Beacon Street Mourning

by Dianne Day

  Before my “Thank you” was out of my mouth, Mary had slipped out and closed the door behind her.

  Now, on any morning until I have had coffee, I am slow to put two and two together, and on this particular morning after having slept “like the dead” I was worse. I do not much like the police at the best of times—perhaps an unreasoning prejudice due to a bad experience I had, but still, there it is—and I do not like being told what to do either, so I saw no reason to get dressed just because some strange policeman downstairs had sent word that I should. I put on my perfectly decent green wool robe and belted it tightly over a nightgown which was already buttoned up to the neck, and because the floor was cold I put on wool stockings with my black kid house slippers. I took a couple of futile brush strokes at my straight, thick hair, gave it up as a lost cause, and left it hanging down my back like a slightly untidy curtain.

  In the hall on my way to the head of the stairs I passed Augusta’s room. The door was open, which meant the room was empty as Mary had said. When Augusta was in that room she invariably closed the door. I supposed she’d already heard about the body in the “park” and had gone across to satisfy her morbid curiosity.

  I’d gone halfway down the stairs when my slowly waking brain presented me with an interesting coincidence: Last night I had slept with my new gun under my pillow, and this morning someone was found dead nearby. Had I perhaps known, on some mysterious level, there would be danger nearby in the night? An involuntary shudder passed through my body.

  I was two steps up from the bottom of the stairs when it occurred to me that I should have brought my cane, or even both of them—eliciting the sympathy of the police is never a bad idea. Mary was standing in the hallway, darting nervous glances first toward me on the stairs and then toward the smaller of the two parlors, which was no doubt where she had put the policeman. I sent her up to fetch both canes, and waited at the bottom of the stairs until she handed them to me.

  As she did, I cautioned her: “Mary, don’t make my bed, just leave it. I expect I am going to want to sleep again when this business is over. I can’t imagine what they want with me, but it couldn’t possibly take long.”

  I had seldom been more wrong about anything in my life.

  IN SPITE of the early hour, a small crowd had gathered just inside the iron fence surrounding the Public Garden. The bystanders were being held off by a number of uniformed policemen who had arranged themselves in a circle around the body, which I could not yet see through the crowd.

  The officer who was my escort—name already forgotten—had been told by one of these bystanders that I would be able to identify the dead person; while I did not want to believe it, I was more than a little apprehensive as I approached, leaning by turns on each of my two canes as if I needed them far more than I did. I was afraid it might be Michael, because who else would I be called upon to identify?

  So I was afraid, and because of the fear my body began to sweat beneath the new black cloak that was a part of my mourning raiment, and I wished I had dressed after all in warmer clothes. At least no one would know that beneath this cloak I wore only a nightgown and robe, for it was voluminous enough to hide the sins of the world and then some.

  The police officer, who was quite tall, bent down and whispered apologetically, “It’s not too bad as these things go. That is—”

  I interrupted him: “Don’t worry, I shall be fine. I am not the squeamish type.”

  It had been on the tip of my tongue to say I was not unaccustomed to death because of my profession; thank God I did not say it. The police are not favorably disposed toward most private detectives, and it does not do to alienate them without good reason.

  My policeman escort made a path for us through the bystanders. We had entered the Garden by a small gate that is approximately halfway between Charles Street and Arlington Street, almost directly across Beacon from Pembroke Jones House. The body lay not far into the grounds. My first instinct was relief, because by its dress I could tell the dead person was a woman, therefore could not be Michael, and my major fear was relieved.

  But my fear was relieved only to be immediately supplanted by an awesome sense of dread. This was wrong, very wrong. It was the last thing I would ever have thought could happen.

  I didn’t want to believe what my eyes told me, and so I circled the body twice, my canes poking holes in the crunchy snow and my feet, in spite of their thick socks, going cold through the soles of my thin slippers. Finally I bent down over the head that had leaked its red blood into the cold, frozen whiteness—not very much blood—she had died quickly after being shot. She, too, like me, was wearing her nightgown; but she had on nothing else, not even slippers. Her feet had turned blue.

  Straightening up, I choked down that awful feeling of dread and said, “The dead woman is Augusta Simmons Jones, recently widowed by my father, Leonard Pembroke Jones. She was his second wife, and she was not my mother.”

  NINETEEN

  I HAVE OBSERVED that if one proceeds with an air of certainty in an uncertain situation, one will more often than not achieve one’s goal.

  Therefore, while the police were gazing about indecisively—waiting for a coroner or someone senior, I supposed—I took advantage of my certainty that I had things to do. I did not wait to be asked further questions or to be given leave to go, I simply left. I walked across the street, up the steps, and through my own front door, and no one called me back or hindered me.

  They would be here presently, I was sure enough; and when they came again they would be asking me questions in their official capacity.

  I went back to the kitchen and in a blunt manner imparted the facts to Mary Fowey and the cook, Mrs. Boynton. I put off their questions by pleading both upset and ignorance, took a cup of coffee with me, and went to telephone Michael’s hotel. I did not have time to wait for him to be brought to the telephone, so I left a message to be delivered to his room: You are needed as soon as possible at Beacon Street—Fremont.

