Murder in a mill town (10 page)

“It shouldn’t surprise you,” Will said as he cradled the snifter in his palm, swirling the cognac to warm it, “that Harry was unmoved by your apology. Contrition is a foreign notion to him. Never having been called upon to answer for his sins, he never really absorbed the whole concept of penitence and forgiveness. Any sorrow he feels as a result of his own hurtful acts has more to do with fear of repercussions than with guilt or shame.”

“Not that repercussions have ever been an issue with him.”

“No. Saint August would never think of allowing his own flesh and blood to twist in the wind that way. Not when  Leo Thorpe is so adept at fixing things.”

Leo Thorpe, attorney, city alderman, and August Thorpe’s oldest and closest friend, had been sweeping Harry Hewitt’s worst transgressions under the carpet since Harry’s adolescence. The arrests for public inebriation and lewdness, the whores, the gambling, the pregnant mill girls, the drunken fist fights... All it ever took was Alderman Thorpe to grease the right palms, and it was as if none of it had ever happened.

“I’m surprised to find you and Harry in contact with each other,” Nell said.

Will held his snifter to his nose for a moment to savor the cognac’s aroma, but he didn’t sip it. “I got back to town six days ago—Friday morning. Took a room at the Revere House, stuffed myself on oysters, and then I strolled on down to Colonnade Row. I sat on a bench just inside the Common, across from my parents’ house, and waited for you to step outside.”

She didn’t bother asking him why he didn’t just walk up to the front door and knock. Long estranged from his parents, especially his coldly judgmental father, it was little wonder he didn’t care to face them.

“I was on my sixth cigarette,” he said, “when I finally saw you come out. You weren’t alone, though.”

“Ah.” Nell was beginning to understand. “Gracie.”

“You were laughing, the two of you. You took her by the hand and ran across the street and into the park. She had a little toy sailboat with her.”

“She likes to sail it in the Frog Pond.”

“I hid until you’d passed.”

“Will...”

“She’s a pretty little thing.”

“You should have—”

“No, Nell,” he said gravely. “I shouldn’t have.”

“Wouldn’t you like to finally meet her? I mean really meet her, face to face? You’re her father.”

“A father who makes his living playing cards and can’t go four hours without a syringe full of morphine.”

She’d wondered whether he was still addicted. “It’s still just morphine, then?” she asked. “You haven’t gone back to...?”

“The pipe?” He shook his head. “No, I’ve managed to steer clear of all that. Opium...it’s too seductive, too...mesmerizing. It consumes me, it becomes all I want, all I can think about. Morphine doesn’t carry quite the same allure. I use it like medicine, twenty milligrams by injection six times a day—just enough to keep from going into withdrawal. And of course, to keep the leg from aching too badly.”

“It still troubles you, then?” Four years ago, a bullet had torn a chunk out of Will’s right thigh. His limp was far worse when he was sober than when he was under the influence of the poppy.

“It’s not too bad,” he said, “so long as I don’t let too much time pass between shots.”

The waiter came with her sherry, the cigarettes, and a box of matches. Will clicked his glass against hers. “To the renewal of our acquaintance. May it remain both intriguing and agreeable.”

The sherry was sticky-sweet. Nell felt it warm a path all the way down to her stomach.

“Do you mind?” Will asked as he opened the Bull Durham tin.

“Not at all.”

Withdrawing a cigarette, he said, “While you and Gracie were conducting nautical maneuvers in the Frog Pond that afternoon, I procured a little runabout for the day and drove up to Charlestown to see Harry.”

“You went to the mill? You didn’t happen to be talking to Harry out in the courtyard when the dinner bell rang?”

He stilled, the lit match in one hand, the cigarette in the other. “Were you there?”

“No—not on Friday. I was there yesterday to look into a certain matter for your mother—a mill girl who’s disappeared—and some of the mill workers mentioned having seen your brother talking to a man last Friday who...matched your description.”
I swear, I thought they was gonna swoon dead away.

