Hush Now, Don’t You Cry (29 page)

“We’re just visitors,” I said. “No close connection with the family so I’m afraid we can’t answer any questions.”

“Were you staying here when he died?” one asked. “If you were, my newspaper has authorized me to pay one hundred dollars for a first person account.”

Tempting as this was I declined politely and indicated that the policeman should open the gate for us. Of course they had not seen Sid and Gus before so I had explaining to do before they would finally let us in. It was only then that alarming suspicions arose.

“Nothing new has happened, has it?” I asked. “No new tragedy while we’ve been out?”

“Not that I know of, miss,” he said. “But my chief can probably set you to rights. He’s in there talking with the family now.”

The gate clanged shut behind us and we walked briskly toward the cottage. I couldn’t shake the worrying thoughts and had to stop myself from breaking into a run.

“Molly, slow down,” Sid called. “I’m sure Daniel is just fine.”

As the cottage came into view I saw someone standing at the front door. It was Chief Prescott and he was facing Daniel’s mother. She was half his size but she was holding the fort admirably.

“I don’t care who you are. The doctor said no visitors and no excitement and I’m going to make sure he gets his peace and quiet,” I heard her say as we went up the path. Chief Prescott turned to see us coming and I saw relief flood over his face.

“Mrs. Sullivan. How good to see you. I had wanted a word with your husband but this lady doesn’t seem to understand that this is a crime investigation and that I have to speak with people, even if they are sick.”

“I’m sorry, Chief Prescott,” I said, “but my mother-in-law is quite right. The doctor did forbid any kind of excitement or stimulation. My husband is still very weak and not out of danger yet. Is there anything I can help you with? Would you care to come inside?”

“I don’t believe so, Mrs. Sullivan. Actually I wanted your husband’s opinion on the latest developments—policeman to policeman, so to speak.”

“He may have recovered enough to speak with you tomorrow,” I said. “Has something else occurred? I saw that the place is crawling with your men.”

“They are just to keep the newshounds at bay,” he said. “I’m afraid word got out to New York that the alderman had been poisoned. I’m not sure who spilled the beans. My men were instructed to remain silent. It must have been one of the family.”

He was looking at me in a way that indicated he thought maybe I was the one who squealed. “These things have a way of leaking out, don’t they?” I said, eyeing him coldly. “I can’t shed any light, I’m afraid. I’ve hardly spoken with the family,” I said.

“I have just come from interviewing them and I have the impression that they are deliberately being unhelpful. They are very good at claiming to know nothing and providing the alibi for each other. It’s like facing a brick wall.”

“So what are the latest developments?” I asked. “Not another death?”

“Nothing like that. But we’ve ascertained that the prussic acid we found in the shed was used for the crime. At least we can surmise that it was because both the packet and jar were wiped clear of fingerprints. Somebody didn’t have time to put on gloves and had to make sure there was no incriminating evidence. So I would have to surmise that it must have been a family member or one of their staff—because what outsider would know that there was prussic acid in a shed?”

“I agree,” I said. “Unless he went into an outbuilding to hide until dark and noticed the jar containing the prussic acid on the shelf.”

“Rather a long shot, don’t you think?” His smile was condescending. “A man comes here with the intention of killing Brian Hannan but hasn’t thought out the method until he spots the prussic acid on a shelf? I don’t think I could go with that.”

“You’re probably right,” I agreed. “It is a long shot.”

“So if I could just speak with your husband for a few minutes. He’d want to be apprised of this, I know.” He was now attempting to open the front door.

He was beginning to annoy me. I suppose it was the condescending smile that did it. “I will pass along this information to my husband as soon as he seems well enough,” I said.

He hesitated. “I had hoped he might share a little expertise, you know. He’s obviously faced murders more frequently than I have. I can only remember two other deaths since I’ve been police chief and one of those was a drunken fight between sailors. I’m going to have to play one family member against another to extract a confession, Mrs. Sullivan. I think they must know more than they are telling me. But they are remaining stubbornly close-lipped and I can’t keep them all here indefinitely. I got an earful from Joseph Hannan about how I’m wrecking his business by keeping him here.”

“If you like,” I said cautiously, “I was thinking of going to New York myself tomorrow. I’d be happy to visit Brian Hannan’s office on your behalf—not officially, I realize. But I could ask some questions and see if Brian Hannan had confided in his secretary any concerns about his family.”

