The Savage Heart (15 page)

“Kilgallen doesn't use stimulants of the sort Collier did,” Matt said, just in time to keep a harsh retort off Nan's lips. “He has no part of them.”

“You know that for a fact, do you?” Greene asked sarcastically.

“In fact, I do,” Matt replied. “I have contacts of my own in the underworld, and I don't mind using them.”

Greene shrugged. “Well, it was a long shot, I guess, that Kilgallen might have had him put down. I'm just worried
about my wife, you know, as much as for Nan here. She's taken this whole thing hard. I haven't had two words out of her since Nan was arrested. She doesn't talk. She just sits and stares and cries.”

“She thinks they'll hang me, doesn't she?” Nan asked worriedly. She wrung her hands. “Maybe they will, too. Maybe I'll die!”

“You won't die,” Matt said firmly. “Not if Greene and I have to break you out of here ourselves. We know you're innocent.”

That brought the first smile to Nan's face in days. “You're a kind man, Mr. Davis.”

“My cousin is fond of you,” he said noncommittally.

“She's such a wonderful friend,” Nan said gently. “Anyone else would have turned away from me, knowing what she does. But she's loyal to a fault. It's a wonder to me she's not married. I suppose men are blind.”

Matt looked away. “Perhaps they are. Blind as bats.”

Nan's sister was white-faced and nervous as she admitted Tess to her small home. She'd been baking, Tess surmised, since she had traces of flour on her hands and apron.

“I had to do something to keep from going crazy, so I've been making a cake,” she told Tess. “Please sit down. I know what you and Mr. Davis have tried to do for Nan. I'm very grateful to you.”

Tess took the small wing chair indicated and looked at the older woman with open curiosity. “You're older than Nan.”

“Fifteen years,” came the reply. “There were six of us, but four died in childhood. Nan and I are the only ones of our family left alive.” Her eyes were sad as she added, “I lost one of my own children to a chest cold that went into pneumonia. Now I go to extremes to protect the two I have left.” She sighed. “At least, I did….”

The way her voice trailed away was faintly disturbing.

She looked up again, shifting in the chair. “What can I do for you, Miss Davis?”

“Meredith,” Tess corrected. “Matt and I are related through our mothers,” she lied.

“Oh, I see. Well, Miss Meredith, then. Is there something you need from me?”

“Yes,” Tess replied. “I need a motive for someone to have killed Dennis Collier.”

The other woman's face hardened. “He was a wife beater,” she said. “A bully who had no feeling for any needs other than his own. He hit my sister, again and again and again.” Her eyes closed and she shivered. “She was a kind, sweet girl who never hurt a fly. And he could treat her…like that!”

“Yes, I know,” Tess replied gently. “Nan isn't the sort to hurt people.”

Blue eyes met her own green ones. “I'm glad he died,” Mrs. Greene said fervently. “I hope he suffered before he died! Maybe one of his fancy women killed him, and good luck to her!”

Tess jumped on that. “He did have other women, then?”

Mrs. Greene lifted her face. She seemed to be struggling for composure. She glanced at Tess and averted her eyes. “Certainly he did. Nan didn't know, but I knew. I have a friend who lived near Nan's apartment house. She told me that women came and went all the time when Nan was away at church and visiting me.”

“Do you know the names of any of the women?” Tess
pressed, her eyes glittering with excitement that she might have found a suspect after all. “Did your friend know who they were?”

Mrs. Greene shrugged. “No, she didn't know them. They were common women.” She leaned forward. “Women from brothels!” she whispered.

Tess knew about that sort of woman because many of them ended up dying in the hospital from a host of social diseases. Her mind whirled with tragic stories. Strange, though, that a woman from a brothel would visit a man in his apartment during his wife's absence. That wasn't the usual thing at all. Most of the men who frequented brothels were respectable family men who would have done anything to keep knowledge of their indiscretions from their families. It was part of the hated double standard that the women in her group so detested.

“Why didn't he go to the brothel?” Tess asked, speaking her thoughts aloud.

“Well, uh…” Mrs. Greene collected herself and seemed to be thinking very hard. “I suppose he wanted to shame Nan even more than he already had, what with his criminal friends being there all the time.”

It didn't make sense. She almost said so. But there was something in Mrs. Greene's face that made her hold her tongue. She hesitated and then forced a smile.

“I don't suppose we'll ever know the whole truth of it,” she agreed. “But the thing is, unless we can find the real killer, they may hang Nan.”

