Chapter 25 Abby

25

ABBY

O ver the next few days, the news hit the city like a blizzard. First, the horrific discovery of Catherine “Kitty” Ging’s body, shot behind the ear and abandoned on the shore of Lake Calhoun in the middle of the night. The story overtook anything else that had run in the papers of late, including any mention of a girl imprisoned at the Bethany Home. Instead, the journalists obsessed over Miss Ging, who’d newly earned a macabre brand of celebrity, chronicling her relative youth and her beauty, her apparent, unusual success as a female entrepreneur. They sensationalized the manhunt that led, quickly, to a poor Swedish immigrant, a furnace engineer who worked in the woman’s apartment building. The police had been aided in their search by a young man named Harry T. Hayward, who had an alibi; he’d been at the opera the evening of the murder but, according to the gossip columnists’ wagging tongues, had been courting Kitty Ging.

Abby had scarcely been able to discuss any of this with Junius. She’d barely seen her husband as she flitted between their estate, the Quaker meeting house, and the Bethany Home, as she would for several weeks following the murder and Faith Johnson’s disappearance. At the home, she did her best to discourage the inmates from gossiping, from dwelling too intensely on the gruesome details of the murder, even though Abby herself was following the news with rapt attention.

Then, one early-December morning—not a week since Miss Ging had been found dead—the Tribune broke the news that Hayward himself had been arrested. Abby read the story over her breakfast of coffee, bacon, and toasted brown bread, food that she could at last taste after several days of holding her breath. She read quickly, skipping to the important parts:

Claus Blixt, the custodian, had confessed to pulling the trigger but claimed Hayward had strong-armed him, using only the force of his willpower. The Tribune had learned, through an anonymous police source, that Hayward owned ten thousand dollars’ worth of insurance on the girl’s life.

Abby set the paper down. “Well done,” she said, exhaling all the pent-up air in her nose. Junius looked at her curiously. “They’ve caught the fellows who killed that poor girl, the dressmaker.”

Junius nodded in his somber way, then reached his knobby fingers, the joints swollen and shiny, across the table to grasp hers. She took them gratefully and closed her eyes with him.

We give back to you, O God, those whom you gave to us.

The telephone rang. Abby squeezed her husband’s hand and excused herself. She walked through the gallery; through its tall windows, she saw the landscape outside, grayed and quiet, in hibernation, reminding her to be grateful for her warm house, her sanctuary, with its many fireplaces and humming furnaces and cozy bedrooms. She felt radiant with relief. Hayward had been arrested.

She caught the telephone on its third ring. The operator asked to put through Officer Nye. Abby straightened her spine. She placed the flat of her hand on the wall.

“Good work, Roland,” she said quietly.

Nye grunted into the phone. “Don’t thank me yet.” He kept his voice low; she had to plug her other ear to hear him. “Hayward’s talking. Says he’s innocent, that another woman must have hired Blixt to kill the dressmaker out of envy. Claimed he was with a girl at the opera earlier that evening, a rich man’s daughter, and he also named some inmates at the Bethany Home. Said they might have been involved.”

Abby rubbed her forehead. “Have they found the murder weapon?” She knew very well they hadn’t. Miss Rhoades had taken May to the Hennepin Avenue Bridge, in the middle of the night, to toss the revolver into the river. Abby didn’t like imagining the two of them engaged in such corrupt business, but she couldn’t stop picturing their faces, grim and determined, as they stood on the bridge and watched a bit of silver disappear beneath the current. Abby had to admit it gave her a small measure of pride.

“Not yet,” said Nye. “Likely, Blixt threw it into the lake. But, Mrs. Mendenhall, you’ll want to be prepared. The deputy and the mayor may pay a call.”

She let out her breath and nodded, then remembered Nye couldn’t see her. “Thank you, Roland. You’ve been a good friend, all these years. Don’t plan on retiring anytime soon.”

He laughed weakly. “I’ll have to. My ticker can’t take much more.”

She hung up and called Euphemia, asking to meet with her at the Bethany Home as soon as was possible. Junius didn’t even feign surprise when she told him she’d be leaving, though he did hesitate when she asked if she could take the morning paper.

“I’ll return it to thee,” she promised, kissing him lightly on the top of his head. “I shall leave the business section untouched.”

She was glad to find the inmates still at breakfast when she reached the home, and she went straight down to the dining room, her creaking ankles moving as quickly as she could make them. A few of the girls looked up when she came in, offering her polite nods, but most ignored her. They’d become accustomed to seeing her here nearly every day.

She spotted May Lombard, sitting—she was glad—not apart from the others, but at the end of a long table with Pearl, Leigh, some of the other kitchen workers. May looked up when Abby came in, her expression both anxious and hopeful.

Abby made a little gesture, a lift of the newspaper, a nod. She watched May’s eyes close, then the corners of her mouth turn upward. The hint of a smile.

—

The mayor-elect arrived that very day, tailed by the detective who’d sat across from the women of the Bethany Home, including the matron, and made them all feel small. Miss Rhoades let them in, and it was to her credit that she kept her face neutral, that she didn’t spit on the man’s muddy shoes.

