Death of Riley Read online

  I sighed as I walked up the stairs. Little had I known what I was taking on when I escorted two children across the Atlantic to their father. I had expected to deliver them and vanish from their lives, but I had found that hard to do. They were, as Mrs. O'Hallaran had said, poor little mites. I couldn't leave them jammed into a two-room apartment with that dragon of a cousin Nuala and her terrible family. It had been a case of hate at first sight for both of us when the children and I arrived from Ellis Island. Nuala couldn't have made me less welcome, even though I had nowhere else to go. Which was why I wanted to rescue Seamus and his little family from that squalor as soon as Daniel found me this wonderful attic on East Fourth Street. I had grown very fond of young Seamus, whom I now nicknamed Shameyboy, and little Bridie. Taking care of them seemed the least I could do for their poor mother, Kathleen, who must have been worrying her heart out back home in Ireland. It had been with misgivings that I had left them to go to Miss Van Woekem's. They were so small to be alone all day in such a vast city while their father worked eighteen-hour shifts digging the tunnel for the new underground railway. I had to remind myself that they needed to learn to stand on their own feet. New York was the kind of place where only the strongest survived. And after all, I wasn't related to them. Working for Miss Van Woekem would be a way of easing them into independence, I decided as I mounted the second flight of stairs. It would be up to Seamus to take responsibility for his own children.

  The next morning passed quickly and remarkably smoothly as Miss Van Woekem sent me on an errand to match her knitting wool. When I returned from a successful mission, I found her staring out of her window.

  “There is a strange man in the gardens,” she said, not looking up. “He has been there all morning.”

  I joined her at the window. It was the man in the brown suit.

  “He was there yesterday,” I said. “Standing in the same place.”

  “I don't like the sound of it,” Miss Van Woekem said. “Probably a burglar, deciding which house to break into.”

  “He's taking an awfully long time to decide,” I said. “If he's been standing there all morning and yesterday too.”

  “He's watching our movements and seeing when a house might be unoccupied. Go and find a constable and bring him here.”

  I did as she asked and returned with a large red-faced constable I had found on the corner of Fourth Avenue and Twenty-first Street.

  “A strange man in the gardens, you say, miss?” he asked, slapping his nightstick against his palm to show he was ready for action. “We'll soon take care of him. What exactly was he doing? Making a nuisance of himself?”

  “No, just standing there and staring up at one of the houses.”

  We came into Gramercy Park. “Where exactly was he when you saw him last?” the constable asked in a low voice. I pointed out the southwest corner. He nodded. “We'll stroll by on the other side, casual-like, so that he thinks we haven't noticed him. Then I'll slip into the park and nab him.”

  “There he is,” I whispered. “See, under that big tree.”

  He gave a quick look, then looked again. “Why, he's nothing to worry about, miss. That's old Paddy. I know him well. Wouldn't harm a fly. I expect he's doing a spot of bird-watching. That's what he'd be doing.”

  I reported this to Miss Van Woekem. “Bird-watching?” she exclaimed. “I wasn't aware that any birds nested on the second floor of houses. Still, if the police think he's harmless … upon their heads be it if there is a break-in.”

  While she took her nap that afternoon I looked out of the window again. Just what was he doing there? Then I saw the glint of something flashing in the sunlight. Field glasses! The man was using field glasses to watch the house. Then, of course, it hit me. He wasn't a burglar at all. He was some kind of investigator. And the constable must have known what he was doing. He may even have been working with the police …

  My mind went back to our encounter with him on Sunday afternoon. Daniel's relaxed smile when I told him the man had tried to pick his pocket and then his change of expression when he put his hand into that pocket. How could I have been so blind? The man hadn't tried to take anything from Daniel's pocket. He had put something into it.

  I felt a rush of excitement. I had talked to Daniel about setting myself up as an investigator, but I had no idea how to go about it. When I had tried to solve a real crime, I had stumbled over clues by good or bad luck, more than through my own skill. Now here, before my eyes, was the real thing. As soon as I got off work I would go and see Daniel at police headquarters. I'd make him tell me everything he knew about the man in the brown suit. If the man was, indeed, working with the police, and not a gangster, then I'd go and ask him to take me on as an apprentice.

