Murder in the City of Liberty

by Rachel McMillan

  “It is so nice to meet you, finally, Mr. Van Buren.” Hamish shook her father’s hand firmly, then turned to her mother, and the smile stretched a little more. Reggie watched her mother intently, noting that the smile’s effect was astounding. “And now I know where Regina inherited her beauty,” he said, accepting the hand that her mother tried to extend but really just dangled and lifting it to lips still spread with that smile. Where was that smile from? He beamed, and she was shocked it didn’t spark light like a bulb and illuminate the whole of the dimly lit hall. “It is quite an honor to meet you, Mrs. Van Buren.” He backed up but kept a slight bow before straightening.

  “DeLuca, is it?” Her father drew his attention back.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I understand your father is a newspaperman.” Hamish’s smile didn’t falter, but he did subdue it slightly, and only Reggie would have noticed the care he took in tucking his right hand into his pocket. But he was performing magnificently; her mother couldn’t take her eyes off him, and Reggie wanted the moment of her parents being thrown off-kilter by this man to last a lifetime.

  “Indeed, sir. He is the chief editor of the Toronto Telegraph.”

  Her father was impressed. “That’s a national paper.”

  “Largest in Canada.”

  “It is?” Reggie asked. He’d never said as much to her. She supposed it was because he kept anything but his natural humility tucked into his pocket where his right hand currently hid.

  “Yes, Regina.” His eyes were soft on her.

  “But you were in the law?”

  “I still am. I consult on all matters of employment and contract law.” Hamish’s voice was smooth, free of any ripple. He was choosing his pace and consonance carefully. And while she could detect the slow, methodical care he was taking, her parents would only think they had found a man who was too smart to rush to speak.

  “Alma mater?” Her father was insufferable.

  “Osgoode Hall. Most prestigious law school in Canada.”

  “Good grades?”

  “Graduated summa cum laude. Top of my class, sir.”

  “And your firm?”

  “Well, while I was still there, Winslow, Winslow and Smythe. Prime barristers in Toronto.”

  Reggie’s father studied Hamish as intently as one of the treasured bottles of scotch whiskey he so enjoyed collecting. “Hmm. And tell me, young man.” He nudged at Hamish with his glass. “Your fellow countrymen are at war. You didn’t want to enlist?” Her father’s bushy eyebrows rose.

  “I cannot, sir, on account of my eyesight.” He used his left hand to straighten his glasses. “But I assure you I did return home for my medical exam. I tried.”

  Her father looked at Hamish studiously, then raised his glass slightly. “Good for you. Say, you’ve nothing to drink. Come. Come. I’ll get you a glass of this, huh?” He smiled at Reggie. “Show your young Canadian friend the best New England whiskey.”

  Hamish turned and smiled at Reggie. Then he bowed shortly in excuse to her mother and disappeared. Leaving Reggie absolutely smitten and her mother still speechless.

  “Well, Mother.” Reggie snapped a canapé from a passing tray. “See? He’s not some gutter rat from the wilds of Canada.”

  Her mother shot Reggie a dark look, her old composure returning and the ice resettling in her eyes. “I’ll grant you he has some wonderful manners.”

  “His mother, as I recall, is from a family as prestigious as ours—though on a slightly more Canadian-sized scale.” She popped the canapé in her mouth and chewed. She knew she should be finding Vaughan. Last she’d seen he was with a few school chums on the roof nodding to his waning bachelorhood with a case of Cuban cigars.

  “He’s handsome all right. If you like that dark complexion.”

  “Even you have a dark complexion under these lights,” Reggie said, ignoring the condescension.

  “Quite the smile on that one. He’s a charmer, Reggie. You never mentioned that.”

  “Well, you didn’t want to hear anything about him.” Her mind was associating Hamish and charmer in the same sentence. She’d always identified a kind of charm in him, but it was far from the type lauded by her mother’s usual set.

  “That smile.” Her mother was still at it. To Reggie’s infinite amusement.

  “Like a lightbulb.”

  “Still, Regina. No matter who his father is or what his class standing was. He is an Italian.”