“Mr. Pratt,” Abby said, keeping her chin aloft and very still. She sat at one end of the davenport, Euphemia at the other. Beside Abby, a young man stood at an easel, a pencil in his fingers. He looked from her face to the easel, which he kept turned away from everyone else in the room.

“Have I caught you indisposed?” Pratt asked, even as he and the detective settled into the two wingback chairs, their elbows comfortably splayed, making it very clear they weren’t going anywhere. From the corner of her eye, Abby watched a clump of snow fall from Pratt’s boot to the carpet.

“We’ll take a cup of tea, thank you,” said the detective, gesturing toward the cup and saucer in Euphemia’s hands. Miss Rhoades gave him a curt nod and went out.

“To what do we owe such a pleasure, gentlemen?” Abby took care not to move her chin, to keep her head tilted at exactly the same angle, toward the easel. The young man’s pencil scratched.

Pratt’s knee bounced impatiently. “We’ve discussed it already, Mrs. Mendenhall. I trust you’ve brought your ledger?”

Euphemia sat forward, presenting the men with a leather-bound notebook, gilt lettering on its cover. The detective snatched it eagerly. Abby couldn’t help watching as his careless hands bent the pages, as he licked his fingers to turn them faster, to get through the months of births and deaths, arrivals and departures, all recorded by her own careful, even hand. The sketch artist had paused, watching the policeman read; she clicked her tongue at him to keep his pencil moving.

“Here’s a list of inmates who were here in the last month,” he told Pratt, excited, and the two men bowed their heads over the page. Abby had pored over the ledger so many times that she could practically recite the list, the names of the girls in alphabetical order, by surname:

Johnson, Faith

Pollard, Joan

Spence, Natalie

Verdoni, Assuntina

Abby held her breath, even though she knew he’d find nothing of use in the ledger. May had made scores of mistakes, but revealing her true name to Hayward hadn’t been one of them. Abby strained her eyes to watch the men pore over the list, feeling a swell of satisfaction in her chest. Despite May’s foolishness, the girl did not deserve to hang for Hayward’s crimes. Abby would see to it these men didn’t lay a finger on May, or on Faith.

“She’s not in here,” the detective sneered. “Where’s Susannah Green? Or May Lombard?” He slapped the ledger. “There’s no Margie or Marguerite, either.”

Abby shrugged, just slightly. “There could be a Marguerite. We wouldn’t know. Some never tell us their given names. Do either of you remember Lillie Hill?”

Pratt shook his head, frowning, as did the detective.

“Before your time, I suppose. She died of consumption while staying here, God rest her soul. Never would tell us her given name. I trust she had good reason not to involve her people, who were rumored to be a good family out of Boston. Her headstone bears her pseudonym.”

“I don’t believe you,” said the detective. “I think you know exactly who we’re looking for. You doctored the list, didn’t you?”

“My good man,” Euphemia crowed, affecting shock. “How could you accuse us of such a thing? You’ll notice it’s all there in black ink, nary a page missing. We’ve only ever cooperated, in full, with law enforcement.”

Pratt sat back and adjusted his tie. “The deputy’s pursuing Ging’s murder as a conspiracy. The brother’s involved, and the custodian, of course. Both are prepared to testify against Hayward. If one of your girls is involved, she could testify as well.”

How benign he made it sound, as though May would receive nothing more than a slap on the wrist. As though Hayward wouldn’t try to pin the murder on her. “What evidence do you have connecting one of our inmates to this crime?” Abby asked.

The mayor looked to the detective, who said, somewhat begrudgingly, “Hayward’s word.”

“Ah. Your murderer.” Carefully, so as not to disturb her pose, Abby slipped a hand into her pocket and pulled out a few banknotes. She held them out to Euphemia, who smoothed them in her lap. “It doesn’t surprise me to hear that Hayward won’t let up about our inmates. He’s rather obsessed with them, I believe.”

“We’ve caught him nosing around here twice, in fact,” Euphemia added. “Once, when he was campaigning for you.”

Pratt gave a start. The curled ends of his mustache twitched. The only sounds were the tick of the gold clock on the mantel and the scratch of the artist’s pencil. At last, the mayor-elect sputtered, “I’ve never laid eyes on the man in my life.”

“How curious. He seemed quite passionately invested in your campaign,” said Abby. “He made a donation to the Sisterhood that day, but, unfortunately, we couldn’t use it.”

“Why not?” Pratt said, growing visibly impatient, his foot bouncing.

“He paid us with some of these.” Euphemia set her cup and saucer down, brought the greenbacks over to Pratt and the detective, and laid one on the pantleg of each of them. She returned to her seat and flipped open her fan. Through Abby’s peripheral vision, she could see her friend smile. “False money. You may want to add that to your investigation; seems Hayward was swimming in the stuff.”