  I waited impatiently for the end of the day.

  “Stop fidgeting, girl. You're acting as if you're sitting on an anthill,” Miss Van Woekem chided. “What is the matter with you?”

  “Nothing. I suppose I'm not used to being cooped up in a room all day. I was brought up in the fresh air. Would you like me to take you for a stroll around the park again?”

  “No, thank you. I won't have time for that today. In fact, I am meeting my goddaughter at the theater. She insists that I see a new play with her. I know it will be dreadful. It's by a dull young European, and their plays are always middle-class melodramas. As if the middle class could be anything but boring. But I have to humor the child when she comes to town. I don't see her often enough.” She gazed out of the window. “You can leave early and go and select yourself some fabric for a dress. Nothing fancy, you understand. A plain, dignified single color—beige or gray would be suitable. Here is the money.” She fished into her mesh purse and handed me two dollars. “Bring the fabric tomorrow and I will arrange for my dressmaker to measure you.”

  I took the money, thinking that I might not be shopping for fabric at all. If I could worm the old man's name and address out of Daniel, then Miss Van Woekem would be looking for a new companion to bully. I set off, my heart racing with anticipation.

  I hadn't visited Daniel at police headquarters on Mulberry Street since I had been brought there as a suspect, and I still felt a chill of alarm as I went up those stone steps and along that echoing tiled corridor. Even though reason told me that I was safe on the other side of the Atlantic and that my past could never catch up with me, I still found it hard to breathe.

  Daniel's office was at the far end of the hallway and had a front wall and door of frosted glass. I could see the silhouette of a figure seated at his desk. So I was in luck. He wasn't out on a case and he might even have time to take a dinner break with me. I tapped and pushed open the door, all in one movement.

  “You'll never guess who I have just seen in Gramercy

  Park, Dan “ I began, then stopped short in confusion.

  “Oh, I beg your pardon. I expected to find Captain Sullivan here.”

  The figure at Daniel's desk was an exquisite young woman in a pink silk dress with a large cameo at her throat. A luxuriant coil of dark hair was piled high over an elfin face and was topped with one of those new little hats, with just a hint of pink veil, perched saucily to the front. Her big blue eyes opened even wider in surprise as she looked at me.

  “He is due back momentarily, so I am given to understand.” She spoke in a soft, girlish, American-accented voice. “Although with policemen one never knows, does one?” She gave a dimpled smile. “If you have an urgent message to give him, miss, you could write it down and I will make sure he gets it.” She was staring at me, trying to sum me up. “You're not a witness to a crime, are you? I always adore hearing about crimes. I should dearly love to be a witness, but nothing ever seems to happen in White Plains.”

  “No, I'm not a witness. Merely a friend dropping in to give Daniel a message.”

  “Oh, well, if you're a friend, then you'll have heard all about me.”

  “I'm afraid not. You are?”

  “Daniel's fiancee, Arabella Norton. He has
n't told you about me? Naughty boy.” A simpering laugh. “Well, I suppose he doesn't go blabbing about his personal life to everyone he meets in New York.”

  The world stood still. She was still smiling. “I'm up in town for shopping and theater, so I thought I'd pop in and surprise him.”

  “Oh, I imagine you'll do that, all right.” I fought to keep my face composed. “So if you'll excuse me, Miss Norton, I won't bother you any further. What I have to say can wait for another time.”

  “Oh, but do leave a message. I'll promise he gets it.”

  “No message,” I said and walked out with steady gait and my head held high.

  It was only when I got outside the building that I had to hold on to the railings and remind myself to breathe. Then I started to walk, faster and faster, striding out with no plan and no direction in mind. All I wanted to do was to walk far enough and fast enough to make the hollow pain in my heart disappear. It was approaching the dinner hour and the streets were full of factory girls leaving work, housewives buying last-minute purchases from street carts, children dodging underfoot as they played wild games.

