Murder in the North End

by P. B. Ryan

  “Any idea who might have made that hole?” Nell asked Denny.

  “I didn’t.”

  “I didn’t suggest you did,” she said gently.

  “It was here when I first came to Nabby’s,” Denny said.

  Will said, “I thought you hadn’t known about it.”

  “I... We’re not supposed to talk about it. We’re s’posed to pretend it ain’t there. When I first got here, I asked Johnny about it, and he punched me in the head and said it wasn’t none of my business and to forget I seen it. Saw it.”

  Handing the lantern back to Denny, Will jumped down from the coal crib and pulled out a handkerchief to wipe the fine black dust off his hands.

  “I’d like to have a look,” Nell said, handing Will her shawl as she gathered up her skirts.

  “Easy, there.” Draping the shawl over his shoulder, Will took her hand to steady her as she stepped up onto the wooden divider, then wrapped his hands around her middle as she leaned over to look through the spy hole. So tightly corseted was she that his long fingers nearly spanned her waist.

  Still unsteady in her fashionably dainty, spoon-heeled boots, Nell braced her hands on the wall to balance herself—or rather, her fingertips, since she didn’t want to get her borrowed lace mitts too dirty. She closed one eye to focus in on the candlelit flat, of which she had an excellent view from above. The bed and the area to the side of it were completely visible. She couldn’t help wondering if the couple who’d rumpled that quilt had been secretly observed as they’d disported themselves.

  Would it have been Mary and Johnny on that bed, or Mary and a customer? Was Johnny doing the spying, or did other men pay to watch? Did Mary realize she was being spied upon, or had Johnny kept that fact from her? Nell imagined being watched unawares while she shared her bed with a man. The thought inspired a rush of humiliated outrage on Mary’s behalf.

  “I don’t even want to know why this hole is here.” Nell glanced down to find Will’s gaze on her bosom, which was pretty much directly at the level of his eyes. With her leaning over as she was, and sporting such a deep décolletage, it must have been quite an eyeful.

  He looked up at her, and abruptly away, with a discomfited, almost pained expression. Nell found her embarrassment outweighed by amusement that the urbane, unflappable William Hewitt should not only act like a “leering boor,” but display such chagrin at being caught at it.

  Keeping one hand on the wall for support, Nell lifted her skirts and prepared to step down.

  “Careful.” Still gripping her about the waist, Will lifted her as easily as if she were made of papier maché. He set her down gently, his hands seeming almost to caress her as he withdrew them.

  Nell murmured her thanks without meeting his eyes, unaccountably rattled that he had the strength to handle her so effortlessly. He draped the shawl over her arms, offering not one word of protest this time when she pulled it up over her shoulders, tying it in front for good measure.

  “Is this door always kept locked?” Will asked Denny.

  “It is now. You got to get the key from Mother if you want to get in here—even Riley.”

  “Now?” Will asked. “It didn’t used to be?”

  “Um, no. Only about the past year or so. Before that, it didn’t even have a lock on it.”

  “Why did Mother Nabby decide to lock it?” Will asked. “Had there been thefts?”

  “Dunno. I guess. So, uh, you folks all done here, or...?”

  Will said, “Yeah, I reckon we’ve seen all there is to see.”

  “How awful,” Nell said as Denny locked the doors to the flat and the coal cellar, “a man getting murdered right in that very room. Where you here when it happened?” she asked him.

  “Yeah. Well... Nobody knew what was happening downstairs, you know? It was Tuesday night, and Tuesday night’s fight night. Tuesday and Saturday. It’s godawful noisy on fight night, what with everybody screamin’ and howlin’ and carryin’ on. It’s louder even than right now, with them...with those can-can dancers.”

  “Who fought Tuesday night?” Will asked as they made their way back through the basement. Interesting; Nell wouldn’t have thought to ask that.

  Denny said, “First fight was Finn Cassidy against Davey Kerr. Second fight was Jimmy Muldoon against Phelix McCann. That was it, just the two fights.”

  “When did the murder happen?” Will asked.

  “During the second fight, while Muldoon was fightin’ McCann. They was...they were in the middle of the third round when Pru runs upstairs, screamin—”

  “Pru?” Nell said.