Mrs. Greene's face went even paler. “I know that.” Her
eyes closed and she shivered. “They say that those ropes are rough against the skin,” she said in a ghostly tone, touching her lace-covered neck as if she could feel the rope there. An odd gesture, an odd comment, Tess thought.

“I imagine it's very quick,” she said.

“If the hangman is compassionate,” Mrs. Greene said with a long, eloquent stare. “I can't let them hang my sister.”

“They won't if we can find the real culprit,” Tess said firmly. “You have to help me locate those women who went to see Dennis.”

Mrs. Greene grimaced. “How?”

“Ask your friend to ask everyone she knows,” came the reply. “And she must hurry. We have so little time.”

“Isn't there anything we can do besides that?”

Tess was thinking. “I'm going to a meeting of my women's group tonight. I believe that it would show our support for Nan if we held a torchlight parade to protest her innocence and show everyone how her husband was treating her. Perhaps it would make even the court take notice!”

“It would be dangerous. Very dangerous. The last of your marches ended in a riot, Miss Meredith, and my husband told me that you were seriously injured.”

“I'll be much more careful this time,” Tess said, without revealing the fact that Dennis Collier himself had injured her. “Besides, it's Nan I'm concerned about, not myself.”

Mrs. Greene bit her lower lip and clasped her hands
together in her aproned lap. “That is a generous way to be. I wish I had your courage.”

“Don't worry,” Tess said gently. “It will be all right. I'm sure we can save Nan.”

“I hope so. Oh, I hope so!”

 

A
FTER DEALING WITH
a mountain of neglected paperwork, Matt made his way back to the boardinghouse. He arrived just in time to meet a messenger at the door.

“And what's this?” he asked when the messenger, after ascertaining his identity, handed him a sealed envelope.

“A lady at the jail asked me to bring it. Gave me a quarter!”

“Here's another,” he said, tossing a coin to the young man, who grinned, tipped his hat and went away.

Matt went into the hallway, where the light was better, to read the note. He supposed it was from Nan Collier, perhaps a new lead to follow.

His surprise was visible and verbal when he read the hastily scribbled note. It read, “Have been arrested. Please come. Tess.”

Mrs. Mulhaney had been walking into the hall, drying her hands on a tea towel, when she saw Matt.

“Why, Mr. Davis!” she exclaimed, as she heard him mutter a curse. “Whatever is wrong?”

“My cousin has been arrested,” he said without thinking.

Mrs. Mulhaney had to sit down. By the time she got over the shock of having one of her tenants in jail, sully
ing the good name and reputation of her establishment, Matt was out of the house.

 

H
E WAVED THE NOTE
under Tess's nose where she stood behind bars with a dozen other women, looking downcast and guilty.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he raged.

“Sir!” one of the matrons exclaimed angrily.

He tipped his hat. “I beg your pardon,” he said politely, as his furious gaze held Tess's, “but my cousin's arrest has come as a shock.”

“I don't know why,” Tess said innocently. “Surely you must expect a woman of my character to end badly.”

The insinuation turned his cheekbones ruddy, and he crushed the note in his big, lean hand. “Mrs. Mulhaney was almost in a faint when I left. She will surely throw us both out the door for this. She has an overworked sense of social responsibility.”

“I don't care if she throws me out—I was already planning to leave. Daisy,” she indicated a slightly older woman with no looks whatsoever, “has invited me to share her small house. She is a student at present. Her studies sound so interesting that I may very well enroll myself.”

“Nothing of that sort matters at the moment,” Matt said angrily. Too many shocks in one day were rendering his mind numb. “I'll bail you out, and then we'll go somewhere and talk.”

“At this hour of the night?” Daisy asked haughtily. “Really, sir, you'll ruin your cousin's reputation.”

Matt glared at her. “My cousin's reputation is none of your business, madam.”

“Matt!” Tess cried.

He turned and marched out of the jail.

“Your cousin is quite dangerous-looking,” Daisy said sternly. “I think the less you have to do with him, the better.”

Tess stared at her. “Matt is my business.” She was already regretting her impulsive agreement to share Daisy's house. It wouldn't work in a million years. Daisy obviously hated men. “And I think I won't take you up on your offer of lodgings, Daisy,” she added, “although I thank you for the offer. Perhaps Matt misjudged my landlady's mood.”

“I hardly think so,” Ellen O'Hara said with a twinkle in her eyes. “You can stay with my sisters and me, though, Tess,” she offered. “And Mr. Davis will be welcome to visit,” she added with a glance at the cold-faced Daisy.