  It all passed me by in a blur. I was not even aware of my surroundings or how hot I was until I reached Battery Park, at the tip of Manhattan Island, and felt the cooling breeze from the harbor in my face. Quite a stiff wind had blown up this evening, accompanied by a heavy bank of clouds on the eastern horizon promising rain by nightfall. I stood there letting the wind blow into my face, feeling the chill on my sweat-drenched bodice.

  I was so angry I thought I would explode. How could he? How dare he? All this time he had led me on and let me believe that I mattered to him, when he was committed to another woman and knew there could be no future for us. All those times he had taken me in his arms and looked into my eyes with love had been a sham, mere playacting. I was not sure with whom I was angrier— with Daniel or myself. He was a man, after all, and men were out to get all they could from women. I, on the other hand, had been a naive fool. When I thought about it, I realized he had never made me any promises, never even hinted that we might be married someday. In fact, when marriage had been mentioned, he had skirted around the subject or hastily changed it. So he hadn't lied to me— just never told me the truth.

  And I? For once in my life I had kept quiet, waiting patiently for him to choose the right moment for a proposal, as any good girl should. If only I had been my normal impatient self I would have demanded to know his intentions right away and I would have known where I stood.

  At least I knew where I stood now. I was on my own again. I would have to forge my own future without any prospect of marriage, or even without the support of his

  friendship. All the more reason to set myself up in a profession as soon as possible. I reached into my pocket and fingered the two dollars. I wouldn't be getting any sensible dresses made, that was for sure, because I wouldn't be going back to work for Miss Van Woekem, I'd rather starve than set foot in that house again. How conveniently Daniel had come up with the companion's position for me. Miss Van Woekem was a family friend, indeed. How conveniently he had omitted to mention that she was also the godmother of his fiancee. Just thinking the word brought a physical stab of pain around my heart. I had never believed that heartache was anything more than a metaphor before. I squeezed my eyes shut to stop tears from forming. I was not going to cry.

  At that moment the rain began, fat drops that fell, sizzling, onto the granite of the seawall. I stood without moving, letting the rain wash over me as if I were a marble statue. Only when the first drops turned into a veritable deluge and thunder rumbled nearby did I realize the foolishness of my present position. There was no sense in being struck by lightning. I brushed back the plastered strands of hair from my face and started to walk back up Broadway.

  As I passed a tavern, a group of young men was entering it. I braced myself for the usual ribald comments. Instead one of them broke away from the rest.

  “Kathleen?” he called.

  It was my old friend Michael Larkin, my shipmate from the Majestic,my fellow suspect in a murder case. He stood there before me, grinning delightedly. I would hardly have recognized him. I had left a thin, pale-faced boy and here was a well-muscled man with a confident swagger. I had explained to him why I had been using another woman's name when we first met, but I suppose he still thought of me as Kathleen. He corrected himself before I could. “I mean Molly, of course. Silly of me. Molly, it's grand to see you. Whatever are you doing with yourself? You're soaked to the skin.”

  “I got caught in the storm. I was out at Battery Park.”

  “Recalling fond memories of Ellis Island?” he asked. “How are you? How are the little ones? Are they still living with you?”

  “The children are doing just fine, thank you,” I said. “The rest is a long story.”

  “Could we meet sometime and you could tell it to me?” he said. “Right now I'm just about to have a drink with my mates, and I won't invite you to join us. This is no place to take a lady.”

  “I'd be delighted, Michael.” I even managed a smile. “I'd been wondering about you. You look as if you're doing well for yourself.”

  “You've no idea how well. This is the land of opportunity, all right. I'm foreman of a team now and we're just starting work on what's going to be the tallest building in the world. The Flatiron Building, they're calling it, on account of it's shaped like one. My, but it will be a sight to behold. I must take you to see it someday.”

  “I'd like that.”