  Every minute now was of the essence.

  Back in my room I first checked under my pillow: the gun was still there. Not that I’d thought it could be anywhere else—how could anyone have stolen it right out from under my pillow, after all—but still the coincidence of my having obtained a gun from Michael only a few hours before Augusta had been shot was a little eerie. Almost as if I’d had a premonition that I didn’t remember.

  I couldn’t keep it under my pillow, of course; nor was it going to do me much good to hide it away in some place so secret that even I, the hider, would forget where it was. That is only one of the problems with guns, one must figure out where to keep these bothersomely destructive things.

  Not having much time to think over the matter, I put the gun inside the muff again, where I had carried it before. After a quick but uninspiring look around, I placed the muff in a dresser drawer. I would have preferred to leave it out for quick access, but if I did, that tidy soul Mary Fowey would only come along and put it away herself. Then no doubt the gun would come tumbling out of hiding and frighten her to death, after which she would probably quit her job, and then where would I be?

  Rhetorical question, yes—but the answer immediately popped into my mind: I’d be alone in this very big house, that’s where I’d be, and it did not strike me as a very good idea. In fact, the two of us, myself and Mary, alone in this house did not strike me as a very good idea either. One more thing to worry about later.

  The matter of the gun taken care of, I went next door into Augusta’s room.

  It looked to me as if she had been sleeping, but not for long, when for some reason she’d left her bed. Either that, or she was a remarkably tidy sleeper, for the covers were scarcely mussed and there was one simple indentation in the feather pillow where her head had lain.

  Now here was an interesting note: Her robe, a very attractive peach-colored garment of soft wool with satin lapels and satin cuffs, lay folded on top of the blanket chest at the foot of the bed. Matching
slippers—of course Augusta would have matching slippers—were there too, lined up on the rug in front of the chest. So why had she not put them on?

  A chill passed through me as I acknowledged the inevitable answer: She hadn’t had time. Exactly why she hadn’t had time was not something I wanted to think about at the moment.

  I was less interested in who had killed Augusta Simmons Jones, and why, than I was in pursuing my own need to know if she had or had not deliberately poisoned my father. Let the police look for her killer—I would continue my own single-minded pursuit. And these few minutes might be the only time I would have in her room before the police insisted on coming in, causing havoc and who could know what else.

  Two days ago I would have jumped at this opportunity to be let loose alone in Augusta’s territory, but today I stood rooted to a spot in the middle of the rug, unable to proceed. Why?

  This was exceedingly unlike me!

  Perhaps it was only that so many bad things had happened, and a very large part of me simply wanted it all to go away. That part of me wanted only peace and quiet and time with Michael. I wanted to go someplace where we could be alone, where nobody could find us, and no one would kill or be killed or call anyone ugly names like “whore” and “bitch.”

  Ah, but that was not the real world, was it? Not the real world Michael and I knew, at any rate—and where the whole of me, not just a part of me, lived. In our real world people did far worse things than call each other bad names. And our job, Michael’s and mine, was to see to it, in whatever way we could, that they didn’t get away with it—including Augusta, even if she was dead. The truth must come out.

  So, no more procrastinating or whining or feeling sorry for myself, but on with the job.

  I didn’t think I had time to do a general search to turn up any and everything that might be the least bit suspicious, so I searched for poisons, poisoning agents, anything that might be combined with something else to make a poison reaction, books on poisoning—or anything that resembled any of these.

  After considerable work, for in her own space Augusta was revealed to be an even more remarkably acquisitive woman than she appeared on the surface, I’d found only one thing: a bottle of cleaning fluid that struck me as a bit suspicious. I took it.

  I also took her address book. If the police noticed its absence and said anything to me about it, I could always claim I’d borrowed the address book to write thank-you notes to people who had extended their condolences.

  I hadn’t found a diary and spent extra time going through her desk again, but still no diary, no journal, and this was odd considering most women of a certain degree of education would have kept one. Could it be that Augusta was not an introspective enough person to do so? Or was she just too canny to reveal her inner thoughts on paper?

  If the latter were the case I would have to plead guilty too. I do not keep a journal anymore because a few years of detecting, both amateur and professional, have made me wary of what can happen if a diary falls into the wrong hands.

  I confess I did have a perfectly horrible, probably unforgivable thought as I was leaving the small room my mother had called her quiet room. Augusta had jammed that room full of enough clothing and personal ornaments to open a miniature women’s department store, and I thought what a great pleasure it would be to give all those things to the poor. Assuming her son did not want them—but of course he wouldn’t.

  AUGUSTA’S SON came up again about forty-five minutes later, when I was ensconced with Michael in the dining room. I had washed and made myself presentable in a plain black dress of silk gabardine with a long, very full skirt, buttons down the front, in its way a classic—which is to say that with a hoop under it, this dress would have passed muster in the previous century. The police still had not arrived; I was counting my blessings minute by minute.

