Back Bay (21 page)

“Did you know that the young historian had brunch with Christopher and spent the afternoon talking with an administrator in the Museum of Fine Arts?”

“If you’re blaming me for that, you can finish incinerating the roof of your mouth alone. I have little enough taste for this food as it is.”

Philip tenderly took her hand in his. “I’m simply relating the events of the day. I really don’t have anyone else to discuss them with.”

She studied him for a moment. “Then no more talk of this business. It sickens me sometimes to think of what’s happened to us.”

“It would sicken you more to see William Rule in my office.”

She nodded. Her expression softened. The age lines around her eyes disappeared. Philip recalled how beautiful he had once found her.

A phone call for Philip Pratt. He took it in the vestibule. Christopher Carrington’s voice wound tight around the line. “Philip?”

“Christopher, I’ve been trying to get hold of you all day. Who is that student?”

“He’s nobody. I’ve just spoken with Uncle Calvin, and I want to extend the same courtesy to you. I’m calling the police.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The police. I’m going to give evidence of a murder.”

“Murder? Whose murder?”

“One of our distant relatives. She’s dead.”

“I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Because you don’t read the right newspapers. Yesterday’s
Los Angeles Times
reported the murder of Sally Korbel in her Santa Monica apartment.”

Pratt was stunned. Three days ago, he’d been with her. Three days ago, he’d screwed her. He couldn’t believe it. “I had nothing to do with this, Chris. We’re not killers.”

“Somebody killed her, Philip. If you didn’t, perhaps it was Rule. You should have no objections if we offer our information to the proper authorities.”

Pratt didn’t know what to say, but he knew he didn’t want the
police involved, at least until he had talked to Calvin and Soames. “We have no information of value to anyone.”

“False.” Carrington would not be dissuaded.

“Rule did not know that I was going to California to see a whore about a sampler. If he had, he would have gotten to her first. And if he’d had her killed, there’s no way we could pin it on him. He’s too smart.”

“Genealogy is a very refined science. So is criminology. Anything is possible in either.”

“If you go to the police with a false charge of murder against William Rule, you will have to describe everything. Blow the story now, and you’ll guarantee that we lose control of Pratt Industries.”

“We’ve already lost control.” The words snapped in Pratt’s ear.

“You’re doing us no good at all, Chris. You can’t do anything for that girl. Before you call the police, give me ten minutes of your time. Please.”

Christopher Carrington hung up.

Pratt called Calvin and told him to get to Carrington’s apartment right away. Then he called Soames, who was not at home, and left a message on his service.

“I’m afraid the meal is over,” he told Isabelle. “Christopher has slipped a cog.”

Isabelle offered to go along. She was very close to her nephew and might be able to influence him.

Twenty minutes later, they arrived at Christopher Carrington’s apartment, a handsome old building on Louisburg Square.

Bennett Soames was waiting for them. “I got your message and headed here straight away.”

The hall was dark and smelled faintly of mothballs and Lysol. Carrington lived on the second floor, apartment 2A. Philip Pratt knocked.

No answer.

He knocked again.

Nothing.

“We’ve missed him,” said Pratt.

“Perhaps we can catch up with him,” offered Isabelle.

Pratt paid no attention. “I didn’t think he’d do it right away. This is really going to hamstring us.”

“Unless Rule in fact killed the girl,” she said.

“Very unlikely,” said Soames. He took out a pocket knife and probed the lock.

“There’s no need to go through the apartment,” said Pratt.

The lock popped. The door snapped open. A four inch chain lock held tight from the inside.

A shaft of light sliced into the hallway, momentarily blinding Pratt. Isabelle screamed. Pratt’s eyes adjusted.

A chair was lying on the floor in the middle of the room. Above it, a pair of expensive Italian shoes twisted back and forth like magnets above a piece of steel. The clothesline rope was attached to a curtain fastener in the wall and looped over the oak beam that crossed the middle of the ceiling.

Christopher Carrington had not been hanging there long. His face had not turned black, and the muscles in his legs were still twitching. But he was dead.

September 1814

H
orace Taylor Pratt III placed a glass-bottomed box on the surface of the water and peered down at the floor of the Back Bay.

