The Gilded Hour (80 page)

The word that came to mind was
comely
: even features, fine skin, and she was perfectly groomed and dressed for her station, which was to say her clothing was of good fabric, expertly tailored, without ornament or lace. Not a speck of dust or a pulled thread to be seen.

He asked a few questions and she answered without hesitation or posturing so that by the time they walked into the detective squad room he knew the basics: Elizabeth Imhoff, called Lizzy; she was twenty-five years
old, born in the servants’ quarters of the Winthrops’ Provincetown estate to a kitchen maid. A family by-blow, which meant, she told him with little emotion, that she had just been fired by her half brother. She had known him all her life, and he sent her off without a kind word or a reference.

Her future was dark. Unless she had a beau waiting, a man who was ready to marry her and keep her, or she knew someone who would hire her to clerk in a shop, her options were limited. Women of Mamie Winthrop’s standing could and usually did bring maids over from France or England, but instead she had agreed to taking on a family embarrassment. He didn’t know what to make of that, but he would have to find out.

•   •   •

O
SCAR
WAS
WRITING
down his notes on the interview with Richard Crown of Brooklyn, who had identified their Jane Doe as his wife, Catherine, and who had gone away to arrange for her burial looking himself close to the grave.

Now he sized up Lizzy Imhoff with a single glance, got up to greet her and shake her hand—she had a natural dignity, something Oscar appreciated—and showed her to a chair.

The squad room was noisy with overlapping conversations about the day’s biggest event: an especially stupid thief known to his colleagues as Half-Peck had tried to rob an opium den armed with a knife that wouldn’t cut butter. It hadn’t occurred to him that the owners might have weapons of their own, a lesson he had learned the hard way but would never need again from his slab in the city morgue.

“Let’s get a cup of coffee,” Oscar said, and set off without waiting for agreement. Jack brought up the rear, watching Elizabeth Imhoff walk, the way she held herself, the things she looked at. Her calm was unusual, almost off-putting, but he supposed she must still be in shock. Within a span of a few hours her life had been pulled out from under her.

Once they had settled into a booth at MacNeil’s, Jack saw that her hands shook a little. Not completely made of ice, then. It just remained to see how she responded to Oscar’s interrogation.

She listened to him ask the most general question possible—what had happened to Mrs. Winthrop—and returned with a question of her own.

“How far back do you want me to go?”

“Start by telling us a little about her,” Oscar said.

She gave a soft laugh. Shook her head in apology, and laughed again. “I’m sorry, the question just takes me by surprise. I thought everybody must know Mrs. Winthrop, given the way gossip moves. But I suppose that it’s a fairly small circle who would pay attention.”

“She had a reputation, then.”

“Yes,” said Miss Imhoff. “She had a reputation. The simplest description is probably all you need. She was spoiled, as most women of her class are. But she was also cruel.”

“To you?”

“To everybody. Her husband, her mother, her friends. If you can call them that. She was terrible to people on the street, to anyone who was less than beautiful, and to most beautiful people as well. And to the servants, all of us.” She paused. “I’m not sure how this is relevant to her death.”

“We’ll get to that. How did she treat you? Did you like working for her?”

“God, no.”

“Glad to be shut of her, then.”

“She’s dancing with the devil. The satisfaction I get from that idea will only last as long as my savings.”

Jack leaned back a little, twisted his head from side to side to relieve the start of a cramp, and waited.

After a full minute Oscar said, “You know, we can ask questions and drag it out of you bit by bit, or you can just tell us. Wait, have you had anything to eat today? You are looking peaked.” Without waiting for an answer he waved one of the MacNeil boys over.

“Scrambled eggs, toast, bacon. And keep the coffee coming.” Oscar tilted his head at Miss Imhoff, and she nodded.

•   •   •

W
HEN
SHE
HAD
some food in her stomach and her color had improved, she started talking. The story wasn’t all that unusual or surprising: Mrs. Winthrop had been free with her affections. Over the four years of her marriage there were five lovers that her lady’s maid knew about, simply because Mamie Winthrop took no pains to hide her indiscretions within the walls of her rooms.