  “There is an address in New York for Lawrence Bingham,” I said to Michael, pointing to the address book, which was written in Augusta’s somewhat irregular hand. “Do you suppose he might have gone back to the same place?”

  “Very likely.” Michael nodded.

  He copied the address into the flat, narrow notebook he always carries in an inside pocket. Michael is one of the most organized human beings I have ever known, although he does leave his ties draped over the door of the armoire and his socks on the floor.

  “These other Binghams,” I said, pointing again, “must be some or all of the ‘many relations’ Father had discovered Augusta to have. I suppose they must be notified as well.”

  “I’ll take care of it for you, if you like,” Michael offered, continuing to write.

  “Thank you, I’d like it very much if you would.”

  I’d told him of my determination to see through my own investigation into Father’s death, even if it were no longer a matter of bringing Augusta to justice in any public way. He seemed to understand that I could not be at peace with myself otherwise.

  “Michael, do you think Bingham could have been Augusta’s maiden name? Or do you think she was married to a Mr. Bingham before Mr. Simmons?”

  “The latter is more likely. She might have had one child out of wedlock and given him her own last name, but more than one? I don’t think so.”

  “If she’d been married more than once before she met him, my father didn’t know. It makes me wonder …” My voice trailed off as my thoughts leapt around in speculation.

  “What?” Michael prompted.

  “If she would lie about that, what else would she lie about?”

  “Is that a serious question, Fremont?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Well then I should have to say, there are degrees of liars, and as of yet, neither you nor I know enough about the woman to be able to tell in which level of degree she fell. I know you prefer to believe the worst of your stepmother—”

  “Michael! Please don’t call her that!”

  “All right, the worst about Augusta—”

  “—which would be that she lied all the time, about everything.”

  “Yes. But she might instead have been someone who would lie to reach a specific goal and then not again, unless and until a strong desire surfaced, which then became a new goal. Do you follow me?”

  “Yes, I do. I see your point,” I said grudgingly.

  “I do not think Augusta was an indiscriminate liar. I think she was too clever for that, too calculating. I believe she was the kind who does not bother to lie unless it is to achieve a very specific purpose.”

  “Um-hm.”

  We were silent for a few moments, and then I spoke again:

  “I am thinking Father died, and Mr. Simmons died—these are both indisputable facts. If there was a Mr. Bingham, then …? Well, I expect you follow my line of thought. Don’t you?”

  Michael sighed. “Yes. What a mind you have, my dear! But you could very well be right, and I suppose it must be looked into.”

  “You would be just the one to do that, with your vast experience, your connections in many cities, and so on.”

  He sighed again. “You know, Fremont, I had just begun doing some riveting research into ancient Greek Orthodox ecclesiology at the library.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  He finished: “And now you want me to stop my riveting research to find that rather pathetic young man, and—”

  I didn’t wait for him to finish, but leapt in to supply my own, as it were, happy ending: “—and quite possibly help me to expose a killer.”

  Michael, however, did not give up so easily. He must have really been getting much more of a kick out of his ancient Orthodox whatever than one would have thought such a thing could provide.

  “Has it occurred to you,” he persisted, “that the police will have to find Larry Bingham themselves, in order to notify him of her death?”

  “Yes, but the police won’t ask him the same questions you would. Nor will they find him if he isn’t in the place where he is expected to be, whereas you will hunt him do
wn. Once you’ve put your mind to it, that is.”

  “Granted. Still, may I point out, the San Francisco Library does not have quite the capacity that the Boston Public Library has, and when you consider also that the Widener at Harvard is just across the river—well, you’re asking a lot, my dear.”

  I smiled. “You will be amply rewarded.”

  He smiled too. “Is that as in ‘virtue is its own reward,’ or did you have something more personal in mind?”

  “Oh, more personal, definitely.”

  I was enjoying this, I admit. When Michael and I combine our forces and work together instead of against each other (which we have occasionally done), we are very good at this investigating business if I do say so.

  “And besides,” I added, “when we’re married we’ll have to live here at least part of the time anyway. You will have plenty of opportunities to do more research in Boston and Cambridge.”

  Michael took my left hand in his, interlaced his fingers with mine, then turned the back of my hand up so that he could admire the emerald engagement ring.

  He said, “I’ve been wondering how our living arrangements will work.”

  “So have I, and I’m not sure yet, but I have some ideas.”

  We both fell quiet, looking into each other’s eyes, thinking the same things, probably. About marriage. How he’d avoided the institution for so many years for his reasons, and I had avoided it also for mine. Michael was afraid to love too much, because much love brings with it the possibility of so much pain. I was afraid of the social and legal consequences of marriage. For example, as soon as I marry Michael, everything that is mine becomes his. Including my body. My very name becomes the same as his; in the eyes of polite society I will no longer be Fremont Jones, I will be Mrs. Michael Archer Kossoff. And if I have his children—

  Well, I wouldn’t think about that part right now. I looked away, withdrew my hand, and took a deep breath. We still had work to do this morning, we could not go too far down this other path.