“See anything, boy?” asked Wilson.

“It’s still too dark.”

“Well, as near as I can figure, this is where they flipped over.”

Heavy clouds smoldered above Boston and turned the sky ashen gray. It was Sunday morning, a half hour before dawn.

Dexter Lovell and Jeff Grew had killed each other on Friday night. The next morning, Grew’s body was washed up on the Neck. It was stripped of purse and personal belongings and would be buried in Potter’s Field. Lovell’s body had not been found. The tides had hauled it back to the harbor and thrown it up on one of
the islands, where crabs would pick it clean within a few days. The treasure they had died for was still sitting in the mud at the bottom of the Easterly Channel.

Horace Taylor Pratt stood on the edge of Gravelly Point and peered through a spyglass. They had perhaps three hours to find the tea set. After that, Sunday boaters would begin crisscrossing the Charles River Basin, and two men salvaging a strongbox would certainly attract attention. The strongbox itself, if left beneath the few feet of water that covered it at low tide, might easily be seen from a passing dory and hauled up by some cobbler on holiday.

They were lucky that no one had noticed the strongbox at low tide yesterday, thought Pratt. They had to find it today.

Again, he squinted through the spyglass. Wilson was still circling. Pratt wished that he were out there with them, but an old man with one arm wasn’t much good in a rowboat. Best to stay on shore. Wilson was as reliable as the tides, and Pratt had every confidence in young Horace.

He stepped away from the glass, which stood on a tripod, and he began to pace the bank as though he were waiting for one of his ships from China. He figured that the tea set would fetch twenty thousand dollars in England. His ships had brought greater profits, but he had invested thousands on their voyages. He had ventured almost nothing on the Golden Eagle, and now that Lovell was dead, he would pocket almost everything it earned. He congratulated himself on his good judgment. He had picked a valuable tea set to steal and an accomplice obliging enough to drown before he took his share of the money.

Of course, Pratt told himself, he would never have engineered the theft of another tea set, no matter how valuable. He was an honest man. Pragmatic and opportunistic, but honest nonetheless. As he paced, he poked holes in the mud with his cane and repeated to himself his justification. He had protested the creation of the tea set from public treasure, and his livelihood had been threatened by the Presidents to whom it was given. He was simply declaring a private war on the stupidity of his peers and political leaders and saving his business in the process.

In the back of his head, Pratt heard his father—Calvinist, sailmaker, honest man—disapprove of such reasoning. Jason Pratt
the elder had raised his sons to believe that a man deserved nothing for which he didn’t work. Horace Taylor Pratt had always tried to embrace his father’s teachings, especially when negotiating salaries with underpaid super-cargoes or confronting representatives of Boston charities. But the world was very different from the days when Jason Pratt set up a sailmaking establishment on North Street and worked day and night to build his business, his reputation, and a comfortable life for his family. This was the nineteenth century. Life in the business world was difficult enough without war and blockade further complicating it. A businessman had to be careful. He took his profits where he found them and speculated when the odds were in his favor. After all, John Calvin himself had encouraged such prudence and praised commerce as a righteous path for all men.

The rowboat stopped cutting on the gray fabric of the Back Bay. Pratt stepped to the telescope again. He saw Wilson throw a sackful of bricks into the water.

They’ve found it, thought Pratt. A few more minutes and we’ll have it in the safe on Merchants Row. A few more days and Hannaford’s agents, as trustworthy as old Henry himself, will arrive from Halifax to take the tea set on its way to England.

Wilson watched the sack of bricks sink into the mud. It made a good anchor. From the length of the rope connected to it, he guessed that the water was about six feet deep. The tide was high and would be turning.

“No trouble at all, son,” he said.

Young Horace was stripped to his underbreeches and trembling with excitement. He picked up the rope harness he had fashioned to lift the tea set and started to slip into the water.

“Why don’t you try liftin’ her without the harness, boy? Might be the damn thing’s as light as a feather and we won’t have to waste no time foolin’ with a lot of knots.”

The boy looked at the black chunk of iron sitting in the mud below the boat. “The box is quite large, Wilson. I’m sure it’s too heavy.”