  “I don’t fancy the way you say that, Mother. I don’t fancy—”

  “And he shares lodgings with a Jew.”

  “I don’t fancy the way you say that either.” Reggie pursed her lips. “You’ve a pretty small world, don’t you, Mother? Well, mine has expanded. And we had a deal. A deal that I am honoring even having this stupid party in the first place.”

  “I’ll have your father fetch Vaughan,” her mother said, turning. “It’s ill form for him not to be on your arm receiving your guests. Don’t be seen with DeLuca too often.”

  “He’s my friend and associate.”

  “I don’t care if he’s Clark Gable. This is a night for our closest friends and family to become accustomed to you as a set.”

  “We sound like golf clubs.”

  “And keep your snide remarks to yourself, young lady. I never thought I would say this, but your young Italian friend could teach you a thing or two about common manners.”

  Chapter 16

  Hamish saw Vaughan for the first time that evening with his arm looped around Dirk Foster’s shoulders.

  “DeLuca!” he said, interrupting a sentence wherein he was chiding Dirk for missing the first quarter of the party.

  The confidence Hamish had conjured for his meeting with Reggie’s parents dissolved.

  Hamish adjusted his bow tie. He knew Vaughan was as genuine as Dirk was falsely sincere.

  “Always last-minute business. Hard to find assistance,” Dirk said. At his elbow was someone too familiar to Hamish.

  “I can imagine. Especially in your line of work.” Hamish kept his voice in check as best he could as his eyes moved between Foster and Bricker. Nevertheless, it rippled a little when he said, “Mr. Bricker. I wasn’t expecting to see you.”

  Vaughan broke the tension with a laugh. “Right? I keep telling him to screw his head on straight. Life’s too short to take things so seriously.” Vaughan looked to Bricker. “And to let me know when a friend will be arriving unannounced to my party.”

  Dirk started to say something just as Vaughan tightened his grip on his friend’s shoulder. “Tonight we are leaving our separate politics at home. You’re finally here—you can come and help toast me and my beautiful new fiancée.” Vaughan gave Hamish a polite smile.

  It didn’t help that Vaughan was such a decent fellow. More than making up for his tardy friends, Foster and Bricker. Hamish watched Vaughan’s broad frame and rower’s shoulders turn in the direction of Reggie and her parents. Bricker was there, too, combing his gelled hair back.

  “Night off from handing out garbage in Charlestown?” Hamish said.

  If there had been some underlying tension, some conflict or adversity, maybe he would be able to feel that Vaughan was an opponent, rather than a nice man from Reggie’s past who, through no fault of his own, was getting everything Hamish wanted. He couldn’t blame Vaughan for loving her (it was as natural to Hamish as breathing). He couldn’t fault Vaughan for where he was born and his family’s proximity to Reggie growing up, nor their status.

  Speeches were starting, after which there would be dancing. The chamber quartet was replaced with a band of Vaughan’s choosing: its leader a Harvard alumnus like Vaughan and most of his circle. The older set would move to another more private room in the hotel for brandy and civilized conversation, and the young people could rip up the dance floor.

  Hamish wasn’t sure how long Reggie expected him to stay.

  Soon the emcee, a man Hamish didn’t recognize but who seemed to have a lot of inside jokes that
sparked Vaughan Vanderlaan’s deep laugh, took to a small podium and lifted his champagne glass.

  Hamish studied Reggie, standing to the side of the makeshift podium and stage, staring at her own glass: the bubbles caught the spotlights, as did the sparkle of her elaborate diamond ring.

  Hamish watched Reggie through a line of speeches, more from Vaughan’s acquaintances than Reggie’s. It seemed that those who did speak about her—a few young women Hamish had never seen before and didn’t recall Reggie mentioning—spoke in broad strokes. Nothing that painted an intimate portrait. Nothing that conjured the details of the Reggie he knew by heart. Like the Gershwin song: the way she sipped her tea and held her knife, her raucous singing and the way the sun caught just a bit of light in her brown hair in the summertime. These people didn’t know Reggie at all. Just the shell.

  When it came to Vaughan, it was guffaws and back slaps and best wishes at securing a pretty girl from a grand family.

