Brenda Joyce - [Francesca Cahill 04] (17 page)

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Authors: Deadly Desire

BOOK: Brenda Joyce - [Francesca Cahill 04]
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“I can think of better diversions for one confined to a bed,” Rourke murmured.
Bartolla glanced at him. “And so can 1. But then, I am a widow, while Sarah is not yet a bride.”
“Ah, I do offer my condolences, Countess,” Rourke said, and it was obvious he hardly regretted the count’s death.
“Thank you.”
“Bartolla is newly arrived here in the city,” Evan said, stepping forward and between them. “I have been showing her the town. With Sarah, of course.”
“Of course,” Rourke said dryly.
“An art book is a wonderful idea,” Francesca cut in. Everyone looked at her. She knew that they could not be lovers. Evan would not abuse his fiancée so, by cuckolding her with her cousin.
Still, she knew firsthand how passion could break free of the bonds of morality and convention. And both Bartolla and Evan were far too experienced in matters of the heart.
“My carriage is outside,” Evan said, speaking only to Bartolla. “I can give you a lift downtown, if you like.”
“I would love a lift,” Bartolla said with an expansive wave of her hand, but she never took her eyes from his face. “And I happen to be ready, as I do have an appointment this morning.”
It was not even eleven. Francesca wondered what kind of appointment Bartolla could possibly have on a Sunday morning, especially as she knew that she preferred not to arise,
much less leave the house, until eleven. “Bartolla? I need to speak with you for a moment before you go.”
Bartolla seemed startled, as if she had forgotten Francesca’s presence. “Oh! I hope this isn’t about Sarah’s studio?”
“It is.”
“Don’t tell me you still think someone deliberately damaged my portrait—and this is about me?” she exclaimed, clearly amused.
“It’s a possibility,” Francesca said. “One we must consider. And the portrait was slashed to ribbons—viciously, I might add.”
“My dear, I hardly care.” She laughed.
“Bartolla.” Evan touched her arm. “Maybe you should be worried—maybe the vandal was striking out at you and not at Sarah. I think that is far more likely. I can wait until you have had a chance to speak with Francesca.”
“But I do have an appointment,” she said lightly. “I must get to midtown. Evan dear, do not worry about me!”
“Of course I worry,” he said huskily. “I should hate to see anything ill befall you—or Sarah,” he added quickly.
Rourke made an insulting sound.
Evan gave him a very cool look.
“I am leaving,” Rourke said. “And as I am going uptown to Hart’s, I will not offer the countess a ride. It was a pleasure, madam.”
“Please, do call me Bartolla; all of my friends do.”
He lifted her hand again. “I am sure our paths shall cross again, Bartolla.” He smiled at Francesca. “Good luck, Miss Cahill. Do keep my feckless brother out of harm’s way.” He chuckled, then nodded at Evan and strode out.
When he was gone, Francesca took Bartolla’s hand. “Give me just a moment, please,” she said, realizing that with Bartolla being so difficult, she would have to begin the interview alone—and maybe even conclude it that way, too.
“I am running late already,” Bartolla said pleasantly, but it was clear she intended to remain as stubborn as a mule.
“Just one moment,” Francesca said, feeling pressured to get right to the point. “Do you have enemies?” she asked.
Bartolla seemed amused. “Who does not?”
“Seriously, Bartolla. Please, do take this seriously.”
“Yes, Francesca, of course I have enemies.”
“Who are they? I need names,” Francesca said.
Bartolla sighed. “Do you want the truth?”
She nodded.
“Before I married the count, when I was only sixteen, I came out here in the city. I stole a dozen young men from their sweethearts.” Bartolla shook her head. “I was rather a flirt, as a young girl,” she said. “And to make matters even worse, I broke too many young male hearts to even count.”
“Could any of these women—”
“I don’t know,” Bartolla said, interrupting. “But if you want to know who really hates me, why, it is the count’s family.”
Francesca was thinking about the women who might still be in the city hating Bartolla for ruining their prospects. And what about all of those young men whom she had flirted with and left? “But they are all abroad, are they not?”
“His sons live in Paris and Rome. But his daughter lives right here in New York, with her three spoiled brats.” Bartolla smiled and it wasn’t pleasant.
“What is her name?” Francesca cried eagerly.
“Jane Van Arke,” Bartolla said.
Francesca was about to leave when Bragg stepped past a doorman and into the house. She saw him, not really surprised, and hesitated.
“What is it?” he asked, instantly noting her agitation.
That decided her. She rushed to him. “Bartolla has just left. But I spoke with her,” she said breathlessly.
“And I can see that she has given you a lead,” he said, his gaze holding hers.
Francesca inhaled and spoke in a rush. “Jane Van Arke lodged a formal complaint against Craddock in April of 1900!” Francesca cried. “But she changed her mind a month later, and the complaint was dismissed.”
“And?” He raised both brows.
“Jane Van Arke is Bartolla’s stepdaughter—and despises her with a vengeance.”
Bragg stared. It was a moment before he spoke. “I seem to be missing something. Are you thinking that Jane Van Arke is behind the vandalism—and that she hired Craddock?”
Francesca wrung her hands. “I don’t know what to think. But this is an amazing coincidence.”
He was reflective. “Let me back up for a moment. Craddock is a criminal with a record. He is violent, and blackmail is the name of his game. He probably murdered Lester Parridy—but it could not be proved. However, Parridy was another shady sort, and no one really cared.”
“You’ve read the file!”
“I have. Let me continue. Mrs. Van Arke—Bartolla’s stepdaughter—was probably a victim of his blackmail. Of
course, that is an assumption. She claimed as much initially, then withdrew and claimed she had been mistaken.”
“It is rather hard to mistake a blackmailer,” Francesca groused.
“I would think so.” Briefly he smiled at her.
As briefly, she smiled back.
Now he frowned. “Could it be a coincidence that Craddock was blackmailing Jane Van Arke, who so dislikes Bartolla that she might wish to hurt her, while he is now victimizing my sister?”
“I have no idea,” Francesca said. “My mind is still spinning from learning all of this. But I do think we should interview Mrs. Van Arke as soon as possible.”
He glanced at his pocket watch. “This is a very good time to try. I doubt she has left the house yet for the day.”
Eagerness filled her. “Then let’s go.”
But he made no move to go. “There is more.”
“More?” Francesca had been about to rush out the front door, but she halted.
Bragg was grim. “Lucy’s husband was a prisoner at Fort Kendall, in 1890,” he said.
 