“You're very kind,” Tess said.

Ellen chuckled. “Oh, you've added such excitement to my dreary life that I think I'd enjoy having you around. I know my sisters would. They're younger than me, but they're hard workers. We all work as maids for a fine family down on the lake.”

“Servants,” Daisy scoffed, because she was a woman of property.

“Honest work is honorable, whatever it entails,” Tess told her matter-of-factly. “And I hardly think that the heart and soul of the women's movement should be the denigration of any of us by others of us. It smacks of disloyalty.”

Most of the other women nearby assented loudly, and Daisy withdrew into her own thoughts.

Matt was back in minutes with the jailer.

“You have to bail Ellen out, too,” she told him, indicating the plump blonde girl beside her. “She and her sisters are giving me a home after Mrs. Mulhaney throws me out.”

He gaped at her. “What?”

“Ellen. You have to make her bail, too.”

Matt didn't say a word. He and the jailer left, and when he returned, both women were released.

“Can we see Nan before we leave?” she asked, after the other woman had thanked Matt profusely for his help.

“We might as well,” Matt said angrily. “The evening's almost over anyway.”

Tess made a face at him, and she and Ellen preceded him into the area where prisoners awaiting trial were kept.

Nan was tearful and tried to hug her through the bars. “Oh, I'm so glad to see you!” she told Tess. “I'm getting more scared by the day. Have you found out anything at all? And why are you back again, Mr. Davis?”

“I've been bailing Tess out of jail,” he said tersely.

“What for?” Nan asked.

“Inciting a riot,” Matt said for her.

“Thank you very much!” Tess snapped at him over her shoulder.

He made her a mock bow. “You're welcome.”

Nan gasped. “Inciting a riot?”

“I led a torchlight parade in support of you and gave the audience a lecture on the evils of brutality in men.”

Nan laughed and then cried. “Oh, Tess, you are my friend!”

“Yes, I am, and I'm going to get you out of this somehow!” she promised. “Keep your chin up, dear. You mustn't give in to despair.”

Nan touched her stomach and sighed. “I don't know if I have a prayer anymore,” she said. “My brother-in-law said there were no other suspects. They can't find another person in Chicago who wanted my husband dead more than I did.”

“But you didn't kill him,” Tess said firmly. “And we're going to prove it.”

Nan managed a smile, but it wasn't a confident one. It was sad and lonely and lost.

 

T
HEY DROPPED
E
LLEN OFF
at the rambling Victorian house she shared with her three sisters near the railroad depot, finally accepting her invitation to have a cup of tea before venturing back to their boardinghouse.

Ellen's home was ramshackle and needed painting, and it was cold because the only heat came from open fireplaces. But it was homey, and there were no really close neighbors. The sisters made much of Ellen, Tess and Matt, and insisted on details of the arrest and jailing. In the end they invited Tess and Matt to come again and visit. Ellen repeated her offer of lodgings. Tess thanked her and added that she might be over in the morning to take her up on
it. She felt at home here already. Ellen was a kind soul, and her sisters were jolly.

“Mrs. Mulhaney won't throw you out,” Matt said curtly as they rode home in yet another hired carriage.

“Yes, she will,” she said. “I don't care. It might be a blessing in disguise.”

He glanced at her. She made him feel even more guilty than he already did.

His face seemed to close up. He averted his eyes to the darkness outside the carriage window, broken intermittently by streetlights.

She crossed her legs under her long skirts and sighed. They were farther apart than they'd ever been.

“How do you feel about me, Matt?”

He wouldn't look at her. “As I've always felt,” he said.

“And how is that?”

The carriage slowed. “This isn't the time to discuss personal matters,” he said as the driver pulled up in front of Mrs. Mulhaney's boardinghouse. “We have a much worse problem waiting inside the house.”

“Mrs. Mulhaney,” she ventured.

“In a word,” he concurred.

 

T
HE ELDERLY LADY WAS
, in fact, pacing the hall, red-faced and muttering. She stopped dead when the two of them walked in.

Tess went forward at once, without the slightest hesitation. “My friend has been falsely accused of a murder which God knows she did not commit,” she said firmly. “A
group of us who love Nan marched on the city jail to show our support for her, and we were arrested, by men.” She lifted her chin pugnaciously. “You are well within your rights to toss me out the front door, Mrs. Mulhaney, and I will say not one word if that is your reaction. It wants courage to stand up for what is right in the eyes of God, especially if it is not right in the eyes of all men.”