Edison Effect, The: A Professor Bradshaw Mystery (The Edison Effect) (13 page)

“What, no ‘atta boy’?”

“Atta boy, what else did you learn last night?”

“Don’t take it out on me, Ben. Just tell me what’s got you so mad. Is Mrs. Doyle seriously hurt?”

“Yes. And I should have known it was coming.”

“How the hell could you have known?”

Bradshaw held up the ribbon.

“Oh. She got a letter, too?”

His answer was to continue his examination of the ribbon.

Henry pulled up a chair. “Well, I learned old Vernon Doyle was one mighty fine drinker. His favorite haunt was the Considine on Washington, and three times a week, the days depending on his work schedule, he could be found having a jolly good time. I wish more drunks were like him, happy in their cups instead of mean son of a—well, you know. Everyone was his friend when he was drinking, but he didn’t gamble or slip into a box with a gal. He had what you might call superstitions. He thought a man only had so much luck assigned him in life and he feared wasting it on cards, plus his brother died of a particularly gruesome strain of something a man dreads, so he shied away from communal women for the most part. It’s said he did occasionally visit the Folly. They’ve got a doc on staff and the girls are guaranteed safe or your money back.”

Bradshaw grunted.

Henry said, “Two bucks don’t buy a cure. Anyway, it’s generally believed that Doyle’s claim to knowing Oscar Daulton’s secret is a crock, but I say generally because a few men weren’t so sure. Doyle had hired Jake Galloway to dive, and Jake doesn’t come cheap. Some say that if Doyle was spending a lot of money, there had to be something behind it because he didn’t believe in wasting luck gambling. With Doyle dead, a conspiracy theory is growing and Doyle’s electrical genius is growing by the minute.”

“Doyle knew nothing. He boasted to get attention, it was his way. And he likely didn’t consider money spent on dives to be wasted. Daulton’s invention is down there somewhere, it’s a fact. Somebody will eventually find it, and he wanted to be that someone. His desire for Daulton’s box, and his search for it, in no way indicate he had the knowledge of how it worked.”

“Well, he was taking a gamble for a man who didn’t like such things.”

“Luck’s influence can be greatly reduced through science and method.”

Science and method were exactly what Bradshaw intended to use to find Daulton’s box. He was nearly done assembling his locating system, and when he tossed it from the ferry in the reenactment, he hoped it didn’t mark a spot too deep for divers to search.

A pattern of letters on the ribbon grabbed his full attention. D-o-y. He peered closely, trying to decode the layered letters that followed. He soon knew he was looking at the ribbon that had been used to type the luring letter to Mrs. Doyle. He leaned his elbow on his desk and dropped his face in his hand. He should have seen it.

***

Mrs. Prouty and Justin were in the kitchen when he arrived home, having a bedtime snack. Justin didn’t look up from his gingerbread. Bradshaw reached into his jacket pocket and found the mechanical dog he’d intended for a stocking gift and placed it before Justin with the key. The boy’s face didn’t light up as he’d hoped, but he did pick up the key and give the mechanics of the toy a winding. The internal spring and gears whined and hummed and sent the dog walking stiff-legged.

Mrs. Prouty said, “I didn’t hear a thank-you to your father, young man.”

In a small polite voice, Justin said, “Thank you.” He got up and fetched the dog from the other end of the table and gave it another wind.

“It seems the spirit of Christmas has visited you, Professor,” Mrs. Prouty said with an uncharacteristic blush. He feared for a moment she’d learned about his venture into the jewelry store and sprint up the hill, possessed by the spirit of Vernon Doyle, but then he recalled the music box. She patted his hand, and said quietly, “You shouldn’t have. But thank you.”

Justin didn’t question their exchange, and Bradshaw found that disturbing. The boy was perpetually curious. He simply picked up the little dog, its legs still moving with a whir of gears, and said, “’Night.”

