Murder in the North End

by P. B. Ryan

  “That would have been...some time in the ‘fifties?” Nell asked.

  Chloe nodded, raising her empty cup to her mouth. “‘Fifty-five, I believe. It was before we met.”

  “What did he do here?” Will asked. “How did he support himself?”

  Frowning into the cup, she said, “As I say, I didn’t know him then. I’m sorry I can’t be of more help.”

  “How did you meet him?” Nell asked.

  Again, Chloe took her time answering. “We had mutual acquaintances.”

  Will leaned forward on his elbows. “In the North End? Did you live there?”

  “For a time.” Looking up, Chloe said, “I’m sorry, but I can’t see how things that happened so long ago could possibly have anything to do with...with what happened Tuesday night.”

  “If you know the North End,” Will said, “that might be helpful to us in—”

  “It’s been ten years since I’ve lived there—no, eleven. There’s nothing I can tell you about that area except that I hope to never see it again.”

  “We’ll be heading up there tonight to look around and ask some questions,” Nell said.

  “You’d be better off doing it during the day,” Chloe advised. “The darker it gets up there, the more vermin crawl out of the woodwork. Human vermin—though God knows there’s plenty of the other kind, too.”

  Will said, “Yes, and the more information we’re likely to come away with. Don’t worry about Miss Sweeney. I won’t leave her alone for a second.”

  “Have you ever been in the North End?” Chloe asked Nell.

  “I attend mass at St. Stephen’s.”

  “That’s where Colin used to worship,” Chloe said.

  “Used to?”

  “He’s become disenchanted with the Church. He was a true son of Rome at one time. When he was young, he’d planned to become a priest.”

  “Really?” Nell pictured the big, gruff Irishman, with his meaty shoulders and giant head, celebrating mass in a chasuble and stole. Oddly enough, there was a certain rightness to the image.

  “It was his mother’s influence,” Chloe said. “She thought he was special, different from his brothers. While the rest of them worked the mines from dawn till dusk, she made him spend a few hours every day at school. He’d been accepted into the seminary at Maynooth, but then came the uprising in ‘forty-eight, and he had to flee the country. He’d already become a little distrustful of the Church because most of the clergy were so opposed to the Young Ireland movement, but he didn’t stop attending mass till we lost little Patrick four years ago. Do you remember that old priest at St. Stephen’s, the one Father Gorman replaced?”

  “Father Keegan?”

  “That’s the one. He told Colin that Patrick couldn’t be buried in holy ground, because he’d died unbaptized, and that he wasn’t in Heaven, but in Limbo. Colin was... well, he was beside himself, furious. It was the final straw for him, the notion that an innocent babe could be tainted by sin before he was even born. He told Father Keegan that Patrick was with the angels no matter what he said, that the Church’s laws weren’t always God’s laws, and that he’d worship with me from now on, at Emmanuel Church.”

  “Emmanuel?” Nell said. “You’re Protestant?” It had never occurred to her; almost all of the Irish she’d met in Boston had been Catholic.

  Chloe nodded. “Father Keegan married us very grudgingly, on the condition that our children be baptized in the Catholic faith and that Colin use his best efforts to convert me. He didn’t—try to convert me, I mean. I’d been brought up Anglican, and he respected that. We did intend to bring our children up Catholic, until...Patrick. Colin told Father Keegan he wouldn’t dream of raising our children in a church that had been so cruel to their own brother. I wasn’t there, but he told me afterward that he said some things to Father Keegan that he wouldn’t even repeat to me. Colin has quite a temper when he’s roused.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen that side of him,” Nell said.

  “Neither have I—not directed at me, anyway, but I’ve seen him light into others.” With a mordant little chuckle, Chloe said, “When they talk about getting your Irish up, they’re talking about Colin. He must have made quite an impression, because Father Keegan had him excommunicated from the Church.”

  Nell’s jaw literally dropped. “He’s been excommunicated?”

  “Ostensibly for holding beliefs against the Catholic faith, but really for making an enemy of Father Keegan.”

  “That must have been very upsetting to him. I mean, having wanted to be a priest at one time, and then having the Church reject him that way...”

