Murder in a mill town (22 page)

It was two sheets crushed up together, both neatly inked on engraved vellum bearing the heading
Consent for Post-mortem Examination of Human Remains
. The letter granting permission for Virgil’s autopsy was signed
Clement Hines
. That for Bridie was unsigned.

The doorknob rattled.

Nell folded up the letters and stuffed them in her chatelaine as Will returned the wastebasket to its former position. They both stood as Colin Cook reentered the room.

“Setting off now, are you?” the detective asked.

“Yes, you’ve been most helpful.” Will said as he held out his hand. “If there’s ever anything I can do for you, you mustn’t hesitate to ask.”

“Just let me know how it all turns out,” Cook said. “I hope you’re right about your brother’s innocence—for your sake, not his. My gut tells me nothing’s gonna save that one in the long run.”

“It won’t be because I didn’t try,” Will said.

*   *   *

“What happened to Harry’s face?” Nell asked Will as they stood beneath a street lamp in front of City Hall trying to hail another hack.

“He said it was a mishap resulting from an overindulgence in absinthe.” Will stepped off the curb to scrutinize the approaching vehicles.

“Because that’s what you told him to say. You did that to him. You went to see him last night and... Was it an actual fistfight, or...?”

He sighed, his back to her. “Not a fair one, I suppose. Harry’s not very good at that sort of thing. Another gap in his tutelage for which I am ultimately responsible.”

She waited.

Presently he turned to face her, his expression grave. “Some lessons need to be seared in place with pain. It’s the only way some people can learn.”

“You were punishing him for what he did to me?”

“How could I not?” He looked down, rubbed his neck, met her gaze. “I, uh, I told him I’ll break both his arms if he ever touches you again, or threatens to. A compound fracture of each radius. Not too much effort on my part if I have a good club or mallet or some such, but the experience would be memorable, I should think.”

“Yes, I should think it would.”

He spied a hack then, and flagged it down. Nell smiled as he handed her into it.

“Finally,” Nell muttered when the steeple bells started pealing, signaling the end of Mass. She and Will had been killing time on the front steps of Charlestown’s Immaculate Conception Church for over half an hour, waiting for Bridie Sullivan’s parents, who worshipped here, to step outside.

This was the first time since Nell had come to work for the Hewitts that she’d had the middle of a Sunday morning to herself. Her usual practice was to attend the six o’clock Mass at St. Stephen’s, then watch Gracie while Nurse Parrish went to King’s Chapel with the Hewitts, after which she was left to her own devices. But last night, after returning home from City Hall, she’d asked Viola for the entire day off, explaining that she had the opportunity to uncover new information about the death of Bridie Sullivan. Horrified by the double murder, and eager to provide Bridie’s mother with any information she could, Viola had readily agreed.

Nell had attended early Mass as usual this morning, having arranged to meet Will afterward for their drive north through Charlestown to Salem. But as she was returning to her seat after receiving Communion, she noticed him sitting in the very last pew in his ubiquitous black coat and vest, his low-crowned stovepipe on his lap, quietly taking in the proceedings. He’d smiled at her, but she’d been too rattled by his presence there to smile back.

“Here they come,” Will said as the front door of the modest brick church swung open. Parishioners filed out into the morning sunshine, all in their Sunday best, be it silk frocks and morning coats or patched calico and freshly boiled shirts. “You don’t see them?” he asked as the procession started to thin; having met the Fallons, it was up to Nell to point them out.

She shook her head, wondering where they would be at this hour on a Sunday morning, if not at Mass—although it
had
been less than twenty-four hours since the discovery of their daughter’s body.

“Perhaps,” Nell said, “Mrs. Fallon was too distraught to come to...” A familiar face appeared among the departing congregants—
two
familiar faces, although they weren’t those of the Fallons. They were young and flaxen-haired, the woman petite, the man big and slow-moving. “Evie?” Nell called out. What was the brother’s name? Ah, yes... “Luther?”