  “You better get on home, before we're both washed away.” He dragged me out of the way of a downspout that splashed from a rooftop. “Do you have the trolley fare?”

  “Yes, thank you.” He was as kind and generous as ever—a true friend when I had needed one.

  “We'll meet again then,” he said. “Oh, and Molly, you'll not believe this, but I've got myself a sweetheart. My landlady's daughter, Maureen. I'd like you to meet her. She's the most lovely creature in God's whole universe. I'm a truly lucky man and I have you to thank for all this. You saved my life. I'll never forget it.”

  He was standing there, rain running down his boyish face, beaming at me. Suddenly I couldn't take it any longer. “I'm glad for you, Michael,” I said. “Now if you'll excuse me …”

  “So when will you come and meet her, Molly?”

  “Some other time, Michael. There's a trolley coming. I really must go.”

  I picked up my skirts and sprinted away through the puddles.

  Four

  I don't think I slept all night. The storm broke with nightfall and the constant rumbling of thunder, along with the rattle of rain on the roof tiles above me, would have kept me awake without the turmoil in my heart. I tried not to think of him, but I couldn't help it. None of it made sense. If only he had been following normal male instincts, then all he would have wanted was to have his way with me. And yet he hadn't. We had come close to passion on occasion, and yet he was the one who had restrained himself and not allowed the passion to continue. He had always treated me with the utmost respect, as if we were waiting for the right time and occasion. Naively I had always thought that the occasion would be marriage.

  “Tomorrow I start a new life,” I said out loud into the storm. I had come through worse things than this. I wasn't going to let one disappointment, one betrayal break my spirit.

  Early in the morning I presented myself outside the house on Gramercy Park. It was an hour earlier than I was supposed to arrive for work, but I had to get it over with as quickly as possible. I rang the bell and inquired before 1 entered whether Miss Van Woekem's goddaughter was indeed staying there.

  “She's here, yes, but she didn't want disturbing before half past nine, if you please,” the maid muttered to me. “And she wants her breakfast taken up on a tray. Spoiled rotten, if you ask me.”

  Secure in the knowledge that I wouldn't have to face Arabella Norton, I took a deep breath and went into the dining room, where, I was informed, Miss
Van Woekem was currently breakfasting. She looked up in surprise from her boiled egg.

  “You are certainly an eager beaver this morning, Miss Murphy,” she said. “Do the hours without my company seem too long for you?”

  “I came early because I have something to tell you, Miss Van Woekem,” I said. “I'm afraid I can no longer work here as your companion.”

  She looked surprised and disappointed. “I didn't think you'd give up so quickly,” she said. “I took you for a creature of spirit. In fact, I was beginning to look forward to the challenge of taming you.”

  “And I think I might have enjoyed the challenge as well,” I replied, “but I'm afraid I can no longer work in this house. It would be too difficult for me. I pray don't ask me to go into details.”

  I had thought she was sharp. She looked at me, birdlike, head on one side and black button eyes boring into me. Then she nodded. “I understand perfectly,” she said. “I always wondered where young Sullivan managed to find a suitable companion for me so quickly.” She extended a hand. “Won't you join me for breakfast?”

  “No, thank you. I'd prefer to go immediately, before there's any chance of…” I glanced at the door.

  “So what will you do now?”

  “I plan to set myself up in a profession,” I said. “I'm thinking of becoming a private investigator.”

  She gave a surprised laugh. “An investigator? You? But that's not a suitable job for a woman.”

  “I don't see why not. Women have eyes and ears just as men do. And women are more observant, more patient.”

  “But the danger, my dear. Have you thought of the danger?”

  “Oh, I wouldn't handle criminal cases. I'd like to find lost relatives. There are so many families back in Europe who have lost touch with their loved ones.”

  “And what makes you think you'd be any good at this kind of thing?”

  “I did a little investigating once. I think I'd get the hang of it quickly.”

  She gave a half-snort, half-laugh. “So how do you plan to set about it? I would imagine you need money to open a business.”