Brenda Joyce - [Francesca Cahil 03] (2 page)

“What is this?” Connie asked, looking from Francesca, to Maggie, to the items on the floor, and then to all the fabrics scattered on the canopied bed. She was almost identical to Francesca in looks; they were often mistaken for twins. Connie, however, was twenty-two, and her hair
was a champagne blond, her complexion ivory. Francesca’s skin was several shades warmer in hue and her hair a rich, honeyed gold. Otherwise, their features were very similar: wide blue eyes, perfect high cheekbones, a small, sloping nose, and full rosy lips. Universally they were considered to be beauties.

“I am having a fitting,” Francesca said, hoping her sister would not let this particular cat out of the bag. “I have ordered a few dresses from Mrs. Kennedy. Con, Mrs. Kennedy. Mrs. Kennedy, my sister, Lady Montrose.”

Maggie blinked at Connie, who, unlike Francesca, was extremely glamorous, not to mention that she had married an Englishman and gained a title. Connie stood in the doorway in the most stunning pale blue suit, one delicately pin-striped. It was only nine in the morning, or rather about half past, but she wore three delicate strands of blue topaz in a choker around her neck, the brooch in the middle a cameo. Her glorious hair was pulled back and pinned securely at the nape; she wore a matching hat with two dried flowers adhering to the brim. Even her gloves, which she carried, were a powder blue kidskin and stunningly stitched. A huge yellow diamond ring winked from her left hand. Her skirts revealed the frothy French lace of her expensive petticoat.

“Hullo,” Connie said with a pleasant smile. She shook her head. “You have ordered gowns, Fran? What is this? A transformation of character? Has there been a full moon or some such thing? Or has sleuthing permanently damaged your nature?”

Francesca gave her an annoyed and warning look. “Mama has asked me to order new gowns for at least a year,” she began.

“I do believe it is more like two,” Connie returned, serene.

“I simply have not had the time,” Francesca started.

“Or the inclination,” Connie finished.

“I had been intending to order a new wardrobe for quite some time,” Francesca said, becoming annoyed.

“Oh, when? Before school, after sleuthing, or while sleeping?”

“Ssh,” hissed Francesca.

Connie laughed at her. “Oh, this is good, Fran, truly well and good. I cannot wait to find out what—” She stopped. Her gaze went to the red fabric on top of the pile in Maggie’s hands. “You have ordered
that!”

Francesca folded her arms across her breasts. “Mrs. Kennedy assures me it will be stunning.”

“I begin to see,” Connie said, arch. “It is
Bragg.”

“It is not,” Francesca said, heated and aghast. She glared. “Con, by the way, Mrs. Kennedy is Joel’s mother.”

“And I do have to get going,” Maggie said, looking from the one sister to the other. “I sent a note to my supervisor, telling him I was sick this morning, but I promised him that I would be in at noon. I’d like to order these fabrics before I go into work,” Maggie told Francesca. Maggie worked by day at the Moe Levy Factory. By night, she sewed for private customers at home. Her diligence amazed Francesca no end. In fact, she did not need
any
new gowns. But she was determined to somehow help the Kennedy family.

“Thank you so much for the fitting, especially at the last moment,” Francesca said, walking Maggie to the bedroom door.

“No, thank
you,
Miss Cahill,” Maggie said warmly, smiling just a little. It erased the tiny lines around her eyes.

Francesca clasped her elbow. “Please, do call me Francesca. I should like it so.”

Maggie hesitated. “I will try, Miss Cahill,” she said. And she flushed.

“That’s all right,” Francesca said, and she watched as Maggie left.

Connie stared at her sister. She was not smiling now.

“Do not begin!” Francesca erupted.

“Very well, I won’t. But I do hope you are not becoming a peacock for a
married
man?” Her gaze remained unwavering. “I know how stubborn you are, Francesca. Please, please tell me this is not about Bragg.”

“It is not,” she lied, a little. “We are friends.” And that was the truth. “That is all there is, and all there can ever be,” she said firmly. It hurt when she spoke. But with the hurt there was now resignation. In the past few days she had come to accept what could not be changed.