Bradshaw watched him go, heard his feet pad softly up the stairs and his bedroom door click closed. He feared his son’s sadness was due to missing Missouri. His devotion to Missouri was not purely that of a child for a mother figure. He also loved her with the innocent crush of a boy for a girl. And because she was not always there, he never took her for granted, and he never resisted her guidance, or became angry when she told him to complete a chore. That would change if they married. Or would it? When a boy got the mother of his dreams at the age of ten and a half, did he appreciate her more than a child who had always had a loving mother? Bradshaw had never gazed with rapt adoration at his own mother, he knew. He’d loved her, he loved her still, with the inner certainty of a child, so secure in his parents’ love he was able to move to the other side of the country, leaving them behind. He thought of Justin doing the same to him some day, and he wondered at the pang of betrayal he felt. If his parents felt that way, they’d not let on. They’d sent him and their grandson off with best wishes and a few batted-away tears.

Mrs. Prouty said, “I hope he’s not coming down with something.”

But Bradshaw did. He knew it was a selfish and horrible thought for a father to have, but he’d prefer that Justin’s behavior implied an oncoming cold rather than misery over Missouri’s delayed homecoming. What if Missouri never came home, not in the way Justin wanted? Not in the way they both wanted? How would either of them recover from that?

“I brought the nativity scene down from attic, Professor. It’s in the parlor.”

He nodded and got to his feet. He found the parlor warmed by a small fire in the hearth and the mantle prepared for the scene with a simple runner of burlap. From the storage box he first removed the wooden stable he’d made himself at the age of twelve from scraps of lumber and twigs. His parents had sent him the stable and a new set of ceramic statues as a gift the first year he and Justin moved to Seattle. They were identical to the ones he’d grown up with. Next he unwrapped the ox, the lamb, and the donkey. He placed them inside the stable, nestled near the walls. Next came Joseph with his staff, then the baby Jesus in his manger, positioned in the center. But where was Mary? He dug carefully through the box, finding the sack of decorative straw, and the angel, which he hung from the peak of the stable. He looked at the little scene, so incomplete without Mary. Without the mother. Just the father and child. A lump rose in his throat. He dug again into the box, gently exploring the packing, and near the bottom he felt her. He unwrapped the little statue of the kneeling figure dressed in blue and white, her hands crossed over her heart, and he set her where she belonged.

Chapter Fifteen

A chorus of young voices rose from the schoolroom below, filling the chapel with angelic hymns. The scent of incense lingered from Early Mass. Bradshaw sat in the front pew, breathing in the comforting scent. The sense of calm he always felt when alone in a church was there, surrounding him, but it did not fully release the tightness gripping his heart.

Reverend Father McGuinness, garbed in his simple Jesuit black robe, appeared from the sacristy, and Bradshaw rose, following him out a side door to a neat little office, the white plaster walls bare of all but a crucifix. He was invited to sit. He sat.

“If you didn’t come to me soon, I was going to summon you,” said Father. “I’ve heard of your changed relationship with your friend Henry’s niece. Miss Missouri Fremont? I trust that is what you have come to see me about this morning?” His voice was gentle but stern. A tone Bradshaw had often taken with Justin.

“There has been nothing improper, Father.”

“Hasn’t there? Impropriety has many forms. One need not perform an act, one need only cast a look that holds a promise you cannot deliver.”

Bradshaw dropped his eyes to his hands. He hadn’t expected such a fast reprimand.

“Have I ever seen Miss Fremont in church?”

“She’s not in Seattle at present. She’s attending the Homeopathic Medical College in Pennsylvania.” It was a stall, of course, and not really addressing Father McGuinness’ comment. It also seemed a lie to leave out the fact that at this moment she wasn’t in Pennsylvania but on her way to North Carolina to join a young man who was in all likelihood in love with her.

Father McGuinness cocked his head patiently, his fingers steepled.

Bradshaw said, “Miss Fremont is not a member of our church, or any church.”

“Is she an atheist? A freethinker?”

“With her, it’s more a matter of vocabulary.” A rose by any other name, he thought.

“What does that mean, Professor? Is she a heretic, denying one or more Catholic doctrines? Or a full apostasy from the faith? Is she a believer in Christianity or has she abandoned it completely?”