Francesca saw Bragg’s Daimler parked on the avenue. Beyond it was Central Park, which on this side of the city was mostly deserted, and eerily so. “I simply don’t understand,” she said.
He had his hand on her back, using a slight pressure to guide her down the walk. “He was erroneously incarcerated, Francesca, but he did do time before he escaped.”
“He escaped prison?” She halted, facing him.
Bragg nodded. “He was formally pardoned by the governor in 1899.”
She was reeling. “Her husband—”
“His name is Shoz.”
“Shoz—this must have something to do with him!”
“I am thinking so,” he said gravely. “Shoz is the kind of man to have enemies, and the fact that they were in prison together is simply too coincidental.”
They shared a look. Francesca felt as if someone had taken a plywood board and struck her with it. “So maybe this is not about blackmail,” she finally said. “Maybe it is about revenge.”
He nodded as he opened the side door of the Daimler for her, but she made no move to get in. “It is time for Lucy to come clean,” he remarked.
“She won’t,” Francesca said, feeling certain of it.
He smiled ruefully. “So you have already learned that she is more stubborn than you?”
Francesca almost smiled in return. “It is fairly obvious.”
“A trip to Fort Kendall is in order,” Bragg said. He gestured at the car. When she slid in, he handed her a pair of goggles and walked around the front of the motorcar.
Disturbed but also excited at the prospect of traveling up to the prison with him, she watched him crank it up. “Shall I try to speak with Lucy, or shall you?”
He glanced up as the engine roared to life. “You might have the opportunity tonight.”
She froze.
Guilt must have been written all over her face, because he said, approaching his side of the motorcar, “I am aware of your mother’s dinner party tonight.”
The one that was on account of Calder Hart, the one he was not invited to. Francesca did not know what to say. Bragg moved around the roadster and climbed into the driver’s seat. “Were you going to mention it to me?”
“I hadn’t even thought about it,” she lied nervously. “Mama refuses to let me off the hook, I must attend, and I do wish you were coming.”
“Calder is the catch about town, is he not?”
“Not for me!” she cried earnestly. “You know that!”
He suddenly sighed, the sound heavy. And he looked at her. “You know as well as I that life is hardly sugar candy and rainbows,” he said grimly.
Their gazes locked. Francesca recalled every single terrible word they had exchanged the night before. She gripped his hand impulsively. He returned the pressure of her palm
but did not speak, and she knew he was also thinking about their conversation of last night.
“I believe in happy endings,” she said softly. “I really do.”
He smiled a little. “I know you do,” he said.
It was brilliantly sunny—and still terribly cold out. Because of the sun, which was shining almost directly in her eyes, Francesca did not instantly recognize the man who stepped out from between two carriages, approaching them. Francesca felt Bragg stiffen, and then, as he paused before her car door, she recognized the man and became rigid, too.
It was Arthur Kurland, the obnoxious reporter from
The Sun
.
Francesca slipped her hand free of Bragg’s.
Kurland’s eyes seemed to follow her movement. Then he looked up from the stick shift between them and her lap, where her left hand now lay. “My, my. Imagine my surprise at finding you both here, at the Channings’.” He smiled, his hands in his pockets, shivering.
“We were just leaving,” Bragg said, pushing the stick into gear.
But Kurland did not move away from the roadster. “Surely you are working on another case. Or is this a social occasion, a pleasant Sunday afternoon drive?”
Francesca was filled with tension. She had the worst feeling that Kurland not only knew that she and Bragg were fond of each other, but he also knew about Bragg’s marital state.
“You are losing your ability to sniff out news,” Bragg said. “Yes, we are investigating a case. Francesca is with me as Miss Channing is affianced to her brother.”
“Did something happen to Miss Channing?” Kurland asked, wide-eyed with interest.
“Her studio was broken into,” Bragg said. “Good day, Kurland.” He drove away from the curb.
Francesca twisted to watch Kurland, who stood at the curb, scribbling on a notepad. She saw him turn and hurry toward the Channing house.
She was filled with dread. She turned, facing Bragg. “He saw us holding hands.”
Bragg was grim. “You are right.”
 