“Mrs. Sullivan, I couldn’t possibly…” he blustered, completely off guard. “I mean to say that kind of thing … if word got out…” He was grinning now. “I’m sorry, but I can’t ask a woman to do this kind of work. I’m sure it’s very good of you to want to help, but your place is looking after your husband.” He touched his cap to me. “I will return tomorrow then, and hope your husband will be well enough to speak with me. In the meantime please understand that it is not your place to interfere in a police investigation.”

I swallowed back what I wanted to say to him. He was happy to use my husband but not me. I found my gaze going up to the tower. Now I was even less inclined to spill the beans about Kathleen. The thought went through my mind that I might find myself in trouble for withholding evidence and keeping what I knew about Kathleen from the family and the police. I wondered if I was letting my impulses rule my head again for no valid reason other than my pride had been wounded. It wasn’t as if I was any nearer to solving this murder than Chief Prescott.

Gus and Sid moved closer to me as he walked away.

“I don’t think that man is likely to be solving anything in the near future, do you?” Sid said.

“But you heard what he told you, Molly. He warned you against going to New York and asking questions,” Gus muttered.

“When has that ever deterred Molly in the past?” Sid grinned. “My thoughts are that if you don’t get to the bottom of this, then no one will. You have to prove beyond a doubt that the girl is not responsible.”

“Easier said than done,” I said. “I really don’t know what to do. I don’t like to leave Daniel and I expect he’ll be furious when he finds out.”

“So you’re going to sit back and watch them drag off a child to a mental institution, are you?” Sid demanded.

“You’re right. Somebody needs to find out more and the only way of doing that is to speak to people who know the family. And it would also be helpful if Dr. Birnbaum took a look at Kathleen. So I’ll go. But what on earth can I tell Daniel so that he’s not suspicious?”

“We’ll think of something,” Sid said. She stared out across the lawns. “Ah, there is one of the suspects right now, skulking through the bushes—now she’s bending down. Probably burying some evidence. Go and find out, Molly. The suspense is killing me.”

I could see a dark shape among the bushes. As I got closer I was surprised to find that it was Eliza. She was on her hands and knees.

“Hello,” I said. “What are you doing?”

She jumped at the sound of my voice. “Goodness, you startled me, Mrs. Sullivan. If you want to know, I’m burying a dead bird. It flew into the window and died. The gardeners were about to throw it on a bonfire but I thought it deserved a proper burial.” She smiled up at me. “We always used to bury dead pets in this part of the grounds when we were children. Terrence was always killing things—” she paused when she saw my face. “Not on purpose, you understand, but he would have mice and rats and things as pets and then he’d lose them or hug them too hard and there would be another funeral And I have to confess that the funerals were as much fun as the pets had been.”

She straightened up and brushed earth from her skirts. “Such a disturbing time, isn’t it? It suddenly made sense to revert to childhood.” She looked up at me. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard but they say it was the prussic acid sitting on the shelf in our shed that was used. That could only mean one of us, couldn’t it? I can’t bear to think about it.”

I nodded. “It is horrible, isn’t it? You don’t have any suspicions yourself, do you?”

“None at all. My father and Uncle Brian didn’t always get along, but poison wouldn’t be my father’s modus operandi. If he wanted to get rid of his brother, he’d hire a gangster to do it on a New York street. Besides, for all their disagreements I think my father realized how much he needed Uncle Brian. Brian was the levelheaded, practical one.”

“My husband says you always have to ask the question, ‘Who benefits?’”

“And the answer to that would be nobody, I’d say—unless he’s left all his money to one person, which I’m sure wasn’t the case. Uncle Brian was extremely generous to all of us—especially to Irene and Archie of course. But he was trying to groom Terrence to take over the firm, he hired young Sam in the hopes of making something of him. He was even generous to my mother’s charities.”

“But he ran the family like a dictator, didn’t he? He expected you to live up to his standards from what I’ve noticed.”

“Well, yes,” she agreed.

“So if someone was not behaving in a way he thought fit, might he have threatened to cut off that person?”

“I suppose so,” she said, frowning now. “It’s hard to say because money has never meant much to me. But Terrence needs a good deal of it. So does my father. And Irene and Archie. But none of them would have poisoned him. It’s too grotesque to think about.”