“You should have seen Harry’s face when his secretary announced me.” Will lit the cigarette, blew a stream of smoke away from her. “We hadn’t seen each other in, what—almost five years?”

“Why did you seek him out?” She almost said,
Why on earth?

Will settled back in his chair, crossed his long legs, studied the cognac in his glass. “I’d been thinking about him since last winter, when I came to realize how little he’d changed, and that I bear a certain measure of responsibility for his weakness of character.”

“For not having steered him toward righteousness during his rakehell adolescence?” Nell asked. Will’s self-flagellation over this issue was familiar territory. “Your mother told me there was little you could have done, with you two being six years apart in age, and Harry so resistant to accepting guidance.”

“If anyone could have managed it, it would have been I. We were fundamentally alike, Harry and I, both drawn to sin like crows to carrion. I could have made him listen, forced him to change...if I hadn’t been so utterly self-absorbed.”

“You were in England most of that time,” she reminded him. “I don’t know what you think you could have accomplished during the few weeks each year you were home on holiday.”

“And I suppose we’ll never know. But there’s no reason I can’t try to make up for lost time now. This is the third evening Harry and I have spent together since I’ve been back.”

“If your purpose in befriending him now is to mold him into an upright gentleman of strong morals and steady habits, I wish you the very best of luck. God knows you’ll need it.” She raised her glass in a mocking toast.

He smiled into her eyes. “I’ve missed you, Nell.”

She looked down, took a sip of her sherry. “What have you been up to these past months?”

He shrugged. “The usual. Three or four different cities, a hundred different card games.”

“Will you be in Boston very long?”

“I’m here for an ultra high stakes
poker game that’s to take place at the Parker House on Monday. Did you miss
me?
”

“Oh, shit.”

Nell looked up to find Harry hovering over them, a glass of whiskey in one hand, cigar in the other, regarding Nell with an expression of disgust.

Will said, “There’s a lady present, old man.”

“Is there?” Harry made a show of looking around. “All I see is some impudent little Irish bitch who managed to slither in here when no one was—”

“That’s enough, Harry.” Will rose to his feet, a hard thrust to his jaw.

Harry backed off a step, grinning. “Steady, now. No point coming to blows over some cherry you’re trying to pluck. She’s a ripe one, I’ll give you that, but a bit on the sour side, and damnably hard to pry off the stem. I should know.”

Will said, “If it’s a bloody nose you’re angling for, Harry, I’m more than happy to—”

“Easy, brother. I just came over to ask you what the devil you thought you were doing, sending me this pointless swill?” He gestured with the whiskey, which spilled over the rim of the glass.

“Your absinthe habit seems to be getting a bit out of hand,” Will said. “I’d rein it in if I were you.”

“Ah, but you’re not me. Nor are you my keeper. So I’ll thank you to keep your nose out of things that are none of your concern.”

“It’s none of my concern if my brother has a steadily escalating habit that’s been known to lead to full-blown psychosis?”

Harry smirked at the unfamiliar word. “If you’re trying to dazzle me with arcane medical terms—”

“Lunacy,” Will said. “Hallucination, convulsions, violent outbursts. Absinthism has led to suicides, murders...”

“You’re a fine one to lecture me on the subject of bad habits,” Harry said. “What do you suppose I’d find if I went through the inside pockets of that handsome tailcoat of yours, eh? A hypodermic syringe, perchance? A little vial of morphine solution?”

“Which is precisely why I feel competent to deliver advice on the subject of bad habits,” Will countered. “You’ve been an absinthe drinker for about half a year, yes? You’d do well to give it up while you’ve still got the mental rigor to do so.”

“Mental rigor?” Harry snorted with laughter. “What on earth makes you think I’ve ever been burdened by such a malady?” Turning to Nell, he said, “That’s
your
cross to bear, is it not, Miss Sweeney? If you’ve ever said or done an untoward thing—aside from that rather entertaining little spectacle in our opera box last winter—I was never there to witness it...until now.”

