Death of Riley Read online

  “We tried to get into the building. We tried to talk to someone in charge, but nobody would listen to us!” I yelled. “You're making a big mistake. Get your hands off me!”

  “Take them down to headquarters for questioning,” a voice commanded. “Quick. Get them out of here before the crowd tears them to pieces.”

  The next moments passed in a blur. A crowd of angry faces surged toward us as I was dragged toward a waiting police wagon. The wagon door opened and Ryan was flung inside.

  “She's the one. She shot the President! String her up, boys. Don't let them take her away,” voices shouted in my ear. Hands grabbed at my skirt. I heard a ripping sound, someone fired a warning shot and I was thrown into the wagon after Ryan. Then whips were cracked and we were galloped away.

  Twenty–Seven

  It seemed an eternity before we arrived at the Buffalo Police headquarters, then were yanked out of the wagon and dragged inside by armed guards. Once inside the building we were marched down a hallway and thrown into a holding cell. During the wild ride it had been impossible to speak. Now we gazed at each other in horrified disbelief.

  “What do you think will happen to us?” I couldn't stop my voice from trembling. “They will listen to us, won't they?”

  “The President's just been shot.” Ryan sounded equally shaky. “I don't imagine they'll behave very rationally. They'll want to find scapegoats to satisfy the public outrage. My God, we were nearly torn limb from limb out there.”

  I hugged my knees to myself to stop myself from shaking. “If I hadn't been so stupid …”

  “You did what you thought was right,” Ryan said. “I'm sorry I got you into this.”

  “You didn't get me into it. I got myself into it. I should never have come to Buffalo.”

  “You wanted to go to the police. I was the stupid one who wanted to find Leon myself. I blame myself com

  pletely. I never thought he'd go through with it. I thought it was all fantasy. I should never have laughed at him. I drove him to it.”

  “It won't do any good blaming ourselves,” I said. “We can't undo what's done. I'm sure they'll realize they've made a mistake.” I tried to give Ryan a reassuring smile because he looked even worse than I felt.

  He shook his head. “It won't look good for me. They'll find out that Leon was my ex-lover. But I'll make sure they know that you had nothing to do with it.” He reached out and patted my hand.

  We sat together on the hard bench, both lost in our own thoughts. Then, much later, the cell door opened and we were led out.

  We were taken down a white-tiled hallway, then thrust into a brightly lit room. Several police officers were standing around. A man was sitting slumped over a center table. He turned and lifted his head as we came in. It was Leon, but I hardly recognized him, he was such a sorry sight, so swollen, bleeding and battered was he.

  “Take a look at these people,” a policeman shouted. “Do you know them? Were you all in this together? You can make it easier on yourself if you name your accomplices.”

  Leon turned the haunted eyes that I remembered so well onto us.

  “I never saw either of them before in my life,” he said in a flat voice.

  “Come on. Own up. Someone must have put you up to this.”

  “I told you, I did it alone,” Leon said in a flat voice. “Nobody was in it with me.”

  “Someone must have given you the idea. You don't just wake up one morning deciding you'll go and shoot the President. Come on. Your silence isn't going to help you, you know.”

  “Nothing will help me now,” Leon said. “If anyone made me do it, it was …” He turned back to Ryan for a moment and his gaze lingered on Ryan's face before he said in the same flat voice, “… it was Emma Goldman.”

  The interrogators looked at each other and nodded. “It figures “ one growled. “What did I tell you. An anarchist plot. Have this Emma Goldman found and brought in before she skips the country.”

  “Wait, I didn't say she put me up to it,” Leon pleaded. “I said she inspired me. I told you I did it alone. Nobody helped me. It was all my idea.”

  The largest of the police detectives looked at Leon then at us with distaste. “Take them away,” the policeman bellowed.

  We were led farther along the hall into another room. Two of the officers followed us into the room.

  “Look, officer,” Ryan said as the door closed behind us, leaving us alone with two policemen, “what that man said wasn't true.”