  “You know, it didn’t really seem to trouble him too much. He said he knew in his heart that God still loved him, that it wasn’t God rejecting him, it was just men who thought they had the right to speak on God’s behalf, but really didn’t.”

  From the corner of her eye, as she stared, dumbfounded, at Chloe, Nell saw Will turn to look at her. She knew he was recalling, as was she, his counsel last autumn—that if she were to remarry and be excommunicated, it would be the Church turning its back on her, not God. God would never forsake you. You must know that.

  “Make no mistake,” Chloe said, “Colin is still very much a believer, one of the best Christians I’ve ever met. He believes very strongly in living a good life, doing the right thing.”

  “I know,” Nell said. “That’s why I’m so sure he couldn’t have committed this murder.”

  “If we knew more about the crime itself,” Will said, “we’d be in a better position to sort through what happened.”

  “You said Constable Skinner paid a visit to you yesterday?” Nell asked.

  Chloe groaned. “Around noon. I was frantic, wondering what had happened to Colin, and then that horrible little man showed up and told me about Cassidy being shot and Colin disappearing. He interrogated me for over an hour, and then he cornered Maureen in the kitchen and started in on her.”

  “Were you there for that conversation?” Nell asked.

  Chloe shook her head. “He wouldn’t let me stay, said he didn’t want me ‘exercising undue influence’ over Maureen. She was shaking like a rabbit afterward, and wouldn’t look me in the eye, so God knows what he said to her. I told her it wasn’t true, about Colin being a murderer, but she didn’t look convinced.”

  “What did Skinner question you about?” Will asked.

  “Mostly he just wanted to know where Colin was. He didn’t believe me when I said I didn’t know, kept hammering at me, demanding the truth. He was terribly insulting, made some vile comment about...” She touched her stomach. “About Irish women dropping litters twice a year.”

  Will growled something under his breath.

  “I kept my chin up,” Chloe said. “I really didn’t want to give that little insect the satisfaction of seeing me break down. It wasn’t easy, though. Especially when he...well, when he told me about that woman being missing as well, and how Colin was supposed to have—”

  “Woman?” Will said. “What woman?”

  “Oh, God. I assumed you knew.” Chloe dropped her head into her hands. “He...he told me Colin has a, a m-mistress in the North End. Mary something... Molloy. Mary Molloy.”

  “He didn’t tell me this part,” Nell said. “None of the details.”

  Drawing a deep breath, Chloe said, “This woman, she, she lives in a basement flat at Nabby’s Inferno, with the man who was shot. They weren’t married. Skinner called her his common-law wife. He said Colin...” She shook her head, fresh tears coursing down her cheeks.

  Will handed her his handkerchief. “Take your time, Mrs. Cook.”

  “He...he said Colin had been visiting her for weeks, at night, w-when this Cassidy person wasn’t home, and that he gave her money, and everyone knew they were... that he was—” She broke off on a sob.

  Nell looked at Will, who grimaced and shook his head.

  Taking Chloe’s hand, Nell said, “Just because Skinner said it do
esn’t make it true. He’s a vile man, he’d say anything. He was probably just trying to turn you against your husband so that you’d tell him where he is.”

  Struggling to regain her composure, Chloe said, “According to Skinner, it’s common knowledge on North Street. That’s where this Nabby’s place is, near the corner of North and Clark, he said.” Chloe gave her nose a final, sniffling wipe and refolded the handkerchief. “He said it’s the biggest and most popular public house in that area, and the most notorious. He called it the black heart of Black Sea.”

  “The Black Sea?” Nell said.

  “That section of the North End is the worst cesspool of crime and depravity in the city,” Will said. “They call it the Black Sea—also the Murder District.”

  Chloe said, “Skinner told me Nabby’s is where the worst of the worst gravitate for their drinking and gambling and—how did he put it?—‘loose little bits of muslin like Mary Molloy.’ He said there are people swarming in and around that place at all hours, and that Colin’s been seen slipping out of her room. What they think happened Tuesday night is that Johnny Cassidy came home unexpectedly and caught Colin and Mary...in a compromising position, and that Colin ended up shooting Cassidy and taking her with him into hiding.”