“I don’t really know. She has a unique way of seeing things.”

“Things? You mean God? Religion?”

“Everything. She sees connections between—everything.” He remembered her kneeling in his flowerbeds when she first arrived in Seattle, lovingly turning over the soil and nurturing the lily-of-the-valley. It was then she first mentioned the cycle of life, the importance of understanding the cycle in connection with all living things, and it had been the first time he’d applied the scientific principle of the conservation of energy to the human soul. His mind had awakened, as had his fear that perhaps his vision of the world was obscured by self-imposed blinders.

“If she has not embraced a respected form of Christianity there is no use in discussing this further, Professor.” Though the words were spoken gently, they were final, fatal.

Bradshaw hastily said, “She was baptized a Catholic.” But he knew he sounded childish and defensive.

Father McGuinness sat silently, waiting. Bradshaw had nothing more to offer.

“Does she intend to return to the Catholic faith?”

“I—no.”

“She is not a young woman of our faith, practicing any Christian faith, and yet you are courting her?”

“We’ve discussed the possibility of a future together. We understand our differences might be insurmountable, but we—I could no longer deny my feelings for her.”

“And what are those feelings?”

He opened his mouth to speak, but found his voice choked. He felt his face tremble, and he pressed his mouth tight. He cleared his throat and tried again. “I love her.” His words emerged hoarsely, and his eyes stung with tears that he blinked away. He looked everywhere but at the priest as he composed himself.

“My son, what are you hoping to hear from me?”

A miracle, Bradshaw thought. But after clearing his throat again, he said, “That there is some way we can marry.”

“Of course there’s a way. You can have a civil wedding, you can find a minister of some other religion to join you. I can’t stop you from marrying. What you are truly asking is how you can marry without committing a grievous sin and without risking excommunication.”

“Yes.”

“If you believed I had a solution, you would have come to me months ago, Professor. You know the answer as well as I.”

“I thought there might be some exception. A special dispensation. Mixed marriages are sometimes allowed.”

“If she were of another Christian faith, and if she were to agree to raise any children in the Catholic faith, then a dispensation might be possible. Marriage to a heretic, Professor Bradshaw, is impossible.”

“My son loves her, too.”

“More’s the pity, Professor. And I must say I’m disappointed in you. It’s one thing to allow your affections to be inappropriately diverted, but to place your son in such a position is cruel.”

“I didn’t, not intentionally. He’s been fond of her from the first moment he met her.” As had he. They’d both been entranced the moment he opened the door to her. “She’s been wonderful for him. He trusts her. He confides in her. Besides Mrs. Prouty, she’s the closest thing to a mother he’s ever known.”

“Children are loving and trusting by nature, but it’s your job as a parent to protect him from things he can’t yet understand. A close relationship with a pagan cannot be healthy for a boy who has only recently entered the age of reason.”

“I grant you her beliefs don’t have the structure of a religion, Father, but she’s not a pagan. And her influence on my son is only to the good. She teaches him about respect for nature, and about generosity, and kindness.”

“Which makes it all the more difficult for the boy to understand that in turning away from God she is choosing to live a sinful life. Miss Fremont should be removed from the boy’s life as gently, and quickly, as possible.”

A tightness gripped Bradshaw’s throat and chest. He tilted his head back, his eyes on the ceiling. He swallowed and tried to breathe. When he lowered his chin, he found the priest still watching him with pitying eyes, his fingers steepled.

Bradshaw said firmly, “I cannot remove Miss Fremont from my son’s life. To do so would break his heart.”

“Hearts are mortal, Professor. Souls are eternal and far more fragile.”

Bradshaw got to his feet and marched to the window, clenching his fists.

“Does she cause you to doubt your faith?”

“Not my faith. But I admit I question some rules of the Church.”

“Our rules were not chosen at random, Professor. They were given, or inspired, by a higher power, to help us stay true to our faith. We fast on Fridays not on a whim but because our natures tend toward greed and we require the regular habit of self-discipline. It is not sinful to eat meat on Fridays, it is sinful to show blatant disrespect to the Church. The rules established by the Church over the past nineteen hundred years provide the structure man needs to stay faithful and pure of heart. Our regimented ways, if you will, are not in themselves right or wrong, but they help us choose right from wrong. You are a father. I know you understand what I’m saying.”