Evie stared at Nell for a moment before recognition lit her eyes. She approached tentatively, her brother hovering over her like a pet bear. “You’re the artist lady from the mill.”

“That’s right—Nell Sweeney.” Nell introduced the siblings to Will, who lifted his hat and bowed to Evie while uttering some pleasantry. She looked away, her throat reddening, as if this were the first time a man had ever greeted her properly, which perhaps it was.

Luther stared at Will, slack-jawed. “You talk funny.”

Will responded as cordially as if he were conducting small talk at a dinner party. “I was brought up in England.”

“Is that near Boston?”

“Afraid not, no.”

Nell said, “Evie, do you happen to know what Mr. and Mrs. Fallon look like? Bridie Sullivan’s parents,” she added.

“I know who they are,” Evie said. “The mother, she came to the mill after Bridie was fired, askin’ about her. Terrible, what happened. Father Dunne told us at the beginning of Mass.”

“Bridie’s dead,” Luther said.

“Hush, Luther,” his sister murmured. “We all know that.”

“She was a bad girl.”

“I said hush,” Evie repeated, a little more stridently. “Don’t speak ill of the dead.”

“Did you notice whether they were in church this morning?” Nell asked.

“Oh, sure. Mrs. Fallon, she’s there every week. Mr. Fallon, too, usually. They both came today.”

“Do you have any idea where they are now?” Nell asked.

“I seen ‘em headin’ into Father Dunne’s office after Mass, with some fella. Someone said they was meeting with Father to plan the funeral, and that the other fella was Bridie’s husband, but...”

“But what?”

“That can’t be...can it? She never wore no wedding ring, and she was... She sure didn’t act married.”

“Good riddance...” Luther shook his big head like a horse trying to loosen its bit. “Bridie was bad.”

Evie opened her mouth to chastise him, but before she could, Will asked, “Why do you say that, Luther?”

Luther looked at his sister, then at Will, and then he started scratching his big, unkempt head. “Couple reasons...”

“What’s one?”

“She was tryin’ to make Mr. Harry give her money.”

“Evie told you about the blackmail?” Nell asked.

Evie said, “He don’t know that word.”

“It’s like stealin’, to make somebody give you money,” Luther said.

“What was the other reason Bridie was bad?” Nell asked him.

He ducked his head. “I’m not s’posed to say.”

Nell said, “Was it because of...what she did with men?”

“That’s right,” Evie said. “But he don’t understand—“

“Not them others, just Mr. Harry,” Luther said. “It’s what she done with Mr. Harry, ‘cause him an’ Evie’s fixin’ to get hitched.”

Evie blushed violently, her eyes like silver dollars. “Luther!” She slapped his arm. “Why would you say that?” She wouldn’t meet Nell’s gaze, or Will’s. “He don’t know what he’s sayin’. He’s simple. Been that way since—“

“Am not!” Luther exclaimed. “And I do so know what I’m sayin’. You said yourself you and him was gonna get—”

“I didn’t mean it,” Evie said, her chin quivering, her too-bright eyes flitting between Nell and Will. “Dog-gonnit, Luther...”

“You said ‘good riddance’ when Father said they found Bridie dead. You whispered it, but I heard you.”

“I did not!” Evie gasped, her eyes shimmering.

“You did so. I know what that means, ‘good riddance.’ It means you’re glad she’s—”

“You just hush!” Evie grabbed a fistful of her brother’s coat sleeve and started tugging him away. “We got to go. He don’t know what he’s sayin’. He makes stuff up sometimes.”

They left quickly, little Evie hauling the big man behind her like a child walking some huge, lumbering pet, Luther whining all the while.

“An unrequited infatuation?” Will asked as he and Nell watched them disappear around the corner.

“Apparently. She gets teased about it at the mill. It upsets Luther. He seems to be very protective of her. He almost killed a man last year for being rude to her.”

“My word.” Will’s gaze shifted. “Nell... Is that them?”