  Hamish kept near the door; it was slightly open to let in fresh air from the hallway. He raised his glass with everyone at the end of each speech. And he genuinely wanted her to be happy. But it was clear to him (so clear he wondered how the rest of the people at the party couldn’t so plainly see it) that she wasn’t happy. She was swimming through a tight current.

  Luckily, no one gave Dirk the platform. Hamish wasn’t sure his pasted-on pleasantry could survive that. He had promised a few women a dance or two after the speeches, and he thought at the very least it would feel good to be out on the floor, moving fluidly to what he was certain, given the caliber of the event, was a good band.

  Rippling applause at the end of another toast kept Hamish from hearing a voice beside him. He turned to see one of the hotel staff looking up at him. “Are you Mr. DeLuca?” he repeated. “The lady over there said she thought you might be.”

  “Yes.”

  “I have an urgent message, sir. If you’ll come with me.”

  Hamish’s heart thudded. He nodded silently and followed the man out to the front lobby.

  “Ah. Mr. DeLuca? A young woman here to see you.” The concierge nodded in the direction of the door where Mrs. Leoni’s daughter stood wringing her hands.

  Her mother. Hamish shook a little and closed the three strides between them. “Rosa. What’s the matter?”

  “Hamish, I am so sorry to . . .” She sniffed.

  “It doesn’t matter. Tell me what’s wrong. Is it your mother . . . Is it . . . ?”

  Rosa shook her head. “Hamish”—and until the moment he died he would never forget how the next part of the sentence punched him in the gut—“it’s Nathaniel.”

  * * *

  Hamish didn’t care if it was Reggie’s sham of an engagement party. And he certainly didn’t care that Rosa tugged at his sleeve. His shaking fingers put a bill in her hand—the only money he had on him—then he turned and dashed up the flight of stairs to the party. He frantically moved through the guests until he found Reggie, affixed to Vaughan’s arm. Rosa said Nate was still at the office being attended to, and Hamish meant to get there as quickly as he could.

  “Reggie, we have to go.” His voice was hard to find and, once found, skipped out like a stone on a choppy ocean. He tugged at her arm.

  She swerved to face him. “Hamish.” Her voice was an emphatic whisper. “I’m sort of in the—”

  “Reggie . . .” He gulped a breath, but his voice cracked anyway. “It’s Nate.”

  Reggie dropped Vaughan’s arm. “I have to go, Vaughan. It’s Nathaniel.”

  Vaughan swerved to her and excused himself from his conversation. “Is it serious?”

  He looked to Hamish.

  “He didn’t . . . There was . . . Yes, it’s serious.” Hamish nodded. “Rosa came.” Hamish’s hand was shaking fiercely now and he tucked two fingers beneath his suspender. “He might . . .” Hamish couldn’t finish the sentence, though the look Reggie gave him told him she understood everything.

  “I’m sorry, Vaughan,” Reggie said.

  “Reg, what will I say?”

  Reggie sniffed and straightened her shoulders, then stopped trying. “I don’t care, Vaughan. Make something up.”

  “Are you sure that Hamish can’t look after this himself? Until . . .” Vaughan’s voice was soft.

  “Look after this?” Reggie spat. “This is Nathaniel. So, no. Hamish cannot look after this. It’s Nate . . .” Saying his name set off her waterworks and wrenched Hamish’s heart even further.

  “Come on.” Reggie gripped Hamish’s hand and the two of them moved at rocket speed out of the party, without looking at or acknowledging any of the people who tried to catch Regina’s attention in their wake.

  * * *

  “We’ll cycle faster than a car would take us,” Hamish said resolutely. Reggie agreed, thinking of the after-theater traffic from School Street and the night just beginning to fill Scollay Square. He collected his bicycle from a doorman and soon she was in her familiar position on the handlebars, Hamish pushing off. She saw his right hand was gripping the handlebar with white-knuckled intensity to squeeze away the tremor.