  “Miss Sweeney is right to question Skinner’s motives in telling you this,” Will said, “if for no other reason than that he loathes your husband. Please try to put it out of your mind until we can go to this place and question some of these people ourselves.”

  “In the meantime,” Nell added, “simply assume it’s so much fabrication.”

  “I appreciate your concern over my feelings,” Chloe said. “I truly do. But the fact is, I don’t really care. I mean, I do care, of course. It hurts to think about it. I’m only human. He’s my husband. I love him more than...than anything. He’s my whole life. But the thing of it is, I know Colin feels the same way about me. I know it here.” She pressed a hand to her heart. “If...if it’s true, well, I hate it. But in a way, I can’t really blame him.”

  “That’s remarkably understanding of you,” Will said.

  “I wouldn’t feel this way if it weren’t for...” Chloe rested her hands on her stomach, a blush rising in her cheeks. “My doctor says I need to very careful if I’m to keep this baby, and...it’s quite a bit for Colin to have to put up with.”

  “He’s advised you to avoid marital relations?” Nell asked.

  Chloe nodded, her blush deepening. “Colin says he doesn’t mind. He says he loves me, and he loves the baby, and he only wants what’s best for us. But he...he is a man, with a man’s...natural inclinations.”

  “So you think he may have pursued those inclinations with Mary Molloy?” Will asked.

  “If he did,” Chloe said, “it...it wouldn’t really have anything to do with me, and...how he feels about me. It wouldn’t mean anything, not really. Like I said, I know he loves me, and I can’t believe he feels the same way about her. All I really care about, all that’s really important, is getting Colin back, and keeping him from hanging for murder. I c-couldn’t bear to lose him. It would kill me.”

  Nell sat back, exhaling a pent-up breath.

  “Mrs. Cook,” Will said, “does your husband carry a gun?”

  “Yes, of course, his Colt Police revolver. He always carries it when he’s on duty.”

  “You wouldn’t happen to know the caliber?” Will asked.

  “Thirty-six,” Chloe said. “I only know that because Skinner told me. He said the slug that was removed from Johnny Cassidy’s head during the post-mortem yesterday morning looked to be about that size.”

  “Did he mention what kind of a wound it was?” Will asked. “Point blank? From a distance?”

  “No,” Chloe said. “Just that the bullet looked as if it came from Colin’s gun.”

  “It could just as easily have come from any thirty-odd caliber revolver,” Nell said, remembering their experience with the bullet they recovered from Virginia Kimball’s bedchamber last summer. “Spent bullets get very misshapen. They’re impossible to measure with any degree of accuracy.”

  “I would like to take a look at that wound,” Will told Nell. “Unless the body’s been buried already, which is unlikely, it should still be in the morgue at Massachusetts General. Why don’t we stop by Isaac’s office this afternoon and see if he can’t arrange for us to have a peek?”

  “Our friend Isaac Foster is assistant dean of the Harvard Medical School,” Nell told Chloe. “Dr. Hewitt teaches there.”

  “Used to teach there,” Will corrected, “which is why I’ll have to go through Isaac to get into the morgue. I’ve lost my staff privileges.” Leaning forward, he asked Chloe, “Just between the three of us, Mrs. Cook, do you think it’s possible, even remotely, that your husband may have killed this man?”

  Chloe’s hesitation was telling. She looked from Will to Nell, and back again, then down at her hands. “I don’t know what to think. All I really know is that he’s my husband, and I love him, and I just want him back home with me, safe and sound. I don’t care about...the rest of it. Whatever happened, it’s all in the past. I just want him back.”

  Chapter 6

  “Dear God,” murmured Ebenezer Shute as he read Chloe Cook’s succinct letter of introduction, in which she told him simply that her husband was a fugitive from a murder charge, that Nell and Will were trying to help him, and that they had her complete trust and confidence.

  Shute had a trim build and dark, glossy hair combed back from a high forehead—not a bad looking fellow, despite some scar tissue near his left eye. The eye itself was artificial, but so beautifully made as to be almost undetectable. It was only the iris’s lack of movement as Shute scanned the letter that betrayed it as glass.

