Brooklyn on Fire (8 page)

“It’s called a kimono.”

“I know that much.”

“No one would’ve seen it if Archer here—”

“Please, Lazlo, from Archer.”

Archer Huntington straightened himself and his clothes, then looked directly at Mary.

“I need to know what happened to my father. I want you to exhume his body, Miss Handley.”

C
OLLIS
H
UNTINGTON HAD
adopted Archer shortly after he married Arabella. Archer was fourteen at the time, and Huntington was the only father he had ever known. John Worsham had died when he was a baby.

“If my father had abandoned me, I might not care who he was or what happened to him,” Archer explained as he and Mary sat in her office after Lazlo had gone back upstairs. “But that’s not the case. He just…died.”

“You realize your mother won’t be happy about this.”

“That’s quite an understatement, but thank you for the warning. Ever since our lunch today, the question of my father’s death has been haunting me. I’m afraid I might have spooked Lazlo with my exuberance, but I doubt whether I’ll get any rest until it’s settled.”

Mary almost smiled at the inability of certain rich people to deal with discomfort. She knew of others with far worse problems who had to live with the horror of their circumstances every day, because they didn’t have the financial wherewithal to free themselves. But Archer seemed like a decent enough fellow, so Mary decided not to hold his privilege against him.

“How did you know where to find me?”

“I saw my mother put your card in a drawer, and when she left the room, I fished it out.”

“I’m sorry. It must be uncomfortable having to sneak around.”

“Frankly, Miss Handley, I can’t imagine having a better mother. She was always there to support me and give me anything I needed. But I’m fairly certain that Mother is trying to shield me from any possible scandal that may arise from this. What she doesn’t realize is that if such a situation does arise, I feel perfectly equipped to handle it.”

Archer’s words reminded Mary of her trouble with her own mother and how she had always yearned for Elizabeth to be supportive. “You’re a lucky young man to have a mother who cares about you so much. Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Most certainly, and I am prepared to pay for any expenses involved. I want it done properly.”

“I understand, and it will be.” Mary was particularly pleased with this offer. In her eagerness to acquire a new client, she had failed to discuss possible expenses with Emily Worsham in addition to the two weeks’ pay she had received. It was her oversight, and in this instance, Archer had saved her from appearing unprofessional by having to return to her client with an “oh, by the way” speech.

Mary liked Archer Huntington, but she had purposely held back one important detail. If anything untoward had happened to his father, it was most likely his mother who had done it.

S
HORTY DIDN’T JUST
like fire. He loved it. He hadn’t been born yet when fire destroyed most of Wall Street in 1835, and the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 was much too far away for him to witness. He yearned to see blazes of that magnitude. And about the only thing Shorty enjoyed more than watching fires was starting them. So as a personal bonus to himself, he’d finish each assignment by setting everything aflame. It added to his enjoyment of the job, and it also had the extra benefit of getting rid of any evidence that he might have accidentally left behind. But in this last job, he had been told to kill her and get out. The note that he was given with his instructions specifically read, “There will be no fire.” It was disappointing, but he was being paid infinitely more than his usual fee and he saw no benefit in questioning the client.

This left him with a dilemma: the unknown. Did he leave something at the scene that could be traced back to him? Shorty didn’t think he had, but he didn’t know for sure. As a result, he continually found excuses to walk past the old lady’s house, and even though it had been more than two weeks since he’d completed his assignment, he observed that police were still busily running in and out.

On this particular Saturday he had been watching from behind a tree across the street when he saw two policemen, one considerably older than the other, emerge from the house and engage in what looked like a serious, animated conversation. He needed to get closer. He crossed the street and hid behind a carriage on the other side.

The older officer talked with a thick Irish accent. “I know this is your first murder case, Sean, and ya want to make a big splash, but take my word for it, lad,” he said as he gestured toward the house, “ya won’t be findin’ a thing in that pile of garbage.”

“You’re wrong, Billy,” Sean replied as he held up a coat button. “This button is something.”

“She has so many collections of whatnots, how can ya say that’s from the killer?”

“She had no collections of buttons.”

“But the ol’ nutcase had every piece of clothing of her poor deceased husband and son.”

“I checked all their clothing, and there’s not one match.”

“For all we know, one of her filthy cats brought it in from the street.”

“If you want to visit the lady who is taking care of the cats and use your cat talk to interrogate them, go ahead. I’m going to see what I can do with this.”

Billy rubbed his bald head and smiled. Billy O’Brian had known Sean and his family since Sean was a little boy. In fact, he had recommended Sean to Second Street Station when he first told Billy he wanted to be a policeman.

“Yer almost as stubborn as yer sister, Sean Handley.” Billy laughed and went back inside as Sean took off down the street.

Shorty waited until it was safe, then crossed back to the other side.
I better keep an eye on this Handley kid,
he thought.
He’s not stupid like most cops.
As he started to put distance between himself and the house, he felt his coat. He had wondered where he had lost that button. Now he knew.

A
BIGAIL
C
ORDAY WAS
simply effervescent. Nothing could contain her joy. She was preparing for the role of a lifetime, the role she was destined to play, Nora in Henrik Ibsen’s
A Doll’s House
. She had read that her idol Eleonora Duse was going to play the same part in Europe, and the thought made her giddy. Together they would show the world what the art of acting really was.