Nell turned to see Mr. and Mrs. Fallon and a brawny young man with a shock of thick, sandy hair—Bridie’s husband Jimmy Sullivan, presumably—coming down the church’s front walk. “That’s them.” Except for Mrs. Fallon’s hat—an old-fashioned black coal-scuttle bonnet—the couple appeared to be wearing the same clothes they’d worn for their audience with Viola last week, dyed black. Mrs. Fallon’s eyes were glazed, her nose bright red. “This won’t be easy,” Nell murmured.

“You’re good with people,” Will said as he took her arm and walked her toward them.

“Good morning,” Nell said.

Mrs. Fallon and the two men stopped walking. “Miss...Sweeney, is it?”

“That’s right.” She introduced Will; they introduced Jimmy Sullivan, who stood with his hands in his pockets, looking distracted, or perhaps just bored. He wasn’t a tall man, but his arm muscles stretched the seams of his faded pea jacket. Although nominally handsome, his nose was bulky and dented, and he had a bruise over his right eye that was just starting to turn greenish; it was about five or six days old.

Nell said, “I can’t tell you how sorry I am about your daughter. I was praying I’d find her alive. Please accept my most heartfelt condolences.”

Mrs. Fallon sniffed, nodded. “You’re a good girl. You tried. She’s in the arms of the Lord now.”

Not knowing how to broach the subject diplomatically, Nell said, “The reason we’re here, Mrs. Fallon, is that...well...”

“Call me Moira—please.”

“Moira...I know you were asked yesterday to approve a post-mortem examination of Bridie’s remains. You chose not to sign the letter of consent, and whereas I understand that decision, I must ask you to reconsider.”

“I...I don’t know,” she began. “My husband thinks—“

“We know who done it,” Mr. Fallon said. “What’s the point of butcherin’ the poor girl like a side of beef?”

The poor girl?
That was quite a turnaround from how he’d spoken of her just four days ago.
She was paintin’ on the lip rouge when she was still in short skirts, that one. Weren’t no better than she ought to be, right from the get-go.

“An autopsy isn’t like that, I promise you,” Will said. “It’s a methodical operation, and one which can yield a great deal of useful information. And afterward, you won’t even be able to tell that it was done.”

Liam Fallon said, “You’re talkin’ like it’s gonna happen, but we ain’t signed that letter, and we ain’t about to. There ain’t no reason for it, that I can see.”

“There’s a good chance Virgil Hines wasn’t the murderer,” Nell said. “Wouldn’t you like to find out what really happened?”

“Will it make her any less dead?” Mr. Fallon asked.

“If she were my daughter,” Will said, “I’d want to know for sure how she died, and by whose hand. This is your one and only chance to find out. Once she’s buried, the opportunity is lost.”

“Oh, dear.” Moira Fallon turned to her son-in-law. “You’re her husband, Jimmy. What do you think?”

“He ain’t got no say in this,” Mr. Fallon protested. “He don’t have no husbandly rights no more. He washed his hands of her last Spring.”

With a sneer at his father-in-law, Jimmy said, “I was gonna back you up, old man. Don’t sit right with me, cutting her open and scoopin’ out her insides. But you know what? You’re right. It ain’t none of my concern no more, so you can go ahead and make your stand on your own.” Turning away, he said, “I got some fish to catch.”

Moira rushed over and embraced him, murmuring things Nell couldn’t quite hear. Clearly uncomfortable with this display, he patted her back once, then finally succeeded in squirming out of her arms. He turned and walked away, his hands still in his pockets.

“I don’t know, Miss Sweeney...” Moira began.

“Nell—please.”

“Nell... My poor Bridie, she’s already been...” Her voice caught. “She’s been through so much. The idea of her being cut open like that...”

Nell said, “I promise you, Moira, it will be done with the utmost respect. Dr. Hewitt will do it himself, and I’ll be there. I’ll make sure Bridie is treated right.”

“You’ll be there?” she asked, her eyes lighting.

“Yes, I’ll be assisting Dr. Hewitt. I’ve done this sort of thing before—I was trained as a nurse once. I’m a Catholic, too, you know. I’ll say a proper prayer before we start.”