  “Poor Chloe.” He shook his head, looking sobered and a little dazed by this turn of events. “When did this happen? Night before last?”

  “That’s right,” said Will, seated next to Nell in one of a pair of high-backed leather chairs facing Superintendent Shute’s desk in his homey, oak-paneled office. “This is the first you’ve heard of it?”

  With a glum nod, Shute said, “I spent yesterday in Fort Hill, inspecting pawnshops, and today I’ve been holed up in here with a slew of paperwork. When the Detectives’ Bureau was just down the hall, I knew everything that happened in this city—everything of a criminal nature, that is. Colin kept me well informed on a daily basis, and I must say there was a certain measure of diversion in that. Now...” He lifted his shoulders. “Days can go by without me interacting with anyone but my secretary.”

  “How often do you see Detective Cook?” Nell asked.

  “Not as often as either of us would like, but it can’t be helped. I work days, and Colin...well, I’m not sure what his official hours are, but he spends many an evening prowling the worst precincts of the city. We do meet from time to time in a tavern, and I’ve sneaked him into my club on occasion. He doesn’t drink, but he doesn’t mind being around it. And he and Chloe have me over to Sunday dinner at least once a month.”

  Nell said, “I’m surprised Constable Skinner hasn’t come by today to question you about Detective Cook’s whereabouts. He must realize what good friends you two are, after having worked in such close proximity to both of you.”

  “Of course he does,” Shute said. “That’s why he won’t bother with me. He knows he could never convince me to part with information that might damage Colin. There would be no argument persuasive enough.”

  “Reasoned arguments aren’t his modus operandi,” Nell pointed out. “He’d most likely try to harass and browbeat you, as he did Mrs. Cook—and for that matter, me.”

  “I...think not,” Shute said.

  He seemed disinclined to elaborate, so Will, with his usual frankness, told her, “Skinner felt free to bully you and Mrs. Cook because you are not only female, but Irish, and therefore several levels lower than he in the almighty caste system that defines his life. Superintendent Shute, on the other hand
, is several levels higher. As much as Constable Skinner might resent that, and I’m quite sure he does, he is essentially a gutless blowhard, and as such, would never dream of taking on his equals, much less his betters.”

  “Well put,” Shute said with a smile. Leaning forward, he laid the letter on his desk next to an ornately carved cigar chest, to which his gaze strayed longingly. He glanced at Nell and sat back with a sigh.

  “Oh, do light up,” Nell said, then added what she often did when she wanted to set chivalrous gentlemen at ease. “I love the smell of a good cigar.”

  “Are you quite sure?” he asked.

  “Please.”

  After offering a cigar to Will, who declined, Shute chose one and rose from his seat. He crossed to a tall, brocade-draped window, the knee joint of his wooden leg emitting a muffled clack-clack with each stiff-gaited step. Raising the window sash as high as it would go, he used a gold, pistol-shaped clipper hanging from his watch chain to slice off the tip of his cigar.

  “Oh, dear,” Nell said as Shute slid a match from a handsome enameled match safe and she caught a glimpse of his right palm, which bore an ugly, scabbed-over abrasion. “What happened to your hand, Superintendent?”

  With a long-suffering smile, Shute displayed both palms to show that the left was similarly scarred. “I take the occasional tumble, I’m afraid. It’s this fellow here,” he said, knocking on the wooden leg through his trousers. “Can’t do without him, but he’s not what you’d call graceful. You should see me in the winter, when there’s ice on the sidewalks. I’m covered in scrapes and bruises from November through March.”

  Will said, “I must say, Superintendent, you and Detective Cook seem like an odd pair to have ended up such good friends.”

  “We’ve got more in common than is immediately evident,” Shute said as he lit his cigar. “We both almost became priests, for one thing.” He shook out the match and tossed it into a marble ashtray on his desk.

  Nell stared at him. “You...?”

  Shute grinned. “I know. It comes as a shock to most people that I’m a Catholic. It’s the name, I think—Ebenezer. It’s Protestants who normally go in for the Old Testament names, but I was named after a family friend. Or perhaps it’s that I’m a non-Irish Bostonian with a good job. Or perhaps it’s the cut of my frock coat—who knows?”