She was about to ask what he meant by that when she realized that her mere presence in this den of sin, a drink in her hand, a man of William Hewitt’s notoriety sitting across from her, would be more than enough to destroy any governess.

Harry puffed on his cigar, looking coolly amused. “What do you suppose my father would say if he knew I’d seen you here? He’d jump at the chance to be rid of you.”

“Your mother prevented that once,” she said. “She can do it again.”

“How many reprieves do you think you’ll get? Two? Four? Sooner or later, even Mother, resourceful though she is, will be powerless to save you from the chopping block.”

“As long as we’re speculating about ruined reputations,” Will said, “how do you suppose Saint August would react if he found out how many bottles of
la fée verte
you consume in a given week? Or how much money you leave behind at places like this?”

“What makes you think I’m not winning tonight?”

“I’ve told you, Harry—they run a brace game here. No one wins.”

Harry regarded his brother in surly silence for a moment. “You’re a bastard, you know that, Will?”

“Yes, actually,” Will replied through a haze of smoke. “I’ve known that for some time.”

“Brother...Miss Sweeney...” Harry executed a stiff little bow in her direction. “I won’t insult your intelligence by saying it’s been a pleasure.” He turned and left.

“Wasn’t there something you needed to speak to him about?” Will asked.

She just sighed.

“Do you want me to call him back?”

Nell tried to imagine finessing information out of Harry in his present churlish state of mind. She shook her head, raised her glass to her lips. “What would be the point?”

“Dinner time!” Gracie called as she tossed chunks of bread into the water. “Come and get it!”

There arose a chorus of greedy quacks as half a dozen fat mallards paddled toward the little girl standing at the edge of the pond. They raced toward their afternoon snack, competing over the choicest bits as Gracie giggled and clapped.

Most afternoons in September, Boston’s Public Gardens resembled a giant lawn party, with scores of young children frolicking together under the watchful eyes of their mothers and nannies. Today, however, it was nearly deserted, thanks to a cold leaden sky that prickled with impending rain. Nell had tried to talk Gracie into spending the afternoon at the library or the Natural History Museum, but the child wouldn’t hear of it. Barely four and already a creature of habit, she tended to get out of sorts if she had to give up her daily walk and duck-feeding session.

“Can I have some more?” Gracie asked as she ran over to Nell, sitting on a nearby bench with a quarter-loaf of stale brioche wrapped in a napkin on her lap.

“Well, I suppose you
can
,” Nell said. “But—”

“
May
I have some more?”

“Of course, since you’ve asked so nicely. But you need to break it into smaller pieces, like this.” Peeling off her kid gloves, Nell tore off a hunk and shredded it into the child’s cupped hands. “And don’t throw it all in at once. Oh, and
do
try to stay clean,” she added as she brushed crumbs off her own coat and Gracie’s.

“Miseeney, why that man watching me?” Gracie asked.

“What man?” Nell’s scalp tingled.

“That man wight over there,” the child said, nodding over Nell’s shoulder.

Nell turned to look behind her. A tall man in a low-crowned top hat, black frock coat and fawn trousers stood about fifty yards away, leaning against the trunk of an enormous copper beech tree. He smiled and tipped his hat, then pushed off the street and started toward them.

“Do you know him?” Gracie was watching Nell stare.

“I...yes, that’s...” Nell looked from Will to his daughter, and back again. “That’s a friend of mine.” The statement came so easily. A friend. When, precisely, had she and the complicated, difficult, too-charming William Hewitt become friends?

His limp, as he walked toward them, was barely noticeable; he must have dosed himself with morphine very recently. By midnight last night, when he bid her goodnight at the front door of 148 Tremont, he’d been limping rather badly—but then, he’d probably gone over four hours at that point without an injection.