“We’ve been hearing from our girls—the ones who worked in sporting houses—that the city itself is flooded with counterfeit banknotes.” Abby locked eyes with the artist and lifted her chin a bit higher, stretching her neck. “It’s hard to know what to trust these days.”

“I sure hope they aren’t going around blabbing about it,” Pratt sputtered. He leaned forward and gripped the wooden handles of his chair, which were shaped like gryphon’s talons. “If word gets out there’s counterfeit money in circulation, it could cause a run on the banks. Or a localized panic.”

Abby nodded sympathetically. “Not at all what you’d want to happen on the eve of your first term.”

Pratt laughed harshly. “I should say not.”

Finally, Abby broke her pose, turned her neck to the side with a satisfying crack. She stretched her fingers in her lap as she turned to face her two visitors. “I think that’s enough, Jed,” she said to the artist. “Did you get that last line?”

The boy at the easel unclipped the page he’d been writing on. “Shall I read it to you?”

“Yes, please.”

The mayor-elect and detective had gone very still, the detective’s mouth hanging open an inch, Pratt’s eyes cut toward the artist and narrowed in suspicion.

Jed coughed to clear his throat. “?‘If word gets out there’s counterfeit money in circulation, it could cause a run on the banks. Or a localized panic.’?”

“What’s going on here?” Pratt demanded.

Euphemia’s fan beat so rapidly, Abby could feel the breeze. “I do apologize. I failed to make introductions,” Abby said. “This is Jedediah Marsh, a sketch artist for the Tribune . He works with Herbert Block. You might remember the pair; they were at that lovely fall picnic we invited you to last month.”

“How do you do,” said Jed. He turned his sketch paper around to show his neatly copied notes, their entire conversation recorded nearly word for word.

Pratt shook his head at the women, a sneer curling his lip. “You think you’re so clever. I never agreed to be on the record. Besides, the Tribune wouldn’t dream of printing such a story about me.”

“Oh, I wasn’t thinking the Tribune, ” Jed said, tapping his chin and leaving a smudge of pencil lead. “Was thinking I’d take this to the Examiner, more like. They don’t care about no record.” He grinned, displaying his crowded yellow teeth.

“You see, we each have something the other needs,” Abby told the mayor. “We need you to maintain our city funding. You need us to keep quiet about your connection to Harry T. Hayward. We know quite a few people in this town.” A phrase came into her head, one she’d heard someone say, once, though she couldn’t quite remember who. “We enjoy a surprising amount of influence.”

Pratt paled. “There’s no connection between that monster and me.”

The detective jabbed his finger at Abby. “If there’s a girl here who helped Hayward kill Ging, or who killed that madam, we’re going to find her. None of your maneuvers can change that.”

“You’re welcome to interrogate them again, one by one,” Euphemia said calmly. “If you’d care to go to the trouble. But you won’t find a Susannah Green, or a May Lombard, or a Marguerite whatnot among them. They don’t exist.”

“Perhaps you’re barking up the wrong tree, gentlemen,” said Abby. “Perhaps it’s Hayward you should be asking about the dead madam, rather than our girls about Ging.”

“I hardly need the advice of a couple of nosy old crones,” the detective said, standing to button his waistcoat. The mayor-elect followed suit. They stood there in silence for a moment, each waiting, it seemed, for the other to say something to help them save face.

“We will be back,” Pratt said, and then they showed themselves out. Miss Rhoades had never brought the tea; Abby had specifically told her, in advance of the meeting, not to serve the men anything.

“It’s not over,” Euphemia said after they heard the front door slam. She worked the paper of her fan back and forth in her fist, smoothing its creases, caressing the silk tassel. Abby reached across their skirts to hold her hand, to still its trembling.

“No. It is not over,” Abby agreed. She smiled at Jed, who was packing up his easel, and thanked him. She’d pay him double what the Examiner would have offered, to keep his notes carefully guarded and to sit on the story, for now.

She had other chess pieces to move: her girls, the matron—people who were not her playthings or pawns but who had entered her orbit nonetheless, and whom she had an obligation to help. She sat still awhile, watching birds out the parlor windows with Euphemia. Miss Rhoades had filled the seed feeder this morning, drawing crowds of hardy winter birds, built to stay: plump chickadees, a pileated woodpecker, a white-breasted nuthatch, the kind most likely to crash into the windows’ glass. The more delicate birds, the Eastern bluebird and red-breasted robin—her favorite—had left not long after the first frost, heading south. It would be a long journey, but it was necessary to their survival.

Abby held Euphemia’s hand long after Jed had gone. The birds continued to dash back and forth, their wings in a tizzy. Abby imagined she could hear the flutter of their tiny hearts. She could have watched them all afternoon. She wasn’t ready to move her bones, which were beginning to complain, her joints as crotchety as she was. She knew her time here would one day come to an end. It would happen sooner rather than later; she might as well stay sitting with her friend and watching the birds. She couldn’t care for all of them, couldn’t even come close to that. No one had the power to hold the winter back, to keep the robin near. All one could do was offer kindness, day by day and case by case: a handful of birdseed, a warm bath, a place to rest.