee.
“Miss Alice, Mariah, what is going on?” I tried to come down heavy like Mrs. Cowles did, but it wasn’t working. I could see from the look on Mariah’s face that she knew, even as she was all wide-eyed innocence.
“After giving it some thought,” said Alice, “I realized we still don’t know enough. This is a case full of emotion. We need to talk some more with Mrs. Brackton, so we’re paying another call, and I need another person, another woman, for some insights. Mariah had so many interesting thoughts yesterday. Of course, I can’t introduce her as your sister, so she will be Mariah Flores, a dear friend from New Orleans. Now, we really do need to be going because I want to get there early before anyone else calls.”
“Miss Alice, I know you. What’s going on? This could be dangerous.”
“You heard the girl,” said Mariah. “Grab your hat and coat.”
I realized there was no way out of it, but I had a parting shot. “Mariah, I get paid to do this. What’s your angle?”
“It’s like Mrs. Cowles said: I want your job.”
At least Alice thought that was funny.
* * *
We squeezed into the motorcar and drove to the Brackton house. Alice continued to look pleased with herself, and I had to remind her to look a little soberer, as we were making a condolence call.
“If I think something is dangerous, I’m dragging you both out of there,” I said, but I didn’t think either of them were listening.
The butler, still wearing his mourning armband, let us in. He recognized Alice right away.
“Good day, Miss Roosevelt. Mrs. Brackton said you were to be admitted immediately if you called again.”
“Very good. I’ve brought another family friend, and of course, my escort must stay with me.”
He showed us into the parlor where Mrs. Brackton was alone, sitting in a comfortable chair. Magazines were tossed carelessly on a side table; she had probably been passing the time leafing through them. When we walked into the room, she practically ran to Alice. “Oh, my dear, you’re my one true friend in all of this. Thank you for coming. Please be seated.” She looked at Mariah.
“Victoria, I hope you don’t mind, I brought an old friend—Mrs. Mariah Flores from Louisiana. She is a widow, too, and knows well the terrible situation you’re in.”
“A pleasure,” said Mrs. Brackton. “I’ll have the maid bring some tea.” We seated ourselves on a couch, and Mrs. Brackton took a comfortable chair facing us with a low table in between. “I am sorry. You must excuse me, Mrs. Flores, but my mind is a muddle ever since … but have we met?”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” said Mariah, exaggerating her honeyed voice. “Nevertheless, Alice told me about the tragic death of your husband, and I said, ‘Alice, I must go with you to call on Mrs. Brackton.’”
There was a long pause. Mrs. Brackton didn’t say anything but looked curiously at Mariah, as if waiting for something. “Because you’re a widow, too?” asked Victoria, perhaps a little disturbed by the enthusiasm from a woman she had never met.
“Oh, well that. But didn’t I say? It’s because of the deep friendship I developed with your late husband, Lynley, when we met just over a year ago.”
CHAPTER 34
So there was a script. I didn’t think Mariah would lie like that without Alice working it out with her first. I looked at Alice, but she gave nothing away.
The maid came in with tea and some plain cookies. I wasn’t planning on having anything, as I figured this was dangerous, and I was going to watch every move. Two people were already dead, and Mrs. Brackton had been threatened again.
“You knew my husband?” asked Mrs. Brackton, and I thought her tone was odd, or maybe I was just being too sensitive.