  I gasped and gave Ryan a hasty glance.

  “I do know Leon Czolgosz,” Ryan said. “In case you don't know me—Fm Ryan O'Hare. I have a worldwide reputation in the theater. Leon was rather infatuated with me last year. He followed me around and he wanted me to join in one of his crazy schemes. Of course I refused. But when I learned that he was at the exposition today, I thought it was my duty to try to stop him. Miss Murphy and myself tried several times to be taken to someone in charge of security. Each time we were ignored and turned away. So we had to try and take matters into our own hands. I'm only sorry that we failed.”

  I could see the detective looking with distaste at Ryan's silk cravat and frilled shirt, trying to make up his mind as to whether he believed him.

  “And may I ask what you are doing in Buffalo at the same time as Mr. Czolgosz?” he asked.

  “My dear man, I can tell you are not a theatergoer. My new play opens tonight at the Pfeiffer Theater, in precisely one hour and forty minutes. So if you'd be good enough to let me get back to my company before the curtain goes up—”

  “There won't be any play opening tonight,” the policeman growled. “Have you no sensitivity, man? Our President has been shot. Nobody knows if he's going to live or die. The whole exposition is shut down. And we're not done with you yet, by a long way.”

  “But you can't seriously think that I am in any way involved.” Ryan managed a light laugh. “My dear man, would I do anything to jeopardize a new play on which I have spent the last year working? My whole reputation is at stake.”

  “Take him away,” the policeman motioned to a guard standing behind us. “Put him back in the cells. The feds will want to question him when they get here.”

  “I'm a citizen of the British Empire, as is this young lady,” Ryan said. “It should be quite obvious that we have no interest in what happens to your President.”

  This wasn't the right thing to say at this moment either. The policeman aimed a kick at Ryan's backside. “Get him out of my sight!” he shouted.

  He was taken from the room, leaving me alone with the two interrogators.

  “Miss Molly Murphy?” One of them was staring at me with interest. I reminded myself that this was no time for smart remarks. I had to watch every word I said and not get riled. My only chance was to play the helpless and injured female.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How did you come to be mixed up in this?”

  Over the past few months I had become adept at lying. What story should I tell them to get myself out of there? I fished around but my brain would not cooperate. “I was working for a private detective in New York,” I said. “He was killed. I managed to find the identity of his killer—it was the man who shot the President. My employer had overheard a conversation in which Mr. Czolgosz tried to persuade Mr. O'Hare to join him in an act of anarchy. When I discovered he had gone to Buffalo, I feared the worst.”

  “Why didn't you go to the police?”

  “Oh, but I did. I went to see Captain Daniel Sullivan of the New York Police Department, but he wasn't there, so I left him a letter detailing everything I had found out. He must have read it and contacted you by now, surely?”

  “I know of no Captain Sullivan,” the man growled.

  He stared at me with the same intensity with which he had looked at Ryan before dismissing him.

  “You Irish are known to be a lot of rabble-rousers and lawbreakers, aren't you?” he sneered. “Bunch of anarchists, the lot of you.”

&
nbsp; “Anyone who was an Irish anarchist would have his work cut out for him driving the English from our land,” I said. “We'd have no need to travel abroad to find a cause.”

  As I said this I realized what a hornet's nest of trouble he'd stir up for me if he decided to contact Ireland. Nobody in America knew that I had fled from Ireland after I killed a man. I would just have to bluff it out. My eyes held his.

  There was a long moment of silence, during which the clock on the wall ticked loudly. Then the older of the two detectives opened the door. “Go on. Get out of here,” he said.

  “I'm free to go?” I asked hopefully.

  “Not by a long chalk,” he said. “I'm not satisfied with any of this. It smacks of an anarchist plot to me. We'll be checking up on you and Mr. O'Hare very thoroughly— and that might just take days or weeks. Harris!” he barked.‘Take this woman to a new cell, away from Mr. O'Hare. We'll see which of them cracks first.”

  He grinned at me unpleasantly as I was led from the room.

