by Delynn Royer
“You know that for a fact? Is Costigan with you now?”
“Yes and yes.”
“Who’s behind the frame-up?”
Trixie had forced a note of conviction she didn’t feel. “We don’t know yet, but we’ll find out.”
Julius paused, perhaps sensing her doubt, then, “All right, you do that, little sister, but watch your step. Even 180-point type ain’t worth getting your head blown off.”
“Yes, boss.” And with that, they’d rung off.
Now, Trixie cautiously eyed the rigid set of Sean’s jaw as they motored across the island. If it weren’t for his grim expression, he might have looked like a man relaxed and headed for a holiday of hunting or fishing, dressed as he was in a rustic green overcoat and open-collared shirt. It was the first time, aside from last night, of course, that she’d seen him wear anything but a suit and tie. The sun was bright and the temperature was warmer than normal, making for an unseasonably mild autumn day.
He’d seen the Times article. She’d shown it to him when he’d come down for breakfast. He’d read it and made no comment, but he’d been in a foul mood ever since. So foul that she’d diplomatically taken the passenger seat without a fuss when they’d left the Frank estate two hours later.
It hadn’t helped his cross disposition much either when she’d tactfully suggested that they stop at the bank to make a withdrawal from her trust fund account. Granted, while she didn’t know as much about bootlegging as Sean did, she figured it might not be a bad idea to have cash on hand when one went to visit a rum runner. As a result, she now had over five hundred dollars stored in various places on her person, including her purse, her stockings, her trouser pockets, and even a few bills pinned inside her brassiere.
“I’m worried about Danny,” she said finally, unable to hold her tongue any longer. She’d given Sean a good twenty minutes on the road to get over the money thing. She figured that if her perky smooth-handling Buick couldn’t improve his mood, nothing could.
He glanced at her. “What’s to worry? That Pinkerton you hired must weigh two hundred pounds.”
“That’s not what I mean. I’m worried about Danny. I expected him to have questions, to argue, to—well, you know, fight being taken away, and especially by a stranger. Remember how he was on the train yesterday.”
“Yeah. But today he seemed fine.”
“That’s my point.”
Sean shook his head. “There’s nothing we can do about it now. They’re on their way to Philadelphia, probably arriving at the train station as we speak.”
“I know.” She parted the side curtains to peer out at a mix of evergreens and leafless trees that grew along the roadside. For the most part, the season of fiery autumnal colors had passed, yet here and there, a lone maple still clung stubbornly to the last of its bright yellow leaves.
Sean was right. There was nothing they could do about Danny now. She’d just needed to voice her concerns. It was hard to get the picture out of her mind, of Danny’s cherubic face as she and Sean had explained to him that they were sending him to a place called Philadelphia along with a detective who would protect him from the men who had killed John Murphy.
Danny’s expression remained set as he listened, unblinking, his lower lip jutting out slightly but not altogether pouting, and he had asked only two questions. Why couldn’t he go with Trixie and Sean? Sean was a cop, wasn’t he? The answer they’d given him, that it was just better, safer, for Danny to be moved to a place far away so Sean could concentrate on going after the bad men, was the truth. It had sounded woefully inadequate, though, when trying to explain it to a little boy.
Danny had accepted their explanation, or at least he’d said nothing more, but Trixie had seen something change in his expression, a subtle light in his unflinching blue gaze that had slowly darkened, and she was now afraid that what she’d seen was the beginnings of distrust.
“You’re wrong, you know.” Sean spoke so unexpectedly that it took Trixie a moment to realize that he’d changed the subject.
Trixie let the side curtains fall back and looked at him. His eyes were still on the road. “What? About Danny?”
“No, about what you said last night.”
“Last night?”
“I’m not in love with her.”
Nell. Something inside Trixie blossomed but she forced it down just as quickly. She wanted to believe him. He sounded sure, and maybe it was true, but it was also possible he didn’t realize that he was still in love with Nell. What about all the history they shared? History counted for a lot. Trixie knew that for a fact.
Was it possible to love someone madly enough to want to marry them and then to feel nothing for them after things went bad? Or would that bittersweet connection never quite go away?
You sure about that? That’s what she wanted to say to him, but she didn’t. What she said instead was, “Oh.”
That was all she trusted herself to say. At least, until she had some time to think. This time, when she turned back to look out the window, she saw little of the scenery that rushed by.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Oyster Bay Train Station was not busy this late in the morning, not nearly busy enough for Danny to devise a way to slip away from the detective who waited with him at the ticket counter and then, later, ushered him with one hand into the waiting train headed south.
The detective’s name was Mr. Kennedy, a big bear of a man in a charcoal suit with gray hair and a full, kindly face. Danny had used Mr. Kennedy’s name often in conversation as Mr. Spink had driven them to the train station. Grown-ups liked that.
“Say, Mr. Kennedy, how long till we get to Philadelphia?” Danny spoke brightly as they took their seats near the back of one of the cars.
“Oh, not for a while yet, son. There’s a few trains to catch between here and there.”
