A Song Across the Sea

by Shana McGuinn

  “He was just—”

  Muldoon quickly extended his hand toward Miriam. “Seamus Muldoon.” He bent over and kissed Miriam’s hand, a strangely courtly gesture. “It’s a pleasure, Miss.”

  “I’m Miriam Sedgewell. And this is my fiancé, Reece Waldron. You’re very charming, Mr. Muldoon. I can see why Tara is so taken with you. From your accent, I can tell that you’re a countryman of hers. I suppose you knew each other back in Ireland?”

  Muldoon shot a significant glance Tara’s way. “We were very close.”

  The impudence of the man! Letting Miriam and Reece think that he and Tara were a couple! But Tara had no intention of enlightening Miriam as to the true state of affairs. This unwelcome visitor from the past was a problem she’d deal with herself. She wouldn’t humiliate herself by explaining things to Miriam and Reece.

  Besides, she unexpectedly liked the way Reece was studying Muldoon, as if sizing up a competitor.

  Miriam focused her attention again on Tara. “Ever since we met that day, Miss McLaughlin—collided, I should say—I’ve pestered Reece with all sorts of questions about you. When he told me you were in vaudeville, why, I just had to come and see for myself.”

  “I hope you enjoyed the show,” Tara said woodenly.

  “Oh, I did. It was so…refreshing. Those darling French poodles that did all those clever tricks! And the singers dressed like giant vegetables were marvelous. Especially the radish. Broadway is really so…staid…compared to vaudeville. Oh, I’d almost forgotten. We also wanted to invite you to our wedding.”

  Reece wouldn’t meet her eyes, and Tara realized that the wedding invitation was Miriam’s idea, not his. She’d almost rather sail on the Titanic again than watch him exchange vows with Miriam. The very thought of attending the nuptials gave her a queasy chill, but she continued to act out her part. She was, after all, a performer.

  “That’s very kind of you.”

  “You’ll get a formal invitation, of course. But I wanted to tell you in person.”

  So that you could drive the knife deeper into my back, thought Tara. And make sure I got your point. Reece belongs to you. Hands off.

  Had Miriam sensed something—some force of attraction—between Tara and her fiancée?

  Before she was aware of his intentions, Muldoon moved closer to Tara and took her by the arm possessively, in a gesture of feigned intimacy. “I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse us now,” he said. “We have a dinner engagement, and we’ll lose our reservations if we’re late.” Muldoon was obviously counting on her reluctance to make a scene in front of Reece and Miriam. How could she deny that they were together, when they’d just been seen nearly kissing?

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Reece’s mouth tighten, an angry muscle ripple in his jaw. He was jealous. This charade with Muldoon might be worth it, just to enable her to see that Reece had some feeling for her. Of course she’d end it before she had to go to dinner with Muldoon, in spite of his clever maneuverings.

  “A late dinner!” Miriam trilled. “Perhaps we could join you.”

  No! Tara hadn’t anticipated this. She scrambled to think of a reply that would effectively quash the idea. Fortunately, Reece himself voted it down.

  “I’ve got to be at the airfield early tomorrow morning, Miriam. Maybe some other time.” Did Miriam notice how edgy his tone sounded? It gave Tara some small satisfaction to know that this man was not indifferent to her.

  Miriam and Reece departed then, leaving her alone with Muldoon. She removed his hand from her arm as if he were infected with the plague and pointed toward the door.

  “Now go!”

  He didn’t move. “And you were after bein’ so friendly with me just a wee moment ago.”

  “Were you hopin’ to embarrass me in front of me friends? Well, you can see that didn’t happen. Now leave. I want nothin’ more to do with you. Leave before I call for the stagehands. They’re big, burly fellows who love to throw unruly rascals out on their ears.”

  His voice, low and guttural, shook with menace. “You think you’re too good for me. I see what kind of rich, fancy friends you prefer. But you belong with me, Tara me girl. We’re from the same place, and we belong together.”

  “Out!”

  He smirked, turned and was gone.