 
The Van Arke home was in the Georgian style and probably dated to the first decades after the last turn of the century. Francesca and Bragg hurried up the walk, where he used the door’s bell. Francesca studied him and knew he was still disturbed by everything that had transpired last night.
The door was opened, and a manservant stood there. Bragg introduced them both, presenting himself in his official capacity. They were ushered inside and told that Mrs. Van Arke would be told that they were waiting. No mention was made of Mr. Van Arke.
The parlor was pleasant. One glance told Francesca that the Count Benevente’s daughter was well-to-do but not wealthy. She was a step above most gentry, not more.
“Isn’t Bartolla very wealthy?” Francesca asked Bragg in a whisper.
“It seems so.”
“Did the count—Mrs. Van Arke’s father—leave her everything?”
“I do not know. Appearances can be deceiving,” he returned softly.
She nodded and then turned as steps and rustling silk could be heard behind her.
An attractive woman with olive skin and dark blond hair stood on the threshold, smiling uncertainly and perhaps even anxiously. “Commissioner?”
Bragg hurried forward. “Mrs. Van Arke, thank you very much for taking the time to see myself and Miss Cahill.”
She extracted her hand from his and glanced at Francesca, clearly confused. “It is hardly common for me to have the police commissioner of this city in my salon,” she said in a husky voice. Although she was an Italian, the only accent that was discernible was a British one, which told Francesca that she had been educated in Great Britain. Francesca thought that she was in her early thirties.
“And I am afraid we are here on official police business,” Bragg said.
Mrs. Van Arke smiled, and it was strained. She folded her
arms across her ample bosom but did not move into the room.
When she did not ask what that business was, Bragg glanced at Francesca, then said, “When was the last time you were in contact with Joseph Craddock?”
Her expression did not change. “I beg your pardon?”
He repeated the question while Francesca wondered at her response.
“I am afraid I do not know who you are talking about,” she said tersely.
“Perhaps your memory is merely escaping you,” Bragg said kindly. Francesca felt certain that not only did Mrs. Van Arke recall Craddock, but she also wasn’t all that surprised by their questions about him. “I do believe a Jane Van Arke of Number Two-fifty Fifth Avenue filed a complaint against Joseph Craddock on April the eighth, 1900,” he said.
She stared. And then, dropping her eyes, she said, “You are referring to something in my past. I made a mistake.”
“Yes, for you dropped the complaint one month later,” Bragg said.
Jane Van Arke went to the pale blue silk sofa, which almost matched her dress, where she sat down. “I told you, it was a mistake.”
Bragg moved to the sofa. “Mrs. Van Arke, please help us. We are afraid that another woman is currently in a similar predicament.”
She paled. “There is another young woman … He is blackmailing a young woman?”
“A young woman with three small children,” Francesca said gravely, even though they weren’t certain. “Worse, he has accosted her.”
“I have two sons,” Jane Van Arke suddenly said. She stood, wringing her hands. “They are twelve and fourteen now, but then they were two years younger, and he made it very clear he would harm them if I did not simply pay him off and drop my complaint.”
Bragg laid his palm on her shoulder. “Thank you, Mrs. Van Arke. Will you give us a complete statement?”
She turned wide eyes upon him. “I don’t know.”
“It will be classified. He will never know you were the one to give us our information,” Bragg said.
She hesitated, darted a look at Francesca, and said, “There is nothing more to say.”
Francesca said, “Mrs. Van Arke? You are clearly afraid of Craddock. Does this mean that you have not seen him in two years?”
She hesitated again. Then she shook her head.
“When was the last time you saw him?” Francesca asked softly but persistently.
She sighed and sat abruptly down. “I don’t know.” She did not look at either of them now.
Francesca met Bragg’s stare. The woman was lying—or hiding something.
“It would be very helpful if you could tell us,” Bragg said.
“I don’t know!” She stood. “He is a terrible man. Evil. He has no conscience. I was afraid for my sons. I do not want him back in my life!”
“Is he still extorting money from you?” Bragg asked.
She stared at him, then shook her head.
Francesca had the awful feeling that he was. “Mrs. Van Arke? Do you know who would want to hurt Bartolla Benevente?”
Jane Van Arke whirled. “I beg your pardon?”
“We think your stepmother might be in danger,” Francesca said.
Jane Van Arke flushed. “I see. Craddock is blackmailing her!”
Francesca looked at Bragg. Their gazes locked. Why hadn’t they considered this possibility? Francesca went to the Italian woman and put her hand on her arm. “Poor Bartolla,” she said, hoping to gain a response from the Italian woman.
Jane Van Arke gave her an incredulous look. “She is merely getting what she deserves.”

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