“And the husband?” Oscar asked.

She gave a little half shrug. “They went for days without seeing each
other at all. They didn’t argue, they just . . .” She paused. “They didn’t seem to enjoy each other’s company.”

“So no children at all,” Jack said.

“A son, from her first marriage. She was a widow when she married Mr. Winthrop. The boy lives with his grandparents in Boston.”

Her tone never wavered as she told the rest of it, which said to Jack that she was very much in control of her emotions. As would be necessary in the Winthrop household. “Over four years I believe there was one miscarriage, and I know there were three operations. All of them were performed by the same doctor. I don’t know why she didn’t go back to him,” Miss Imhoff said. “He might have been out of town or retired, I suppose. She didn’t tell me.”

“Did you go with her to those earlier appointments?” Jack asked.

“The doctor came to her. People came to her.”

“And why not this time, do you know?”

“She left it almost too late. I think she was tempted this time, to have the baby and keep it, but then she decided she wanted to go to Greece. I know that because the modiste was called in and they spent an afternoon discussing the wardrobe she’d need in Athens in the spring. The next day she sent for the doctor to put things right, that’s the way she referred to the operation. She was not happy to find out he wasn’t available.”

“She discussed this with you.”

“Oh, no. She discussed it with her mother while I was in the room. She was furious when it turned out that none of the doctors she sent for would agree to do the operation. They all said it was too dangerous, past a certain point. But she wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

Jack concentrated on taking notes. In his experience it was best to leave the witness feeling as unobserved as possible.

“In the end she did find a doctor,” she went on. “She was put out that he wouldn’t come to the house, but he had the better of her, and she knew it.”

“Do you know what he charged, what his fees were?” Oscar asked this crucial question in a casual tone, but she hesitated.

“If you don’t know, just say so.”

She said, “I saw her counting out the bills before we left. It was more than three hundred dollars, but I don’t know how much exactly.”

Oscar prompted her, gently. “So you went with Mrs. Winthrop to her appointment.”

“Only part of the way. The doctor was very specific in his instructions, and she didn’t want to chance scaring him off. She was supposed to come alone.”

Jack said, “That strikes me as odd, that she’d take such a chance. It could have been a trap of some kind.”

Miss Imhoff’s expression was almost amused. “She took a pistol with her. She grew up with guns, apparently. Her father taught her to shoot when she was a child.”

Not that it did her any good,
Jack thought.

“Do you know how she found this doctor?”

It was a crucial question, and the answer was disappointing. “I assume she got his name from one of her friends. Rich women trade in information.”

Jack took down the essentials as she reconstructed the day for them:

At eight in the morning they left the house, in Mrs. Winthrop’s personal carriage, with just the driver, a family retainer who was more than seventy. On the way Mrs. Winthrop had talked to her about a gown she wanted to wear to dinner the following weekend.

“She thought she’d be able to attend a dinner?” Oscar sounded surprised.

“Well, yes,” the young woman said. “She was thinking this time would be like the last, and the time before that. It never occurred to her that it might go wrong.”

“And where did the carriage take you?”

She said, “This is a little odd to admit, but I don’t know the city very well, though I’ve been here since I was very little. We’re not allowed to wander. I can describe the place the carriage stopped, if that will help. There was an elevated train station across from a day market, and a large courthouse just behind that. Kitty-corner from the market there’s a little coffee shop. She gave me a dollar and told me to wait there, and then she walked away. Two hours later when she hadn’t come back yet I was getting worried. Then I realized that the carriage had left. For a minute I thought Mrs. Winthrop had gone to a lot of trouble to be rid of me, but then the
carriage came around the corner. I’m guessing she asked Cullen to meet her on a different corner at a different time, but I never got the chance to ask her.”

“We’ll talk to the driver. Cullen, you say.”

She nodded, turned her face away to clear her throat.

Jack asked, “When you got into the carriage, what was your first impression? Do you think she was under the influence of some drug or other?”