  The new cell had a plank against one wall and a bucket for a commode. I desperately wanted to go, but as there were only bars at the front of my cell, and I was thus visible to anyone who walked past, I sat on the plank with grim determination. After the heat of the day, I couldn't stop shivering. What would happen to me? It was obvious that Daniel was still away and hadn't received my letter. And even if he did finally get it, what good could he do? He had no authority in Buffalo, and these men seemed to be determined to find me guilty.

  I sat in half-darkness. A small barred window opened onto file street outside and I could hear an angry crowd milling out there. They were ready to riot, which must be why the police were so anxious to conclude their investigation quickly and needed to produce scapegoats. I hugged my arms to myself and wished I had a shawl. There would clearly be no mercy for someone who shot the President of the United States. I felt almost sorry for Leon, but even more sorry for Ryan and me. This is what I get for meddling, I told myself. What stupid idea had ever convinced me that playing at detective might be a suitable profession?

  Then a small voice whispered that I didn't want to be safe and secure and bored. I wanted to know I was alive and independent. I knew I was alive at this moment, but for how much longer?

  I could see daylight fading in that small square of barred window. A uniformed policeman came by and poked a tin mug of water and a hunk of bread and cold meat through the bars, as if he were feeding the lions at the zoo. I sipped at the water but felt too sick and worried to eat.

  More hours went by. I tried to sleep, but couldn't. Then heavy footsteps came down the hallway. My cell door was unlocked.

  “Look lively. You're wanted again. The chief wants a word with you.”

  I was hustled down the same tiled hallway and into another room, brightly lit with an electric lightbulb. This time a large mustachioed man in shirtsleeves sat at a desk, with other policemen standing around him.

  “Miss Murphy, sir,” my escort said, thrusting me toward the desk.

  “Ah yes, Miss Murphy. The one who uncovered the plot single-handed.” The man at the desk had several chins and was leering at me. “I understand you are one of our more promising detectives, Miss Murphy. I should keep you on here, to give my boys some lessons.” Chuckles from those standing around him.

  “No, sir, I'm very much a novice detective,” I said. “But I worked for a man who was one of the best and he was killed. I thought I owed it to him to find out who killed him. It was only by luck that I stumbled upon a picture of the man who shot the President this afternoon, found that he was on his way to Buffalo and put two and two together. I left a message with a captain at the New York Police Department and came straight to Buffalo in the hope of preventing this tragedy.”

  He was still looking at me through piggy eyes with a leer. “Friend of yours, Captain Sullivan?”

  “An acquaintance,” I said, lowering my eyes.

  He smirked unpleasantly. “Acquaintance, huh?”

  “Yes, sir. But if you could contact him, he'd vouch for me. He knew I was trying to find Paddy Riley's killer. And I sent him the photos—”

  He held up his hand to quieten me. “It seems he has friends in the right places, this Captain Sullivan. You've been given a glowing testimonial. I'm to understand Miss Murphy is true-blue and has been instrumental in helping the police before. We've had a message from the governor's office and been instructed to let you go.”

  A great wave of relief swept over me.

  “Now?” I stammered. “I'm free to go now?”

  He spread his hands in a gesture of futility. “You will, of course, leave particulars of where you can be contacted with us, and you will not think of leaving the country. Who knows what might come out when this investigation digs further.”

  The feeling of relief was incredible. “It won't uncover anything that implicates me,” I said, “or Mr. O'Hare. We risked our lives just now, trying to stop your assassin, and all we got for our pains was bruises and torn clothing.”

  “Yes, well…” my interrogator began. “Our lads were just doing their duty, you know.”

  “For what it's worth, Fm very sorry indeed for what happened to the President,” I said. “Was he killed?”

  “He was still alive last time I heard,” he said. “Able to speak.”

  “Well, that's good news, isn't it.” I attempted a smile. “We'll just hope and pray for the best.” Then I made my exit.