“You can’t ever tell how big a thing is by lookin’ through the water at it. Water plays tricks on the eyes. If it ain’t all that heavy, the air in your lungs’ll pull it up like a beer belch poppin’ outa
your gut. Soon as you get close enough, I’ll take it off your shoulder, and we’ll get the hell outa here.”

Young Horace placed his hands defiantly on his hips. He intended to use his harness.

Wilson raised his hand. “If you can’t lift it, we’ll use the damn harness.”

Horace turned and dove. As soon as he broke the water, adrenaline flooded through him and he forgot his anger. He was diving for sunken treasure. He was living an adventure that most boys only read about. Kicking down through six feet of murky water, he barely felt the cold or the sting of the salt in his eyes. He reached the strongbox in a few short strokes.

Wilson is right, he thought. It isn’t as large as it looks, but it’s settled into three or four inches of mud.

He slipped his hand through one of the grips and pulled. The strongbox didn’t budge. He grabbed it with both hands, steadied himself by digging his feet into the ooze on the bottom, and tugged again. Nothing. Until the mud let go, the buoyancy of the water couldn’t help him. He needed the harness.

Fifty-five, fifty-six, fifty-seven… he’s been under for nearly a minute, thought Pratt. He must need air by now. The boy’s head appeared within the telescope circle of Pratt’s vision. The old man realized that he had been holding his breath for nearly a minute.

“It’s stuck in the mud and too heavy to move.” The boy managed to sound triumphant as he caught his breath. “Give me the harness.”

Wilson flung him the coil of rope.

The boy gulped down a few drafts of air and dove again.

Nothing worse than a fifteen-year-old kid who goes to a fancy school, thought Wilson.

The day before, Wilson had noticed the boy weaving ropes together and asked him what he was doing.

“I’m figuring out a way to get that tea set into the boat.”

“What’s to figure?”

“Suction.”

“What’s that?”

“You remember the
Henrietta?
She ran aground off Gloucester last fall.”

Wilson nodded.

“Master Johnson explained to the class that she was stuck because of suction. One thing is held tight to another because there’s fluid in the space between them.”

“So what?”

“To get the
Henrietta
loose, they didn’t just pull on her like dunderheads. They pried up different sections of the ship and let little air pockets get in underneath her. Then they used the air pockets like rollers and pulled her right out of the mud.”

“Sonny, it ain’t a ship. It’s a steel box two feet long, three feet wide, and two feet deep. It probably weighs sixty or seventy pounds.”

“The same physical principles apply to everything.” The boy held up the harness. It looked like a large noose with four hangman’s knots arranged to form the corners of a rectangle. Two long pieces of rope passed through each noose, one for adjusting the width of the rectangle, the other for the length. Horace would place the noose around the strongbox, tighten the knots at each corner, then return the long pieces of rope to the surface. By placing tension on each of the ropes individually, they could pull the corners loose and bring the tea set to the surface.

Wilson was unimpressed. “What does your grandfather say to all this foolishness?”

“My grandfather respects the opinions of educated men. He told me to make the harness in case we need it.”

“Well, I guess we’ll be needin’ it. I think your grandfather must be gettin’ soft. All he needs to do is hire a longshoreman and send him out there at low tide, when the water in the channel is just a few feet deep. A big fella could wade back with the strongbox on his shoulder.”

A day later, Wilson still felt the contempt with which the boy had regarded him.

“You apparently do not realize that my grandfather wants to involve as few outsiders as possible in the recovery of the tea set. Consider yourself fortunate that you’re trusted enough to be included.”

Samuel Wilson had no patience with such disrespect. He grabbed the boy by the scruff of the neck and hauled him to his
feet. “I know it’s hard for a boy who don’t have no daddy teachin’ him right from wrong. Granddads is mighty lax in that area. So right now, I’m startin’ to teach you a few manners.” He clenched what few teeth he had and brought his face close to the boy’s. “If you ever talk to me like that again, I’ll wallop the daylights out of you, and I don’t give a damn who your grandfather is. Now apologize, and we’ll forget it.”