  • • •

  Tara left the theater by the stage door, which opened onto an alley. She would have preferred to use the main doors at the front of the building, but they’d be locked by now, and she didn’t want to go to the trouble of rounding someone up to unlock them for her. It was only a short stretch of alley, anyway, leading directly to a busy avenue where she could catch a streetcar home.

  Her footsteps sounded unnaturally loud to her ears. The weather still held, even though October’s amber early days had already hurried to take their place among the past. The breeze that rustled through the darkness carried no chill breath of approaching winter on it. Dry leaves scudded over the ground, ghostly and weightless.

  Somewhere in the distance, a dreadful screeching—eerily like the sound of a newborn baby’s wailing—arose from two tomcats battling over territory. The sound gave her a start, at first, but she quickly identified it and laughed nervously at her own reaction. It wasn’t like her to be so skittery.

  She was hit from behind and slammed to the ground so suddenly that the breath was torn from her lungs. Desperately she gasped for air, but her nostrils drew in the dirt into which her face was being violently pressed. Her attacker struggled to turn her over. Stunned, she was able to offer little resistance until she felt the breath return to her.

  When she did, she found herself face to face with Muldoon.

  “You swine! Let go of me!”

  Her angry words were cut off by a bruising, savage kiss. She turned her face away and tried to scream but he clamped his hand over her mouth, pushing down so hard she tasted blood.

  “You cold bitch,” he ground out. “Thinkin’ I’m too lowly for the likes of you.” He grabbed her coat and tore it open, popping the buttons off and revealing the russet muslin dress she wore underneath. “You’ll see how quickly I can bring you down to my level. Women are all alike. You’re only good for what’s between your legs.”

  With a vicious sweep of his arm, he ripped open her dress, along with the flimsy undergarment beneath it. She felt the nubby texture of his suit coat press against the exposed flesh of her breasts. Trying to push his bulk off her was impossible. She reached her arms around him and pounded fiercely on his back with her fists.

  He slapped her hard with his open hand then squeezed her breasts before moving his groping, rough-textured fingers further downward. His lips were on hers again. How she hated the taste of him! She bit hard on his lip—drawing blood—and was rewarded with another slap that jarred her so hard her face ached. There was no lust in the convulsive way he moved against her. No desire. Only anger. He was intent on punishing her. His muscled body was full of fury. She felt something hard pressing against her and knew, in despair, that he was going to win.

  He reached down with one hand to fumble with his belt buckle, giving her the opening she needed. She swung her arm as hard as she could and gave him a solid clout to the side of his head and at the same time, brought her knee up hard between his legs.

  She was scarcely aware of his surprised grunt of pain. She rolled away from him and staggered to her feet, nearly falling to the ground in her haste to escape from the alley. She was badly shaken. Her wobbly legs threatened to collapse before she reached the street. She looked over the shoulder and saw him get shakily to his feet, although he was bent over in pain. He made a feeble effort to follow her just as she broke free from the shadowy confines of the alleyway.

  “You’ve made a bad mistake!” His enraged shout followed her.

  She dashed toward the streetcar that was just pulling away from the curb and scrambled aboard, heedless of the curious stares of the other passengers. She felt streaks of dirt and tears on her face. Her c
heek still burned from his slap; it must show a mottled red blotch. With shaking fingers she tried to straighten her hair, which hung in a dirty, disheveled tangle down her back. She clutched her ripped clothing to her, trembling violently and trying to forget his parting words. “You’ll pay for this,” he’d said. “By God, you’ll pay!”

  • • •

  The shame she felt couldn’t be washed away with the water from the porcelain basin she’d dipped her washcloth into again and again after arriving safely home. She’d removed the layers of alley grime from her face and ran the cloth over the now-tender contours of her body, remembering his fingers closing possessively over her breasts.

  Why hadn’t she had the courage to go to the police? Because she didn’t want Reece to hear of it? Didn’t want him to wonder why she hadn’t told him and Miriam the truth about Muldoon straightaway?

  It was her own fault, partly, for allowing Muldoon to give Reece and Miriam the wrong impression. What a stupid, foolish girl she’d been! She should have kept her distance from the man. He was far more dangerous than she’d realized. She’d underestimated him and had been brutally attacked as a consequence. How could she have thought that he’d be easily sent packing—as he’d been in Ireland? He was like some primitive animal, who, once freed of the natural habitat that had kept him a reasonable size, grew large in appetite and ferocity. This New World, this New York City, was a bountiful feast for someone like Muldoon. It had plentiful opportunities for all, including—unfortunately—criminals.