  “Pru Devine,” Denny said as he hung the lantern back on its hook at the bottom of the stairs. “I think her real name is Prudence. She come runnin’ upstairs screamin about a murder. ‘Johnny Cassidy’s been shot in the head.’ She said the guy that done it was still down there, and he had a gun. Riley came runnin’, and the girls, and Finn. Everybody came runnin’. The fight stopped. Mother made Riley lock the basement door, and she sent me out to fetch a cop. I found Constable Skinner down at the corner, and I brung him...brought him back and he took over and...” Denny shrugged. “He asked some questions, and they hauled the body away, and that was that.”

  “Who did he question, do you know?” Nell asked. We got three witnesses that say he done it, Skinner had claimed.

  “Well, I know he talked to Pru, ‘cause I guess she was the first one that saw what happened. She had a customer down here, and he came upstairs, too, but he slipped away in all the commotion before Skinner could talk to him. I reckon he didn’t want to have to give his name to the cops and have everybody findin’ out what he’d been doing down here with Pru.”

  “I reckon not,” Will said with a little smile.

  “Do you know whether Constable Skinner tried to track down this customer?” Nell asked.

  “He said it wouldn’t be necessary, ‘cause it was clear as day what happened.”

  “Why open the door to other possibilities,” Will said to Nell, “once he’d decided who to accuse?”

  “Do you happen to know what Pru told Constable Skinner?” Nell asked Denny.

  “Yeah, I heard she said Detective Cook killed Johnny. He’s this state cop that comes around here sometimes. That’s what she said, but...”

  “But you don’t believe he did it?” Nell asked.

  “I know he didn’t. He...he wouldn’t. He just wouldn’t, not him. He ain’t like the blood tubs that hang around here. Isn’t. He says the law is everything, it’s how moral men keep the world safe for women and children, for the future. He says it’s never right to break the law, ‘cause it’s like a pact among good people everywhere, and without it, there’s no such thing as civilization.”

  “It sounds as if you’re pretty friendly with Detective Cook,” Nell said.

  “We chew the fat sometimes, when he’s around. He tries to make me talk like a highbrow, ‘cause he says folks judge you mostly by what comes out of your mouth, so if you want to get ahead in life, you have to talk like the person you want to be. He says you gotta think about where you’re goin’, not where you’ve been.”

  “That’s very true,” said Nell, who had been blessed enough to have effected just such a transformation herself.

  “He brings me newspapers to read,” Denny said, “and copies of Harper’s and Putnam’s and other magazines when he’s done with ‘em, and books from the liberry. He brung me this one...brought me this one.” He pulled out the book that he’d tucked in his trousers and showed it to them.

  “The Last of the Mohicans,” Will said. “Great story.”

  “It’s pretty good,” Denny said as he tucked it back in. “Mary liked it a lot. I used to lend her my books to read on the sly. Johnny didn’t like her reading ‘cause he said it made her look like a bluestocking and gave her ideas, but really I think it was ‘cause he couldn’t read so well himself—not well enough to read a book, anyways. My favorite book is Ivanhoe. I read that one a second time after Mary wa
s done with it, or almost. I had to give it back before I was finished so Detective Cook could return it to the liberry.”

  “I could buy you a copy,” Will said, “and then you could read it as often as you—”

  “No. Uh-uh. Thanks all the same, mister. Detective Cook said the same thing, but that’s different than gettin’ it from the liberry. That’d be like a hand-out. He’s offered me money, too, Detective Cook, but I wouldn’t take that, neither. Either.”

  “Self-reliance is an admirable trait,” Nell said, “but it makes people feel good to help people they like.”

  “My mum said never to take any hand-outs, and I don’t mean to start now, just ‘cause she ain’t here to see it. I told that to Detective Cook, and he said then I better plan on lots of hard work, on account of that’s what it takes to get ahead with no help from anybody else, so that’s what I aim to do.”

  Will said, “If Detective Cook is the top-notch fella you make him out to be, I can understand why you don’t think he killed Johnny Cassidy. But then, why do you reckon this Pru said he did?”