Or had she?

For he would never divorce his wife. He was too honorable, and his political aspirations were too great.

Francesca shared those aspirations for him.

“Well, if you are not strutting for him, then this must be a charitable endeavor,” Connie said, eyeing her cautiously.

Francesca sighed. “I give up. She works so hard to support her four children—”

“Say no more. I thought so.” Connie walked over to her and hugged her, hard and surprisingly. “You are the kindest person I have ever known.”

“Con”—Francesca took her hand—“are you all right? How . . .” She hesitated. “How is Neil?”

Connie took a deep breath and looked away. “He is fine.” She smiled brightly at Francesca. “Let’s forget what happened last week. After all, it is past. The present and the future are what is important now.” Her smile seemed lacquered into place.

Francesca could only stare. Surely Connie was not suggesting that they pretend that last week she had not left her husband, even if just for two nights? With her two daughters? Or that he had committed adultery—causing Connie to take her daughters and stay with a friend? “Have you and Neil had a chance to speak?” Francesca asked finally.

“Why, we speak every day!” Connie cried, too loudly. “Just last night we discussed Reinhold’s new opera and the city’s current fiscal condition. Everything is fine, Francesca, just fine.” She smiled again—and she never called her sister Francesca. It was always Fran.

Francesca studied her with worry, but Connie turned quickly away.
If only Connie would express her feelings,
Francesca thought. She knew how she would feel if Neil had been her husband and she had found out that he had taken a lover. Neil Montrose was not just titled; he was a gorgeous, proud, and intelligent man, a doting father, and, until recently, an adoring husband. Had Neil been her husband—and when Francesca was younger she had wondered what it would be like to be the older sister and to be married to such a man—she would want to die. And then, probably, she would truly hate him.

But maybe not.

Francesca did not know what had happened between Neil and Connie, but up until the past few weeks she had admired him, thinking him an honorable man. Who was she to decide how Connie should act or feel? Especially as she did not know what had truly happened between them?

Perhaps she would call on Neil later and test the waters, trying to comprehend if all was as well as Connie claimed. Francesca did like that idea. She switched her thoughts. “You are here early. Are we having breakfast?” And as she spoke, she wondered why Connie was not sipping coffee and reading the
Tribune
at her own breakfast table, with Neil at its head, as was customary for her.

“We most certainly are, so get dressed,” Connie said. “Oh, and by the by, Papa is quite annoyed. He cannot find today’s
Sun,
and you know how devoted he is to all three morning papers.”

Francesca smiled, and it was false. “Poor Papa. The
paperboy must have made a mistake. Or perhaps we have a new boy on our route.”

“Yes, that must be the case,” Connie said.

Francesca’s fingers were crossed behind her back. What were the odds, she wondered, that Papa would not see a copy of that day’s
Sun
at the office or on a newsstand?

Because if he did, it would be almost impossible for him to miss the headline glaring across the front page. In fact, the paper with its headline was under her own canopied bed. But Francesca felt no guilt.

For the headline read:

MILLIONAIRE
’
S DAUGHTER CAPTURES
KILLER WITH FRY PAN

Above her head, the Ninth Avenue El thundered past, leaving a cloud of smoke and soot. Francesca winced until the elevated train had passed.

She stood on the corner of 23d Street, having just got off the train. The street was icy and the snow mostly black; wagons loaded with wares rumbled past her, while the pedestrians moving about the street were mostly immigrant workingmen. In this neighborhood, German was spoken as frequently as English. Two women in drab brown coats with scarves on their heads hurried into a brownstone, which Francesca knew was a factory. But those women had been speaking Russian. She glanced around for a cab.

It had been the worst morning. She had not been able to concentrate, worrying about the feature story in the
Sun.
On Thursdays, Francesca had two classes, Biology and French Literature. She was behind now in both courses, due to the past two cases she had helped Bragg solve. Her Biology teacher had actually given her a warning that her grades were dropping at a precarious rate. Francesca had not gone to all the trouble of secretly enrolling and scraping
together the tuition, some of which she had borrowed from Connie, in order to fail.