  Her sleep was fitful, broken by fragments of disturbing dreams. Paddy came back to visit her, his face woeful. When he opened his mouth to speak, she heard her own voice, singing a tune to Molly. Reece flew overhead, guiding his silvery monoplane through a jagged reach of chalky clouds that turned into gleaming icebergs. “I love him,” she heard herself say. His airplane suddenly sputtered, stalled and plunged downward. It crashed onto the largest iceberg and splintered into ostrich feathers, like those she’d seen on women’s hats. Reece’s blood-soaked body lay among the feathers on a flat, slippery plane of the monstrous iceberg which bobbed in the ocean like a cork, carrying Reece farther and farther away from her.

  Tara sat up in bed, her heart thudding erratically in her chest. She pulled her chair up to the window and gazed out at the leaden dawn that settled over the city like a shroud.

  • • •

  Tara was less than a half-block from the theater when she detected an acrid, biting odor in the air. Strange that a crowd was gathered outside of the theater, she thought. It was much too early for people to be lining up for a show, and besides, this was no orderly ticket queue. She hurried the last few yards to the theater.

  Mr. Glass stood on the sidewalk, conferring with several well-dressed businessmen that she guessed might be the theater’s owners. She’d never met them. Mr. Glass was the nominal “boss” of the enterprise, but she knew the financial reins were held by others.

  A horse-drawn steamer pump engine pulled away just as she approached, the uniformed firemen on board looking exhausted and bedraggled. With increasing horror, Tara beheld the building that housed her beloved theater. Its gilded, ornate facade was reduced to a charred skeleton of black bones and a yawning ruin of cavities. The box office booth adjoining the front of the building was completely gone; the glass windows that had enclosed it lay in spiny shards on the street amid scattered bricks and smokestained lengths of timber. The now-exposed-lobby looked desolate. Once-handsome wallpaper embossed with velvet scrolls and plumes curled away from the walls in pathetic strips. She saw a melted, milky blob clinging to a sodden section of wall above scorched oak paneling and realized with a start that it was one of the graceful frosted-glass wall sconces whose glowing orbs of light she’d always viewed with such pleasure. The ground was littered with burnt debris, still smoldering here and there in spite of the soaking it had obviously gotten from the firemen. The odor of damp, seared wood was nauseating.

  Tara threaded her way through the gaggle of onlookers, trying to quell the feeling of dread rising inside her. What of the house, the stage, the backstage area, the dressing rooms? Was it all destroyed?

  Unmindful of the danger, she moved purposefully toward the ravaged shell of the lobby.

  “Tara!” Mr. Glass waved to her. He detached himself from the men he’d been talking to and made his way over to her. “You can’t go in there. It’s not safe.”

  “How bad is it?”

  “Bad enough. This here’s the worst, but the main part of the building is ok. The last few rows of seats in the upper balcony’ll have to be replaced. We’ll never get the smell of smoke outta them.”

  “This is just awful!”

  “You’re tellin’ me, kid. We’ll be closed for three, maybe four weeks while we make repairs.”

  “That long?” She was aghast. Three weeks with no pay coming in! It was a tremendous financial blow. She only had a little money saved, and with the extra expense of caring for Sheila, it wouldn’t last long.

  She finally found her voice. “How… How did it happen?”

  Mr. Glass was watching her closely. “I was hoping you could tell me.”

  “What d’ya mean, Mr. Glass? I don’t understand.”

  “It’s this way, kid. Last night I get a telephone call tellin’ me to drop you from the show. If I don’t, I’ll be sorry. The guy got pretty nasty, as a matter of fact, but I laughed it off, figuring it’s some crazy who thinks he’s in love with you or something. Then this morning…” He waved his hands toward the theater. “This morning, I knew it was no joke.”

  She still couldn’t comprehend it. “Someone did this…on purpose?”