Danny turned to face him. “Gee, I never been there before, Mr. Kennedy. What’s it like? Is it as big as New York?”
The man chuckled. “Not quite, son, but it’s plenty big, sure thing. Plenty big for a little fella like you.”
“What’s there to see?”
“Plenty to see. Why, there’s the Liberty Bell for one and Independence Hall. That’s where they signed the Declaration of Independence.”
“Yeah?” Danny had no idea what a liberty bell was, much less a declaration of dependence. “When can we go see them things?”
Mr. Kennedy had patted Danny’s shoulder as the conductor had approached them in the aisle. “First, let’s get ourselves settled in at the hotel, then we’ll see.”
Danny had no intention of getting settled in anywhere with Mr. Kennedy.
Oyster Bay, Mineola, Long Island City, Penn Station. Danny watched as the conductor passed in the aisle, punching tickets. Just four names. Easy. He’d had to remember a lot more between Kansas and New York, and he’d been just a little kid back then. Now he was older. Smarter.
And he was through with trusting grown-ups.
As the train’s wheels began to grind forward beneath them, Danny looked down to see that, without realizing it, he’d clenched both of his hands into tight, balled-up fists on his lap. He loosened them, then pasted a smile on his face and looked up again at the detective.
He had plenty of scratch in his pocket and plenty of time to spare. Sooner or later, Mr. Kennedy would be distracted by someone asking the time or he would have to use the men’s room at one of the train stations.
“That sounds swell, Mr. Kennedy. I can’t wait.”
* * *
Aside from offering a few road directions, Trixie remained altogether too quiet until they reached the east side of the island. Sean figured she was mulling over what he’d said.
How she had ever come up with the idea that he was in love with Nell was beyond him, but h
e could guess who’d planted the seed.
Joey Mack.
Sean had seen Joey talking with Trixie at Bickford’s while he and Nell had been at the other table and now he had a good idea of what they’d been talking about. Next time Sean saw Joey he intended to give his ratfink pal an earful.
By the time they started the drive up the coast toward Montauk, Trixie finally stirred and looked at him quizzically.
“What?” Sean asked when she didn’t say anything.
“You promised to tell me about your Uncle Brian.”
“Long story,” Sean said.
“That’s just perfect because we’ve got lots of time. A couple hours at least. Especially at this pace.”
Sean didn’t miss the challenge in her voice. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, nothing. It’s just that it’s a shame to waste so much horsepower. This little sister will go sixty if you know how to handle her.”
He looked at her sidewise. “You think I don’t know how to handle her?”
She kept her eyes on the road but her lips curved in a satisfied smile that made him think about how damn good it had felt to have her in his bed last night. “Not at all. You’d certainly give my Great Aunt Gladys a run for her money.”
Ha. Funny girl. So she believed he drove like an old lady, did she? Well, the day was beautiful and the road was clear. Sean fed more gas to the Buick’s hungry motor. The effect was immediate as the speedometer jumped ahead. Forty, forty-five, fifty.
Trixie’s smile broadened as the wind from the open windows nipped at her curls. “That’s more like it. Now, where were we? Oh, yes. Uncle Brian, the cleaner of dirty closets, one of the men in your family who inspired you to join the department. You know, my managing editor was a friend of his. He practically put the man up for sainthood.”
Sean cast her an amused glance. “I think the feeling was mutual. He said more than once that Merryweather had his back in the papers.”
“So tell me about him.”
Sean didn’t look away from the road. “You sure you want to hear the whole lousy story?”
“From beginning to end.”
He sighed. “All right. Here it goes. My uncle never married, so after my father was killed on the job, he took it upon himself to look after me and my mother. It took a toll on his career, though. He walked a beat in our neighborhood for fifteen years before he made detective. By then, I was almost grown, ma was remarried, and he was able to devote himself to what he did best.”
“Catching bad guys?”
“Yeah. On the streets and in his own department.” Sean couldn’t help but think soberly of his own predicament.
“You mean, he went after the bad apples.”
“Right. Back before the war, he was in charge of the Confidential Squad.”
Sean had been a uniformed patrolman when the last police reform movement had swept through the city. By then, his uncle had earned several promotions and built a reputation for being an honest cop while investigating Chinatown’s gambling rackets. When Commissioner Woods created his Confidential Squad to root out corruption and graft within the department, “Honest” Brian Costigan was an obvious choice to lead it.
As Sean and Trixie drove through North Patchogue, West Hampton, Hampton Bays, Southampton, and finally East Hampton, Sean told the story of his uncle’s promotion to inspector and his sojourn as commander of the squad. Before the war, Brian Costigan had recruited his nephew to work with him, and despite how it had all turned out, Sean still considered that time working with his uncle the most rewarding of his career.
“But the pendulum always swings back,” Trixie said when Sean paused.
“That much Rochester got right,” Sean admitted. “My uncle was too good at his job. He made some powerful enemies. When the mayor was voted out, his replacement appointed one of them to the commissioner’s office. By the time I got back from France, the squad was disbanded, Brian was busted down to captain, and he was assigned to a precinct in the Bronx.”