One minor detail remained. She needed to be cast in the play. According to Abigail, it was indeed minor, a fait accompli. Once the director saw her he’d realize she was the walking embodiment of Nora. No one could have been more perfect, not even Duse. For days, Abigail had been living as Nora, only answering to that name. She spoke as Nora would, ate as she would, and dressed like her, too. And today her journey would begin. Today was her audition.

There was a knock at her door. “Who is it?” she asked.

“It’s Robert.”

She opened the door and standing there was thirty-four-year-old Robert Davies, a fellow struggling actor who was Abigail’s friend and had spent many hours with her rehearsing different parts and sharing their theories on acting.

“Come in here, Torvald, and see what I have bought,” Abigail said, reciting a line from the first scene of
A Doll’s House
.

Playing along, Robert entered the room and looked around. “Bought, did you say? All these things? Has my little spendthrift been wasting my money?”

Closing the door, Abigail didn’t miss a beat. “Yes but, Torvald, this year we really can let ourselves go a little. This is the first Christmas that we have not needed to economize.”

Robert dropped the pretense. “Very convincing, Abby. I’m sure you’ll get the part.”

But Abigail would not break character. “What part, Torvald? We are who we are.”

Robert decided not to push it further. He didn’t want to chance an argument, thus upsetting both of them right before they auditioned for the lead roles in a play. He was a dedicated actor and loved everything about the craft of acting. What he didn’t like, what he couldn’t tolerate, was the lack of paying work. He looked around the room again. Abigail lived in a tiny, one-room hovel where insects and occasional rodents scampered about freely. He couldn’t imagine “suffering for his art” like she did. That was exactly why he had another job that allowed him to live decently, and that was also why he was jealous of Abigail. She was living the life he didn’t dare try to live. And her talent was growing while his felt stagnant.

He returned to the text of the play. “Still, you know we can’t spend money recklessly.”

“Yes, Torvald, we may be a bit more reckless now, mayn’t we? Just a tiny wee bit!”

Abigail beamed, thrilled to be back in her fantasy world, a world Robert feared would come crashing down on her one day. He hoped that wouldn’t happen until he got what he needed from her.

M
ARY,
A
RCHER, AND
Police Superintendent Patrick Campbell stood by John Worsham’s grave in Trinity Churchyard near Wall Street and Broadway as the cemetery workers dug away. Archer fidgeted nervously. In his twenty years, he had never before experienced this amount of anxiety. Mary was sympathetic, but considering the entitled life into which Archer had been born, she couldn’t help thinking that before this there had likely never been anything for him to be anxious about.

Superintendent Campbell had been Chief Detective Campbell when he brought Mary on for the Goodrich case. He was her mentor, and he and his wife were now also her friends. The police commissioners at the time were afraid his sterling reputation would usurp theirs and he would take their jobs. In a preemptive move, they had decided to fire him with no real cause. A year later, he had been made police superintendent, their boss, which enabled him to return the favor. Besides the perk of being able to dismiss the police commissioners, Superintendent Campbell had found little joy in his job. He loved being out in the field solving cases, and police superintendents didn’t do that. The pay was much better but his job mostly entailed mounds of paperwork and politics. He couldn’t decide which of the two he loathed more.

Mary decided it would be prudent to have someone of authority at her side when they dug up John Worsham, and Superintendent Campbell more than filled that bill. Though it was perfectly legal to request the exhumation of a body with just the permission of the son, the Huntingtons were powerful people, and she didn’t know what they might do to stop her if they found out in time or what sort of retribution they might seek afterward. She had reasoned that if either case should arise, Superintendent Campbell’s presence could only serve to alleviate the situation.

When she had arrived at his office earlier that day, his secretary, a Miss Quincy, informed Mary that he was in a meeting. Mary knew Superintendent Campbell well, and she especially knew that “I’m in a meeting” often was code for “I need some time to be alone and not be disturbed by any more idiots.” Mary went right to his door and listened. When she didn’t hear any voices, she marched right in, ignoring Miss Quincy’s pleas.

She found Superintendent Campbell sitting at his desk with a stack of playing cards in his left hand. With his right hand, he was in the midst of tossing one across the room toward a wastebasket, around which several cards lay on the floor. When he saw Mary, he smiled.

“Mary, what brings you here?”

“I was hoping you’d join me in a card-tossing contest, but I can see you need more practice.”

At that moment, Miss Quincy rushed in. “I’m sorry, Superintendent. I had told Miss Handley you were in a meeting—” She stopped midexcuse, having seen the cards in his hand and the ones on the floor. She would never have said it, but she was obviously thinking,
I wish I had your job
. Instead, she said, “I’ll close the door and let you two be alone.”

“It’s nice to see you inspire such admiration and respect in your employees.”

“I don’t blame them. How do you admire someone whose main function is to be a figurehead?” Superintendent Campbell had always been heavyset but solid. Mary couldn’t help observing that in the six months or so since he had been promoted to superintendent, he had put on a decent amount of weight and looked puffy. The sedentary life didn’t agree with him, and the banquet circuit made it worse.

“I need your help, Chief.”

“In case you hadn’t noticed, Mary, I’m no longer chief.”

“You’ll always be Chief to me.”

Mary meant what she said, but she also knew those were the exact words he wanted to hear. Superintendent Campbell immediately perked up.

“Well, let’s get going then.” And he started ushering her toward the door.

“Don’t you at least want to know what it’s about?”

“You can tell me in the carriage. If I spend another second in this office, I may do something undeniably sane, like quit.”