Brenda Joyce - [Francesca Cahil 03] (35 page)

Francesca realized that a closet was behind them. She tugged his hand, moving her gaze significantly to it.

Bragg pulled himself free of her grasp, and he walked confidently to the door. “Hello, Stuart,” he said. “We have been hoping you would return.”

T
UESDAY
, F
EBRUARY
11, 1902—10:30
P.M.

Lincoln stood there with a grim and surprised expression, his wife behind him. She said, “What is this!”

“I am sorry to have intruded,” Bragg said swiftly. “Please, come inside.”

Lincoln did not move. “You can’t simply walk into my house as if you own it! How did you get in? The door was locked.”

“I am here on official police business,” Bragg said. “Unfortunately, the back door was unlocked.”

Lincoln gave Lydia an angry glance. She said, “I will speak to Giselle about this.”

He said, “I am not answering any more questions. It is late, and you have upset us both terribly—and enough for one night. This is hardly gentlemanly behavior, Commissioner.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that you knew Mary O’Shaunessy?” Bragg asked.

“What?” Lincoln turned white.

Lydia was also extremely pale. “What is this about?” she whispered.

Bragg looked at Francesca. “Why don’t you take Mrs. Stuart downstairs?”

Francesca started to reach for her, but Lydia shook her head. “I am not going anywhere!” she cried with some degree of hysteria. “What are you accusing my husband of?”

“Accusations have yet to be made.” Bragg faced Lincoln. “I should like for you to join me downtown for some questions.”

“Downtown?” he gasped.

“At police headquarters,” Bragg added.

Lincoln shook his head and then he gave a pleading look to his wife. “I don’t know Mary O’Shaunessy!” he cried. “And you cannot seize innocent citizens and drag them down to a police station.”

“Actually, you are right. However, Judge Kinney is a personal friend of mine, so if I go directly to his home, now, I can have a warrant for your arrest filled out. I can return in one hour with several police officers, and then it will be official.” He smiled. “I did forget to mention that if this scenario takes place, I will have to charge you with a crime. In this case, it would be murder.”

Lincoln did not seem to breathe. And then his eyes turned impossibly cold. He gave Francesca such a cool and chilling glance that she started and was afraid. He turned an identical glance on Bragg. “Fine. I shall go downtown with you of my own accord. But I warn you, Commissioner, you are making a mistake. A vast one.”

And Francesca thought,
That is what they all seem to say.

As Francesca let herself into her own home—with a key, as the front door had been locked—she wondered if Bragg had managed to discover a link between Lincoln Stuart and all four friends. She also wondered if Maggie Kennedy was awake. Did she know Lincoln Stuart? Had she ever met him and would she recall him if she had?

And why did she now, after having left the Stuart home, have a strong feeling that Lincoln and Lydia were hiding something?

She kept thinking of a last glance that they had shared. Lincoln had remained cold and angry, Lydia had been pale
and frightened, but there had been a silent communication there.

Suddenly Francesca stiffened in the act of removing her coat.
Lydia had not said one word on the subject of her husband having an affair with Mary O’Shaunessy. But she had had Mary’s letter to him in her possession.

Francesca felt, in every fiber of her being, that something was terribly wrong. Of course, Lydia had come to her in the first place to hire her to discover if her husband was unfaithful. But she had pointed the finger at Rebecca Hopper, not the second murder victim. Perhaps Lydia had not discovered his actual affair with Mary until that day, and perhaps, sensing his involvement in something far more dastardly, she had decided to keep his liaison to herself, in order to protect him.

She had tried to dismiss Francesca yesterday, had she not?

Francesca hung up her coat, as no servant was in sight, which was a bit unusual. When the entire family was out for a big evening, usually a doorman or two remained to take coats and lock up the house. Of course, she was early—it was not yet eleven and Julia had specifically said that no one would be back before midnight, at the earliest.

Francesca continued to work through the puzzle. If Lydia knew her husband was a murderer, then she was an accomplice of sort to his crimes, and that was a chilling prospect. As Francesca started upstairs, she decided that she would wait to speak with Maggie in the morning, as she had been sewing round-the-clock, and that while under a terrible strain. But she felt certain that Maggie knew Lincoln. Perhaps by now Bragg had already gotten a confession from him.