It was extremely hard being a student and a sleuth at the exact same time, she thought grimly.

She stared into the sun, hoping for a cab. A horse-drawn omnibus approached, and she considered taking it. She just knew her father was going to see the
Sun,
and if that was the case, Francesca did not think that she could cajole him to keep her recent endeavors a secret. Not this time, and never mind that she was the apple of his eye and he was immensely proud of her. He would go directly to Julia, and God only knew what would happen next. Francesca was truly worried. Her mother would be furious, and Julia Van Wyck Cahill was not a woman to cross. She was a woman who moved mountains when she so chose; she was renowned for bringing various parties together within society for social, financial, and political purposes, all to everyone’s gain. Had she ever failed in a cause or lost a battle? Francesca did not think so.

But what could Julia now do? After all, Francesca was a grown woman, and punishments were for children. And even as a child, Francesca had been much as she now was—determined, a champion of the underdog, and a budding bluestocking. At the age of six she had begun to read anything she could get her hands on, and had begun her lifelong love affair with the written word. At seven, she had realized that there were children in Chicago, which is where her family was from, who were hungry and without families. She had sold lemonade for a year outside of her church to raise money for those orphans.

She had only been punished once. Shortly after relocating to New York, when she was eight, she had stolen out of the house alone to explore her new city. There had been hell to pay for that. Francesca had been made to stay home from school for two days—and no punishment could
have been more effective, as she had loved school the way most children hated it.

Francesca saw a black coach with a bay in the traces. Her hand shot up and she dashed out into the street—only to slip wildly on a patch of dirty gray ice and fall hard on her backside. “Darn it,” she breathed, shaking her head to clear it. Perhaps she should have gone directly home from the Barnard library. She had a feeling this day was only going to become progressively worse.

“Are you OK, miss?” A hand closed on her elbow.

Francesca looked up, into the eyes of a middle-aged man clad in a brown suit, coat, and bowler hat. “Yes, thank you,” she said, allowing the gentleman to help her up.

“You should be more careful,” he said, but politely, and he tipped his hat and walked off.

The cab had stopped beside her. Francesca opened the door and settled inside, her left hip aching. “Three hundred Mulberry Street, please,” she said, her heart racing as she spoke.

“Isn’t that police headquarters?” her driver asked with a distinct Irish brogue.

“It most certainly is,” Francesca said, smiling widely.

The cabbie turned and glanced back at her. “You seem terribly chipper for a lady going to the coppers,” he said.

Francesca merely grinned at him. And as she settled against the leather squabs, the mare’s hooves softly clopping on the snowy street, a trolley going by them from the opposite direction, she smiled a little, her body tense with anticipation. She had not seen Bragg in two days. In a way, it seemed like two years. She had never called casually before at police headquarters. In the past, she had always come by with a new clue pertaining to a case, one that could not wait, one that Bragg would be eager to see.

She did not think Bragg would mind a social call now. Of course, it was terribly bold. But it wasn’t even a social call, now was it? He had to have seen the
Sun,
and he
would commiserate with her, perhaps even advise her on how to diffuse the situation with her parents. He would want to talk to her about the story, she knew.

And perhaps he was even worried about her.

She was somewhat breathless as she walked into the frenetic lobby of the police station, trying to appear brisk and businesslike. Police headquarters was housed in a squat brownstone building in a neighborhood filled with hooks and crooks, as well as pimps and prostitutes. It never ceased to amaze Francesca that the neighborhood’s thieves, swindlers, and trollops carried on with their sordid and illegal affairs right beneath the police’s noses. In fact, it amazed most of the city, and since his appointment, Bragg had doubled the roundsmen working Mulberry Bend.

Inside, the telegraph and telephones were pinging and ringing. Several sergeants stood behind the long desk, dealing with civilian inquiries and complaints. One shabby drunken man was being booked at the other end of the room, not far from the elevator cage. And two newsmen were standing behind the criminal, notepads posed in their hands, firing questions at the arresting officers.

Francesca recognized one of them as Arthur Kurland, who had come to be her nemesis in the past month. He was also the one who had put her story on the front page of the
Sun.