“Julius said he left the department after that,” Trixie said.
“Yeah.” Sean ignored the pain that still twisted inside him whenever he recounted this part of the story. “He resigned and opened a private agency, but that didn’t last long. When he didn’t show up for dinner one night, ma called me to go check on him. I found him still in his bed. They said it was his heart.”
“I’m sorry,” Trixie said.
“It’s all right. He took care of his own, put some pretty vicious thugs behind bars, and never compromised his principles. How many people can say that?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe more than you think. Like you, for instance. You stayed with the department even after what happened to your uncle. That can’t have been easy.”
“It’s had its challenges,” he said dryly.
Trixie let the subject drop as the sleepy towns of East Hampton and Amagansett were left behind along the lonely Shore Highway. The Buick’s shock absorbers were tested to their limits as the road turned to nothing more than a dirt and cinder path.
Despite the urgency of their mission, the tension in Sean’s shoulders began to ease as the air grew redolent with the salty scent of the sea and the landscape ahead opened onto a vast expanse of low rolling hills dotted with clumps of scrubby brush and oaks.
The few manmade structures they passed were little more than weathered gray shacks. It was an environment as alien to his native city heart as the surface of the moon, yet his mind and purpose in coming here seemed irrefutably clear. He would not leave this place without answers.
Trixie pointed to a cinder path leading off to their left. “I think that’s it.”
“What’s it?” Sean could see little more than a few scrubby trees, dead grass and ground-hugging brush.
“Over there. See it?”
“See what?” Then, in the far distance, Sean glimpsed what looked like a hulking gray structure near a cluttered line of shacks.
“That’s the train depot and the village on Fort Pond Bay. It’s where Daddy took us fishing. We stayed at the Montauk Inn near there, but Lenore said she and Johnny stayed the night at a place up by the lighthouse at Montauk Point. If we keep going, we should come to it. They might know if the Fíorghra is in the area.”
It was as good a place as any to start. Innkeepers in small towns tended to know everybody’s business. As they continued their trek another six miles, they passed few signs of civilization aside from a Coast Guard Station. Sean was soon forced to downshift, slowing their pace to a crawl as the dirt road narrowed to a ribbon and turned to little more than shifting sand.
About the time he began to doubt that the Roadster’s tires would be able to find purchase, the top of the octagonal white lighthouse appeared on the horizon and they came to a rolling halt before a ramshackle three-story shingle house with a wrap-around cobblestone porch. A pair of maple trees, their brown limbs now almost shed of their leaves, rose up on either side. The brown grassy yard that surrounded the house was sizeable and marked off by a white fence. The sign out front read THE SHINNECOCK INN.
“This is it,” Trixie said as Sean pulled to the side of the road and turned off the Buick’s motor. They were met by silence except for a steady wind that blew in off Block Island Sound.
The place needed a coat of paint, Sean thought when they stepped out onto a sandy drive, but by its sheer size, it might have been the Taj Mahal compared to the other rustic structures they’d passed. Electric lines had been strung along the road as they’d travelled north, but those lines were connected to few buildings. This was one of the few.
“This is nice,” Trixie said. “Look.” She pointed to the dormered roof. “There’s smoke coming from the chimney. Someone’s home.”
Trixie’s description was understated. Despite a few missing
shingles, the inn stood off by itself, beautiful in its own proud way, set as it was atop a grassy knoll against a pristine blue expanse of sky. Beyond it, the only other signs of civilization between it and the Sound were the lighthouse and its surrounding cluster of buildings—the most prominent being the two-and-half-story lightkeeper’s cottage.
As Sean and Trixie opened the creaking front gate, a gust of wind jingled a set of wind chimes on the big front porch. No one appeared to be astir. “They don’t look to be doing much business,” Sean observed when they stepped onto the porch.
“Fishing season is over, but looks can be deceiving,” Trixie said. “My father’s not the only one to come here to get away from it all. This place attracts more of the idle rich than you’d imagine, especially in hunting season.”
“I bet it attracts more than that.” As a city detective, Sean wasn’t much concerned with enforcing the Volstead Act, but he knew enough about its effect on organized crime to see why this almost deserted piece of Long Island might be the ideal place to smuggle sizable caches of liquor ashore.
“Hello! Looking for a room?” A clear feminine voice rang out behind them above the call of the wind and Sean turned to see a tall brunette dressed in close-fitting brown trousers and a short tan jacket. She’d come around from the back of the inn and now stood with a rake in one hand, her shoulder-length chestnut brown tresses loose and blowing free in the breeze.
Sean recognized her immediately.
Mary Patterson.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Miss Patterson, isn’t it?” Sean said, stepping down from the porch of The Shinnecock Inn.
“Missus,” she corrected. “I’m a widow, Officer—I’m sorry, I forgot your name.”
“Detective Costigan.” Close up, Sean noticed that, aside from her unfeminine clothes, she wore no jewelry, no powder on her face, no cosmetics to enhance her broad high cheekbones or her full red lips, yet no man could fail to feel the pull of her earthy sensuality. In fact, here in her own element, her allure became more potent.