  Her heart was a hundred types of shattered, and she blinked back the tears that were trickling at odd angles on account of the bike’s velocity and the pressure of the breeze. Though she knew her extra weight added to the strenuous task of pedaling them at the pace Hamish was moving, she couldn’t hear his breathing. Or anything. He was completely silent. She knew that he was as traumatized by the news as she was. She could see it in his eyes: frantic and sad. The last time she had seen the same emotion was when Luca was taken away by the police the night he was detained for a murder in his club.

  Of course they drew attention. A woman wearing a dress like hers, its skirt now possessed of a jagged slit from her less than graceful attempt to keep her feet stable and fastened above the spokes. She wasn’t interested in the catcalls. She barely heard them after the first inspired her to look upward. Reggie . . . well, Reggie wasn’t sure what she would do. It was too unfathomable. She didn’t care a fig anymore for the high social world she had just come from.

  Finally, after a lifetime—the familiar route seeming to take hours longer than usual—they disembarked at the North End. Reggie hopped off the handlebars with an ease that had taken months of steady practice. Hamish quickly leaned the bike against the side of the office, in the slight space that separated the building from the Revere House. She followed him through the front door and up the stairs to the second floor where police officers were still looking in and around the circumference of Nate’s office. Reggie reached ahead and gripped Hamish’s hand. She could tell herself it was to desist its uncontrollable shaking, or she could accept it for what it really was: an instant and potent need for a connection that would set her at ease.

  “You can’t be up here,” an officer said from the top of the staircase.

  “We need to know what happened,” Reggie said. “We heard that Mr. Reis—” She swallowed. “We occupy the office just next door and he’s a dear . . . dear . . .”

  “Is he dead?” Hamish asked.

  “Do I look like a doctor?”

  Reggie’s voice surged with anger. “Excuse me. We are gravely concerned and were called here urgently. We want to ensure that our friend is alive and well.”

  Reid stepped out from Nate’s office. “Not sure if he’s well, but he’s alive.”

  “H-how did you find him?” Hamish asked.

  “He must have called Mrs. Leoni. She called us.”

  “Maybe we should have gone straight to the hospital,” Reggie whispered to Hamish.

  “They might not let us in anyway.” Hamish turned back to Reid. “Has someone notified his family?”

  “I did.”

  “Thank you.” Better Reid than the other surly officer who was impatiently tapping his shoe. Hamish straightened his shoulders and brushed gently past Reggie, ascending the final step to the second floor in a direct line to Nate’s open door. “We’ll take a look n
ow.”

  The officer they first encountered stood strong. “I don’t know . . .”

  “I swear to you we work in this building. We are private investigators and Nate is a dear friend!” Reggie pleaded. “Reid?”

  “I’ll vouch for them,” Reid said. “Come on, they’re not going to touch anything. Are you?”

  “No. If anything, I can help,” Hamish said, tripping only slightly over his consonants. “I could see if anything is missing.”

  The officer finally consented with a murmur that suggested it was against his better judgment.

  Reggie didn’t even realize she was holding tightly to Hamish’s arm until he disengaged himself to flick the light switch. Then he took an infinitesimal step back in invitation for her to hold tightly again. She gripped his arm and pressed close, their sides touching, the light of Nate’s office catching the glimmer of her ring. She scrunched her nose and willed away the events of the night up to when she left with Hamish. Vaughan probably had to sweet-talk his way out of the horror of his absent fiancée.

  A muttered under-his-breath Italian word from Hamish didn’t need translation. That’s when Reggie saw it. A streak of blood. Nate’s. In the corner by the desk. Reggie shivered and squeezed Hamish’s arm.

  “Oh, Hamish.”

  He was a study in attempted calm. She could make out his Adam’s apple bobbing in the slight light spilling from the hallway.

  Hamish’s fingers were under his suspender. He had left his fancy coat with his bicycle and rolled up his sleeves. His bow tie was a relaxed comma around his neck. All of the sparkle and attention of the night was gone. “I bet it was Bricker. I bet it was. He was late to the engagement party. Why he was invited at all is beyond me.” Hamish’s blue eyes flashed black. “Why would you let your fiancé let that man into your party?”

  “Don’t take your anger out on me,” Reggie said gently. “Nate has been secretive lately. You’ve said so yourself. Who knows what enemies he makes just from doing his best every day?”