“And you didn’t see anyone leaving the house around seven-thirty the night Mr. Hannan was killed?”

“We were all together, waiting for dinner. Irene went up to check on the children at one stage, I believe. Terrence went to find a bottle of wine. But that was all.” She shook her head again. “I can’t believe it. There must be another explanation. Somebody knew the poison was there. Somebody sneaked in. But not one of us.”

She bent to pat the earth down firmly.

“Tell me what happened the afternoon that Colleen died,” I said.

She almost lost her balance as she stood up, stepping away from me as if to defend herself. “Who on earth told you about that? I thought it was a family secret. We never mention her anymore.”

“But you were there. You can recount the events.”

“Why would you want to know?”

“Because it might have some connection to your uncle’s death.”

She shook her head vehemently. “That’s absurd. It’s just not possible.”

“Nevertheless, humor me,” I said.

She frowned. “Who are you, exactly? Why are you snooping into our family affairs? Why did my uncle invite you here with us? Do you know something we don’t?” Her face was flushed with anger suddenly.

“Look, I just want to help, that’s all. Don’t you want to know who killed your uncle? My husband is a detective and he always says there are no coincidences in life. If two people were found in the same place at the bottom of a cliff, then maybe the two deaths are linked.”

Eliza shook her head. “I shouldn’t be telling you this. Uncle made us all promise … but Colleen was pushed over the cliff by her twin sister, in a fit of jealousy. Horrible but true. We witnessed it.”

“Did you?” I asked. “Did you actually see one twin push the other over the cliff?”

“I didn’t, but we were all sitting together at tea and other people saw it.”

“Tell me about it,” I said. “You were all sitting on the lawn, in the same area where we had tea yesterday?”

“Not far from there.”

“So you all had a view of the cliffs?”

“I didn’t,” she said. “We were sitting in a circle. I had my back to the ocean.”

“So who exactly saw the deed being done?”

She frowned. “I’m not sure. The first thing we heard was this awful, awful scream. We jumped up and somebody shouted, ‘She pushed her. She pushed Colleen.’

“And we all rushed to the cliff edge. Kathleen was standing there, staring down at her sister’s lifeless body. People grabbed her. ‘What happened? Did you do that to your sister?’ someone demanded. But she just kept staring down as if she didn’t hear them. And I gather she never spoke another word. Her mind must have gone, poor little thing. I like to think her mind went before she did the deed, so that she wasn’t responsible for her actions, because until then she’d been a nice enough little thing.”

“Tell me about her before that.”

“I always felt a little sorry for her,” she said. “Colleen was so pretty and so lovable and so outgoing. Just because Kathleen was shy and hung back, they thought she was stupid. But I always felt she was deep. She observed. She thought things through. And she seemed content to let Colleen have the limelight. That’s why I was so surprised that she deliberately pushed her sister, because one thing seemed certain to me and that was that the twins adored each other. They were more like a unit than like two people. They even spoke in their own funny language, you know. It sounded ridiculous but it made sense to them.”

“Can you remember who saw Kathleen push her sister?”

She frowned, thinking. “All I remember is the scream, then a man’s voice saying, ‘She pushed her,’ and then tables were overturned, there was chaos, and we were all running to the cliff edge.”

“Was the whole family together at tea?”

“I believe so. We usually gathered for tea on warm afternoons. Uncle Brian, Aunt Mary, my mother, Archie. I think my father arrived later. Yes, because he asked, ‘Is the tea still hot?’ I don’t remember Terrence, and I’m not sure about Uncle Pat—but yes, he must have been there because he was first to the cliff after the scream. I believe he was the one who said ‘she pushed her.’ Then Irene came running up from somewhere when we heard the scream.”

“And Sam?”

She paused, then shook her head. “No, Sam was not there and when he finally joined us, I remember that he looked—well, flustered.” She turned to stare at me. “What are you trying to prove? That one of us pushed the child off the cliff? It’s absurd. She was adored. We all loved her. Her death almost broke the family apart. Irene’s never been the same since. Uncle Brian suffered deep melancholy … in fact I believe that was what started his drinking.” She started to move away from me. “No, Mrs. Sullivan. You should leave this alone. Bringing it up to this family would only open old wounds and frankly you are barking up the wrong tree.”