Francesca pushed open her bedroom door and halted in her tracks. Why hadn’t a light been left on? No one had started a fire in the hearth, either. It was odd. More than odd. She did not move.

A tingle swept over her spine.
Something wasn’t right.

And where was the staff?

Francesca reminded herself that Lincoln was on his way downtown and Mike O’Donnell remained in jail; still, she had an enemy now, and Gordino was out and about, perhaps plotting and planning revenge against her. And Sam Carter had once easily gotten into the house. No one knew where he was, even now.

Francesca opened her purse and slipped the tiny pistol into her palm. The five or six ounces of steel and pearl comforted her instantly as she strained to hear someone, something.

The house was stunningly silent.

Was it her imagination, or did her home always sound this way at the midnight hour—especially when everyone was out?

Francesca shivered. She could not recall it ever being this quiet, and everyone wasn’t out. There were four children in the house between the ages of three and eleven, for God’s sake. But they would have been sound asleep for hours and hours.

The hairs on her nape and arms stood up. She grew breathless.

Something wasn’t right
. . . . Her every instinct told her that. She had better go check on Maggie.

Suddenly Francesca was afraid of finding Maggie stabbed to death with a cross carved into her throat.

She ran from her room, suddenly thinking that the hall was hardly illuminated, and the fact that Julia only kept two wall sconces lit every night and it had never bothered Francesca before no longer mattered.

The house was too dark and too silent. Why wasn’t a child crying out in his or her sleep? Why weren’t servants in the kitchen, taking one last sip of tea?

She halted, panting. The stairs leading to the next floor were in utter darkness—and how could this happen? It was
as if someone had passed this way extinguishing the lights.

Above her head, she heard a door slam violently closed.

Or was it a window? What in God’s name was that?

Maggie and the children were on the third floor. Francesca ran up the stairs, clutching the gun, trying not to recall Bragg’s statement that it would be useless against a real thug. Lincoln was with Bragg; O’Donnell was also in custody. The litany was not reassuring. If Sam Carter was the murderer, he might very well be within the house, as he was brave and angry enough to do as he pleased.

Why hadn’t they left a guard with Maggie and the children?

She reached the third-floor landing, which was also cast in darkness, and she heard a bloodcurdling scream.

For one moment, Francesca did not know what to do. A woman had screamed—and she knew it was Maggie. An image of the redhead being stabbed assailed her, and the next thing she knew, she fired her pistol into the air, an instinctive act to create a diversion and stop the Cross Murderer from doing his deed.

The sound was shockingly loud.

Francesca cringed, afraid the bullet would ricochet down and hit her, but it did not. However, a painting fell to the floor, almost at her feet.

“Don’t move!” Lydia Stuart shouted from the open doorway of Maggie Kennedy’s room. “If you move I’ll cut her open the way we gutted fish when we were children!”

Francesca froze. Lydia had seized Maggie from behind and held a knife to her throat. Maggie was in her nightclothes; Lydia remained in her pale peach-colored evening gown. But there was nothing genteel about her now. In fact, even her speech was hard and guttural—as if she were someone else.

Maggie’s frightened gaze went to Francesca’s, and she saw the plea there even in the shadows of the hall. A banging began on another door down the hall, hard and angry.

“Don’t fuckin’ move,” Lydia snarled, tightening her hold on Maggie.

It clicked then. But first, she had to think of the children. “Where are the children?”

Lydia smiled coldly. “They’re locked in their room, Miz Cahill. You had to come along, didn’t you, an’ stick your little nose in the wrong place!”

Francesca inhaled, meeting Maggie’s terrified gaze again. “Are you all right?”

Maggie nodded.

“But she won’t be, for long, and now I have another problem, damn it,” Lydia said harshly.

Francesca swallowed hard, understanding what the other woman—the Cross Murderer—was saying, only too well. She, Francesca, knew her identity now. “You will never get away with this. Bragg will quickly realize that Lincoln has been framed—by you.”

“By the time he does that, you an’ her will be stiff as boards. Drop the gun.”

Francesca hesitated. This woman had killed her two friends, and now she would kill Maggie and probably Francesca, all the while intending for her husband to go to jail to take the rap for her.