  I came out of police headquarters into the dark street. A large crowd was milling around, still in an ugly mood by the look of them. I hesitated, not sure what to do next. Should I take the next train home? Should I wait and see if I could do anything more for Ryan? I didn't know whether he had been released before me or whether he was still locked in a cell somewhere. The least I could do was to tell his theater company the news. And I had left my overnight bag in his green room. I tried to slip through the crowd unnoticed and find myself a cab, since I had no idea of the layout of this town.

  At every step I was afraid someone might recognize me and raise the alarm that I had been somehow involved in the assassination attempt. I sensed that this crowd was in a mood for revenge and I had no wish to be strung from the nearest lamppost. The police should really have given me an escort. It occurred to me that the officer who released me knew this full well. Perhaps he was hoping that the mob would execute the justice he felt was denied him. I moved into the crowd, head down, and wished for once I had a bonnet to hide my features and not such prominent red hair. Gradually I inched my way through and I was almost at the other side, with freedom stretching before me, when I heard the words I had been dreading. “Wait a minute—you were one of them, weren't you? I saw them putting you in the paddy wagon at the Temple of Music.” The voice was raised. “Over here, boys. Here's one of‘em trying to slip away.”

  Before he could grab me, I lashed out and ran. I didn't for a moment think that I could outrun a mob, but I was going to give it a darned good try. Footsteps clattered behind me on the cobbles. I found it hard to move fast in my pointed shoes and with all those skirts swishing around me. I picked up the skirts, revealing what was obviously an improper sight of undergarments, but at this moment I didn't care. Then, over the noise of the pounding feet, I heard the clatter of hoofbeats gaining on me and the next moment a black vehicle drew up beside me.

  “Molly, jump in. Quick.” I looked up at the sound of Daniel Sullivan's voice. He held out his hand. I grabbed it and was swung inside.

  “The railway station, as fast as you can,” Daniel commanded the driver and we clattered away just as the first of the mob pounded on the cab door.

  I sat there gasping for breath, too overwhelmed to speak. “Are you real?” I asked, gazing up at him. “Fm not imagining you, am I?”

  “Quite real.” He was looking at me with great tenderness.

  “How in God's name did you find me?”

  “They wouldn't let me see you before and they didn't make me too
welcome at police headquarters either. So I was left kicking my heels outside, hoping that they'd release you as soon as they read the message from the governor.”

  “You brought a message from the governor?”

  “When I first found they had arrested you, they were not willing to release you based on my word alone. I had to summon the heavy artillery and telegraph the governor.”

  “It was a miracle,” I said. “I thought I was done for this time.”

  “That was a rather impressive sprint you put on back there,” Daniel said, giving me the wicked smile I had found so hard to forget. “And a pretty pair of legs revealed, too.”

  “Don't joke about it, Daniel,” I gasped. “It's not funny. In fact, it's all been so horrible that—” Without warning I burst into tears. I had never cried in front of anyone in my life before, and I fought to master myself but I couldn't help it. My whole body shook with sobs. Daniel's arms came around me. “There, there. It's all over now. You're safe,” he whispered, stroking my hair as if I were a little child.

  In his arms I felt safe. My cheek was against his shoulder. I could have lain there forever.

  “You saved my Me,” I whispered. “That's the second time you've saved me.”

  “I’m hoping it won't become a habit,” he said. “If only you'd stay home and act like a sensible woman, I wouldn't have to rescue you from these harebrained schemes of yours. What in God's name were you doing at that Temple of Music? It's that O'Hare person, isn't it? A damned anarchist if ever I saw one. He got you mixed up in this!”

  “No, you've got it all wrong. Ryan was helping me.” I didn't say that my own suspicions had echoed Daniel's. “If you want to know what got me into this, it was hunting for Paddy's killer.” I sat up. “You got my letter, didn't you?”

  “You are fortunate that I did,” he said. “I had planned to spend the week at a house party out on Long Island. When I got there, I discovered to my dismay that there was to be a formal ball and I had left my white tie and tails in the city. So I had to race back to get them and found your note.”