“I have always found comfort in the structure and traditions of the Church. But Miss Fremont doesn’t require it. She trusts an inner guidance. I trust her inner guidance. We both understand this difference between us, and if her approach to her spiritual life doesn’t alter mine, then what is the harm?”

“The differences between your approaches, as you call it, already have you doubting and attempting to defy Church law, Professor. And there are other differences between you, are there not? She is younger, of course, but I don’t hold that as necessarily a barrier toward marital harmony. But is she conservative like you? A woman of routine? A woman who will find contentment in the home, nurturing her family? She is off studying homeopathy you say, and that she intends to have a career. Where does that leave you? What of future children? Is there anything you have in common, Professor?”

“Besides our love for my son? No. We have little in common.” Yet as he said it, he didn’t wholly believe it. On the surface it was true, but there lurked the possibility that deep down they agreed on many things. Only—only he feared letting go of what he believed of the world to discover for sure. And she knew that. When he looked into her eyes, he felt understood. Not judged or pitied, but understood. She’d given him time. Two entire years before her patience with him wore thin. Her ultimatum at the ocean this summer had made him face at last not just the truth of his feelings for her but his feelings toward many things. Even his coming here now and speaking to Father McGuinness had as much to do about his coming to terms with himself than an attempt to find a way to marry Missouri. She was the excuse, but this self-evaluation was a long time coming. He didn’t know if such an admission would hurt or help his position with the priest, so he remained silent. But he loathed being silent. He’d been clinging to silence, to exclusion, to reticence as a form of protection for over a decade, and he was choking on it. Yet to open up now, completely, could eradicate any chance he had of convincing the priest to condone his marrying Missouri. And he wasn’t ready to abandon the Church.

Father asked, “What is that common expression? Opposites attract? Do you believe that?”

“Only when it comes to magnetism.”

“Indeed! I recall that demonstration you gave, Professor, at the university. But when it comes to people, truly opposing beliefs cannot sustain a lasting relationship. Differences must be of the complementary sort, not the conflicting. If one of you is thrifty and the other a spendthrift, together you might find balance.”

And if one of us clings to routine and tradition because it feels safe, yet is pulled by the free spirit of the other, wondering if maybe there were an entirely different way to see the world?

“The opposing beliefs between you and Miss Fremont, I fear, will not lead to harmony but to you renouncing your faith and losing your way. You have your son to consider, Professor. He is downstairs now being educated, learning about mathematics and grammar and God. You’ve done well by him so far, giving him the guidance and structure all children need. In a few years, he will need such guidance all the more as he grows and begins to make decisions on his own, and to ask questions of the world. His mother abandoned him. I know you will never do so.”

Of course he never would abandon Justin. Routine and tradition had been his salvation these past ten years, and it had provided Justin a secure home. And while he’d delayed this conversation about marriage with Father McGuinness, he had come to him upon his return from the ocean, where Justin had inadvertently learned about his mother’s suicide. Not the manner of her death, but the fact that she had caused it. Bradshaw had been concerned Justin would dwell on the thought. Father had offered to speak to Justin, to explain the sin of suicide, but Bradshaw had said no. He didn’t want the topic brought up; he simply wanted his teachers aware. He couldn’t stomach the idea of Justin being told his mother had committed a mortal sin and was now in Hell. He didn’t believe that himself, not anymore. At the ocean, he’d come to terms with what his wife had done, and he’d forgiven her.

He sensed Father McGuinness was studying him.

“If I’m not mistaken,” Father said, “you’ve lost weight.”

“My appetite has been sporadic.”

“A war wages within you, Professor, and you know it is not a battle I can determine for you. I would like to say ‘Go in peace,’ but it is more suiting that I say ‘Go toward peace.’ Find a place of solitude, be still within yourself, and pray. When you cease fighting and accept the right path, your appetite will return.”