“She stank of laudanum,” Miss Imhoff said. “So I think that’s a fair guess.” Her tone was clipped, almost cold.

“Did you happen to see where she went—in what direction she went when she left you?”

“No. To be truthful I wasn’t all that concerned. Not until I saw the condition she was in afterward. As soon as we got home she took some laudanum and then went straight to bed. Gave me strict orders, she was not to be disturbed for any reason. At five o’clock I was to bring a tea tray, but I should come in and put it down silently, within reach, and then leave again.”

“And did it happen like that?”

She shook her head. “At five I brought the tray in, but she was in the lavatory. I could hear her retching. I waited a bit to see if she’d call for help, but she didn’t. I went back in about two hours later, to get the tray and bring fresh towels.”

She stopped and studied her hands for a moment.

“I’m not sure how to describe the rest.”

“In as much detail as you can manage,” Oscar said.

Another minute passed. She cleared her throat, and then she started, more slowly. “She was barely conscious when I came back. The bed was bloody, and there was a very high, keen smell. Like a wound gone bad. She had gotten sick again, but right there in bed. So I said I would call for her doctor, and she woke up then and said no, it would pass. She’d be recovered by morning.”

“Do you think she believed that?”

The aloof expression she had maintained for so long began to slip. She swallowed visibly and shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“What happened next?”

“Nothing. She let me stay. She wanted laudanum, and I gave her as
much as I thought was safe. Then I lied and said the bottle was empty. She let me change the bedsheets”—another difficult swallow—“but she kept bleeding and she passed a lot of . . . I never imagined that the human body could produce such—” She shook her head.

“That’s enough, I think, Miss Imhoff. Did anybody come to see her? Her mother, her husband?”

“Not that evening. Not until the next morning when I sent for the doctor. She wouldn’t respond to me, and I felt I had no choice. Things moved very quickly after that. Her mother sent word to wake Mr. Winthrop—his rooms are on the other side of the house—and he came in just as the doctor arrived. He sent me out and told me to collect my things and be gone or he’d have me arrested.”

She looked directly at Oscar, the question plain on her face.

“You’ve committed no crime,” he said. “There’s just one more thing we need from you for the time being. We’ll take a short drive, and after that if you like I can introduce you to a Mrs. Adams. She has a boardinghouse for ladies, very reputable and well kept. No doubt you’ll sleep for twelve hours after the day you’ve had.”

Oscar presented himself to the world as gruff, no-nonsense, unsentimental, iron fisted, but he was also generous and protective with people who were in trouble they had not earned. The wonder of it was that he had not lost those traits after so many years on the job. Jack hoped he could only do half as well over time.

•   •   •

H
E
TOOK
O
SCAR
home to Weeds for some supper and a quiet place to talk over the day. Coming in through the stable—empty, as they kept no horse or carriage—they stepped out into the garden and Oscar stopped.

“Well, look here,” he said, spreading out his arms and turning. A dancing bear.

“Now look at this. I could live right here, out in the open.”

Jack was pleased with the garden, though he hadn’t had much of an opportunity to sit in it.

“Mr. Lee and my father put their heads together. They sent three wagons of earth and plants, conscripted the cousins, and this is the result.”

They turned at the sound of the rear door, to see Anna standing there.
She looked a little sleepy, a pillow crease in one cheek, her hair escaping its pins.

“I expect you spend most of your time indoors,” Oscar said under his breath, and Jack elbowed him, hard.

•   •   •

M
RS
. C
ABOT
SERVED
her ragout of pork cooked in port with apples and prunes. Anna had to smile at Oscar’s expression, as if he could not believe his good fortune.

“Mrs. Cabot kept house for a family who employed a French cook,” Anna told him. “This must be one of the recipes she took away with her.”

Over coffee and a plate of cookies Jack said, “We’ve had a busy day, but we’re still on duty until morning.”

“You just came home for your supper,” Anna said. “But I’m glad you did. I’ll be leaving for the hospital before you get in.”