  With a look of disgust, Denny said, “She says she seen him standin’ over Johnny’s body with his gun drawn, but—”

  “‘Cause that’s what I seen, you little pimple.” One of the red curtains whipped open, revealing a dark-haired young woman in tawdry finery, hooking up her bodice. She had pallid skin, sullen, black-limned eyes, and the kind of squashy lips that always look freshly punched. The furnishings in the “dance booth” consisted of a blanket-covered pallet on the floor and a straight-backed chair, on which sat an obese, mustachioed gentleman in his shirtsleeves, grunting with effort as he squeezed his silk-stockinged foot into a shoe.

  “You callin’ me a liar?” Pru asked Denny as she sauntered toward them, hands on hips, the top few hooks of her bodice still undone. She brought with her a sweetly sour tang of sweat and rose oil.

  “Were you even sober enough that night to know what you seen?” Denny demanded, standing his own.

  “Since us girls ain’t allowed to drink on the job,” she sneered, “I reckon I musta been.”

  Denny said, “Aw, c’mon, Pru, I ain’t blind and deaf, and I got a nose on me. Most of the time, when you show up here, you’re half-soused already. I’ve seen you sneakin’ sips from the customers’ drinks, and I’ve heard you beggin’ Riley for ‘just a little taste just to get you through the night.’ You were prob’ly too corned that night to know what you seen, and now—”

  “Yeah, well, just so happens I was as sober that night as I am right now, worse luck, and I know damn well what I seen. I seen Johnny Cassidy layin’ there in a pool of blood, and that big black Irish cop standin’ over him with his gun in his hand.”

  Her customer, upon hearing this, glanced curiously in their direction as he shrugged his braces over his shoulders.

  “Did you hear the gunshot?” Will asked her. “Was that what drew you to the flat?”

  Pru’s gaze lit on Will and lingered there for a moment, a spark igniting in her flat black eyes. She sized Nell up swiftly, head to toe, then turned back to Will. Reaching into a pocket of her skirt, she produced a little tarnished brass compact and flipped it open. “Who’s askin’?”

  “My name’s Tom Dougherty,” Will said, “I need to rent a room, and I’m lookin’ at this one, but to be honest, the notion of some loco running around shooting people in the head makes me think maybe I should be lookin’ someplace else. She likes the place—” he cocked his head toward Nell “—but I ain’t so sure. I got some questions I’d like answered first.”

  “You two hitched?” Pru asked.

  Nell was about to answer yes, having agreed with Will that they would pose as Jack Dougherty and his wife, Moira, when Will said, “Nah. Moira, here, she’s one of the girls I...take care of.” He gave Pru a slippery grin Nell had never seen before and hoped to never see again.

  Pru smiled knowingly as she dabbed up a fingertip of crimson lip rouge and slicked it over her lips, her gaze never leaving Will’s. She rubbed her lips together, snicked the compact shut, and said, “I heard a bang from that direction, but I wasn’t real sure what it was. There was a fight goin’ on right over our heads that night, and it was even louder than when them can-can dancers is goin’ at it, like now. I finished up with my john and went over to the flat to check it out. The door was open, and that’s when I seen what I seen.”

  “Detective Cook standing over the body with a gun.”

  “It was his gun,” Pru said. “His coat was hangin’ open, like, and I seen his holster, and it was empty.”

  “That still doesn’t mean he done it,” Denny said.

  “You wasn’t even there, you little gnat,” Pru said. “If you’d seen him standin’ there with that gun, lookin’ all grim and mean, you’d of known he done it. I screamed so loud my throat was sore till the next day. I thought for sure he was gonna aim that gun at me and pull the trigger.”

  “Did you see Mary Molloy?” Will asked her.

  “Yeah, she was there. She had this old satchel layin’ open on the bed, and she was throwin’ her clothes into it without even foldin’ ‘em, just kind of shovin’ ‘em in there, all frantic like. There was blood drippin’ outa her nose, and she didn’t even stop to wipe it off. It got on some of the clothes.”

  “Blood?” Will said.

  “She’d taken a few licks,” Pru said nonchalantly. “One side of her face was all beat up, but it wasn’t the first time. You’d see bruises on her sometimes, under the makeup. That’s the kind she was, always askin’ for it.”

  “She wasn’t, neither!” Denny exclaimed.

  “What would you know about it?” Pru shot back. “You ain’t even had a girl yet, much less tried to rein in a load of mischief like Mary Molloy.”