“Drop the gun!” Lydia ordered, and Maggie gasped as the knife held to her throat cut into her skin.

Francesca dropped the gun. “Don’t hurt her! I beg you. Just leave. I swear we will let you go . . . Lizzie.”

Lizzie O’Brien smiled at her. “How clever you are.”

“You have framed your own husband, didn’t you?” Francesca whispered. “But why kill your two dearest friends? And why write the poems? Why carve the cross upon their throats?”

“I thought the poems very clever!” Lizzie exclaimed. “As Lincoln fancies himself a poet. He is always penning these stupid verses. I realized I must pretend to be a mad
man
to mislead the coppers. And it worked, didn’t it?”

“It was very clever,” Francesca said uneasily. Briefly she exchanged a glance with Maggie, who was as white as a ghost, her eyes terrified. “But I still don’t understand
why
.”

“I didn’t
want
to kill anyone,” Lydia said angrily. “I really didn’t. But I knew I could not trust them! I knew that they would tell Lincoln the truth about me as soon as they discovered it.” Her eyes turned black. “They were always so good. Growing up, it was always, ‘Now isn’t Kathleen such a good girl?’ Or, ‘See that sweet little Maggie. Now why can’t you be as kind as her?’ When I had my first boy my papa whipped me black-and-blue and told me I should be like sweet, pious Mary! She would never go with a boy, oh no!” Lizzie cried.

Francesca inhaled. “But she somehow met Lincoln—”

“And he fell for her!” Lizzie shouted. “We ran into each other a week ago, and I could not weasel out of a meeting, so I invited her home. Lincoln walked in and as always, Mary stole the day! Because she is so perfect and pure, so good! I saw the way he looked at her and I knew I had to end it, instantly. So I invited her back over for tea.” Lizzie smiled, but then her expression changed, becoming feral.

Francesca shivered, ill. Mary must have realized how insane Lizzie was and that was why she had tried to approach Francesca before her death. Francesca realized they would never know what had changed her mind. “You invited her to your home to kill her. Did you follow her from the house? Kill her and then bury her elsewhere?”

“Yes, I did,” Lizzie was defiant. “What else was I to do? She was going to tell Lincoln the truth, I am certain! And if Lincoln ever knew the truth, if he ever knew I was Lizzie O’Brien and not the oh, so sweet and genteel Lydia Danner, he would boot me out quicker than a man can spit! I have everything I want now, and if he goes to jail, should I care? I would have his house, his carriage, his
money! I could not let my
dear
old friends destroy all that I have worked so hard for.”

“So you simply set out to murder them all?” Francesca asked, chilled.

“As soon as I had Lincoln agreeing to an immediate marriage, I began to plan. How could I not? His mother lived in New York and he intended for us to return there. What should I have done? Married him and returned to the city and then have lived in constant fear of running into Kathleen, Mary, or Maggie? They are the only ones who could identify me.” She smiled grimly. “I chose Kathleen to be the first. Because I made a mistake last year, well before I met Lincoln, of telling her my plans to masquerade as a genteel woman and marry rich. She was aghast.” Lizzie laughed in disgust. “None of them ever had any brains. Or any balls.”

“You are evil,” Maggie whispered. “Disgustingly evil, mad!”

“Shut up!” Lizzie shouted, and the knife cut the skin at Maggie’s throat.

“No!” Francesca screamed, starting forward.

“Stop!” Lizzie shouted, as a trickle of blood slid down Maggie’s neck. She appeared ready to faint. “I am not evil, you fools! Why do you think I carved the cross on their throats? I wanted God to know that I am every bit as pious as they are! My whole life He has frowned down on me. But now, I can feel Him, finally, and He is smiling, He is pleased, because I have made peace with Him!”

Francesca met Maggie’s gaze. She tried to warn her in a silent communication not to move, not to speak. Maggie seemed to understand, but there was a huge question in her eyes. Francesca had no answer. For the question was,
Now what?

“Don’t look at each other like that,” Lizzie warned. “I am
clever.
Very clever, more so than anyone—and my life proves that. Why do you think that I hired you? I wanted
you to find the body. It was a part of my plan. To drop clues like a trail of bread crumbs and lead you to Lincoln.”