  Mr. Glass shoved his hands in his pockets and looked grim. “The oldest trick in the book. A bottle filled with gasoline, plugged up with a rag that was lit on fire. They threw it right through the box office window. You got any enemies, Tara? Any ideas about who coulda done this?”

  Of course she did. She knew precisely who was behind this devastation. The only surprising thing was how quickly Muldoon had made good on his threat.

  • • •

  With Mr. Glass a reassuring bulk by her side, she dutifully made her report at the police station. Two officers were sent to bring Muldoon in for questioning, and she had a truly awful moment when he was brought before her. She nodded silently when asked to identify him. Muldoon was calm and infuriatingly courteous when answering the questions put to him. He was conveniently accompanied by his attorney and another man, both of whom swore he’d been playing poker with them most of the previous night.

  “Sure and I saw this young lady last night. Backstage, to compliment her on her performance. Surely there’s nothing wrong with that? She has a lovely singing voice, she does. I thought performers were happy to hear compliments.”

  Detective George Bryan, a balding hulk of a man with a bulbous, once-broken nose and shrewd, intelligent eyes, revealed no speck of emotion.

  “The lady says you attacked her in the alley afterwards.”

  Muldoon was unrattled. “And why did she wait until now to say anything? If such a thing had happened, wouldn’t any decent woman run straight to the police?”

  Even Mr. Glass gave her a sidelong glance at this statement. Damn Muldoon! But he wasn’t finished yet.

  “Ah, you know how it is with women. Some of them are prone to hysterical imaginings. I think this one thought there was more between us than there was. When I put her off, she dreamed up this story.”

  “What about the bruises on her face? They’re not imaginary.”

  Muldoon shrugged, unconcerned. “Perhaps she took a tumble. Maybe she likes her boyfriend to play rough with her. There were two other people in the dressing room during my visit. Why don’t you talk to them? They can tell you that Miss McLaughlin and I were on friendly terms.” He pretended to search his memory for the names. “Miriam Sedgewell and Reece Waldron. A very respectable couple, they looked to be. Why don’t you go and bring them in to the station
house, here. Be interesting to hear what they have to say, wouldn’t it, now?”

  “No!” she blurted out. “Please don’t involve them!” The prospect was mortifying. Reece finding out about this whole wretched mess was more than she could bear.

  Detective Bryan, however, wasn’t really listening to her. He looked suddenly alert.

  “Miriam Sedgewell? Daughter of Arthur Sedgewell?”

  “D’ya know the lady?” Muldoon asked amiably.

  Bryan grunted. “Not likely. But I’ve seen her picture in the society pages often enough.”

  Muldoon pressed his advantage home. “I should think she’d make a fine witness, then.”

  The man was infuriating! He wasn’t content with setting fire to the theater and endangering Tara’s very livelihood. He wanted to humiliate her as well. She struggled to her feet.

  “Miss Sedgewell and Mr. Waldron know nothin’ of the events that took place after they left. It would be useless to talk to them. And,” she said pointedly, “They would hardly appreciate being dragged into a criminal affair like this.”

  Bryan looked thoughtful.

  “You’re free to go, Mr. Muldoon. We may have some questions for you later.”

  He tipped his hat jauntily. “Always glad to do my civic duty, so to speak.”

  Tara watched in disbelief as he strode confidently from the room, followed by his attorney and his so-called fellow poker player. Dazed, she caught snatches of conversation between Mr. Glass and Detective Bryan. Muldoon had an alibi. There was no evidence connecting him to the fire. It was her word against his.

  Mr. Glass sighed heavily. “I’m sorry, kid. We tried.”

  Her eyes blazed at Bryan, twin dark-blue furies. “You’re just going to let him walk out the door? He’s free? Oh, it’s a fine way you have of doin’ your job, detective.”

  Bryan didn’t react. “I tend to agree with you, Miss McLaughlin, that Muldoon is behind this, but without evidence, there’s nothing we can do. You didn’t help your case any by failing to report his attack last night right after it happened. We could have rounded him up at the time, perhaps even prevented the fire at the theater from happening. Although,” he muttered under his breath, “Muldoon has plenty of lackeys to carry out his orders, when he’s too busy to do the dirty work himself.”