  “She wasn’t a load of mischef,” Denny said. “She didn’t swear and smoke and give herself cheap. She wasn’t anything like the rest of you blowers.”

  “She was a damn sight worse, if you ask me,” Pru countered, “slippin’ ‘round on Johnny like an alleycat. Johnny did what he had to do to keep her in line—not that it did any good. If she was the kind to learn her lesson, she never would of taken up with Cook.”

  “You don’t know that,” Denny said.

  “You think the two of them were involved?” Will asked Pru. “Detective Cook and Mary Molloy?”

  “I know they were.” Pru reached up to tidy her unkempt topknot, arching her back so as to display her charms to Will in a way that Nell found crudely obvious. “Everybody knew, or at least had their suspicions. Then, one night about a week ago, I seen him leavin’ their flat through the basement door, the one that lets out onto the backyard. He looked all around while he was comin’ up the stairs, like to make sure there weren’t nobody nearby to see him.”

  “How did you manage to see him, then?” Will asked.

  “I was comin’ back from the chicken house. He didn’t see me, though. I hid behind the privy till he was gone.”

  “The chicken house?” Will said. “Ain’t that were Finn Cassidy lives?”

  “She’s sweet on Finn, ain’t you, Pru?” Denny said. “She thinks if she gives it to him for free, he’ll turn sweet on her, but all he wants from her is a quick—”

  “Go to hell and help your mother make bitch pie, you mangy little fly-blow,” Pru spat out.

  Denny said, “It’s true. She moons over him like he’s the Prince of Wales, and he just uses her for what she’s good at. It ain’t her he likes. It’s—”

  “Denny!” boomed a voice from the top of the stairs: Riley, the bartender. “Get your bony little arse up here with that Jameson’s.”

  Denny hesitated, his jaw set.

  “Better hurry along, Denny-boy,” Pru taunted in a sing-songy voice. “Your master’s callin’ you.”

  “Now,” Riley bellowed.

  The boy shot Pru a look of loathing. “If you want the flat, you’ll have to go talk to Mother,” he told Will, and sprinted up the stairs with the ju
g. Pru stuck her tongue out at his retreating back.

  “So, you were able to watch Cook from where you were hiding?” Will asked her.

  “Yeah, he got halfway up the stairs, when Mary comes out and says, ‘Hey, didn’t you forget somethin’?’ He says, ‘Oh, yeah, sorry, slipped my mind,’ and pulls some greenbacks outa his pockets and gives ‘em to her.”

  “You’re sure it was money he gave her?” Will asked. “You said it was nighttime. It musta been dark.”

  “She was carryin’ a lamp. I seen it real clear. Mary stuffs the money down her top and says somethin’ like, ‘What if Johnny finds out?’ or ‘I’m worried he’s gonna find out,’ or somethin’ like that, and Cook kinda strokes her hair and says ‘He ain’t gonna find out so long as we’re careful.’”

  “Why should she have been worried about Johnny finding out?” Will asked. “I mean, she was hooking, right?”

  “Sure, but she specialized. Only the live ones for her—them with the deepest pockets. If she caught the eye of some regular fella, some sailor or dockworker or such, she’d give ‘em the cold shoulder. But if he was dressed all fine, with a good coat and a fancy walkin’ stick, she’d giggle and coo and let him take her downstairs.”

  “Did Johnny pimp for her?”

  “Well, she reeled in the johns all by herself. He didn’t go out and find ‘em, or anything like that. Most nights, she’d be just sittin’ there at one of the tables, drinkin’ her milk, and—”

  “Milk?” Will said.

  “She looks younger than she is, lots younger, and Johnny liked her to play that up. I think she’s about my age, early twenties, but she’s real small and slender, with them big blue eyes. You’d take her for maybe thirteen if you seen her sittin’ there with her milk and her braids and them white collars and cuffs. If some rich snoot took an interest, she’d let him take her downstairs. Then, about a minute or two later, Johnny would head back that way, so I reckon he was following ‘em down there. Waitin’ ‘round for the money, prob’ly. Maybe makin’ sure she gave it all to him. Or maybe he made the john pay him directly. I heard he just doled out a half-bit to her from time to time, and she had to beg him for that much.”