Death on Beacon Hill (22 page)

Pratt shook his head without looking up. “She didn’t want to admit to grand larceny in writing. She had Fiona come and lay it all out. I hand over five grand, and the next day the gun is delivered to my house—and the shakedowns end.”

“Why the next day?” Nell asked. “I should think you would have demanded that the gun be returned to you when you handed over the money.”

Pratt let out a humorless little grunt of laughter. “Yes, well, as it was explained to me, Virginia didn’t think Fiona would be able to fight me off if I were of a mind to take the gun without paying up. In any event, the conditions were non-negotiable. One thing I’ve learned as an attorney is if the other party flat out refuses to compromise, there’s not a great deal one can do but go along or walk away from the deal.”

“You were that desperate to get that gun back?” Will asked.

Pratt sighed and drained his rum.

“So you paid up,” Will said, “but the gun was never delivered.”

 “Did it never occur to you that she might not even have had it?” Nell asked. “After all, she’d been denying it for some time. And then, when she said she had to get the money before she’d give up the gun...”

Pratt rubbed his gigantic forehead with an unsteady hand, as if trying to smooth away that vein.

Nell said, “So you let a couple of days go by, and then you went to Mrs. Kimball’s and threatened to kill her.”

“Manhandling her in the process,” Will said, “whereupon Mr. Thurston proved he’s got what it takes in the ring.”

“That punch came out of nowhere!” Slamming his glass on a table, Pratt sprang to his feet, his face so red—from mortification, evidently, at having been bested by the likes of Maximilian Thurston—that it looked as if it were about to burst. “He sneaked it in. It was completely unsportsmanlike—not that one would expect otherwise from one of them. Had it been a fair fight, I would have—”

“A gentleman deserves a fair fight,” Will said evenly. “The kind of vermin who would strike a lady deserves whatever he gets.”

“Lady?”
A frantic little burst of laughter erupted from Pratt. “How can you even think to call a whoring bit of baggage like that—”

Will whipped a fist across Pratt’s face, sending him flying back into his chair. Pratt cursed like a stevedore. Daisy’s startled shriek degenerated into a flurry of giggles.

“My word, Will,” Nell said. “You’ve been doing that an awful lot lately. Aren’t you afraid of damaging your hand?”

“I used my left this time. It’s not as strong as the right, but this way he gets a new black eye on the other side, and there’s a certain pleasing symmetry to that.”

“Clever you.”

Pratt called Will a great many things, all unspeakably foul. Daisy just couldn’t seem to stop laughing.

“You’ll have to invent a new lie for what happened to you this time,” Nell told Pratt.

“By the way,” Will said, “why did you tell your wife that you’d been robbed by a basher, and the rest of us that you’d tripped on the stairs?”

Pratt sat forward, rubbing the side of his face. “I never told my wife... Oh. Vera must have told her that. She can’t seem to stop looking after me. Gets damnably irritating.”

“So you don’t deny having visited Mrs. Kimball the day before her murder and threatening her?” Nell asked.

Pratt cupped his face in his hands, muttering in evident exasperation. “Yes.
Yes!
I got fed up. Who wouldn’t? She got her money, I didn’t get my gun. I went there, and I...I probably said some things I shouldn’t have, but it was just in the heat of anger. It didn’t mean anything.”

“Perhaps not,” Will said, “but the next day, Virginia Kimball was found shot to death. You do understand why you’re at the top of our list.”

“All right,” Pratt said. “How much to get me off that list?”

“I beg your pardon?” Nell asked.

Will said, “He’s offering us money to ignore the fact that he may be a murderer.”

“For God’s sake, I’m not a murderer.”

Will smiled. “With all due respect, that
is
what murderers tend to say.”

“And to answer your question,” Nell said, “there’s no amount of money you could offer that would sway us. The only way you can get off the list is by convincing us you didn’t do it.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Pratt grumbled. “I was nowhere near Mount Vernon Street that afternoon.”

“Where were you?” Nell asked.

“That’s not imp—”

“Here?” Will asked.

Pratt’s hesitation was telling.

“Would you swear to that in a court of law, Miss Newland?” Will asked.

“Hm? Oh, um...” Daisy shrugged and made a little
pfft
sound. “Sure, I guess.”

“No.” Pratt rose to his feet, hands outstretched as if to ward off such a prospect. “No, no, no, no, no. That can’t happen. Don’t you see that? My reputation, my marriage...”

“Even if it keeps you from hanging?” Will asked.

Pratt said, “No one could seriously think I shot those two women. This is...this is mad. This entire conversation is mad. Why am I standing here listening to this?”

“Mrs. Kimball and Miss Gannon were killed with a high caliber revolver,” Will said. “Who’s to say you didn’t go to Mrs. Kimball’s looking for your Lefaucheux the day after Thurston dealt you that black eye? You used the unlocked garden and courtyard doors to sneak into the house. You did find the gun, but then Mrs. Kimball came home. Or perhaps Fiona caught you upstairs, and—”

“This is absurd. I don’t need to listen to any more of this.” Pratt raised his chin and puffed out his chest in a cartoon parody of the image he liked to project. “I’m a person of substance in this city, in case it’s escaped your notice. People look up to me. They listen to what I have to say. And after all, who are you two? A professional gambler—yes, Hewitt, I know how you make your living—and an Irish governess. If it should come down to your word against mine—either one of you—I have very little doubt as to who will prevail. In the meantime, I’ll thank you to leave this flat immediately.”

“I believe we’ve gotten what we came here for,” Will said as he took Nell’s arm and led her toward the door.

“And if you think you can gain ground by eviscerating my character,” Pratt continued, “I shall not only deny your allegations, but turn them against you. I’ve had decades of practice playing dirty. I’ll wager I’m a bit more skilled at it than you two.”

Pausing in the doorway, Will said, “Ah, but it’s as much about ammunition as skill. You see, we know about the Red Book, Mr. Pratt. We know what Mrs. Kimball wrote about you and your...proclivities.”

“Speaking of which,” Nell added, “a little cold cream will take that lip rouge right off.”

Pratt touched his lips, the color leaching from his face, as they closed the door. Daisy’s laughter pursued them down the hall.

*   *   *

“Citizens with information about a case.” That was how Nell and Will announced themselves to the clerk sitting outside Detective Charles Skinner’s office in City Hall.

It was midafternoon by the time they arrived there, Will having taken Nell and his daughter for a leisurely luncheon at the Revere House—to the immense joy of Gracie, who normally didn’t get to see too much of her beloved “Miseeney” on Saturdays. The restaurant meal, an exhilarating novelty for the child, had left her sated and drowsy; she’d dosed in her “Uncle Will’s” arms during the cab ride back to Colonnade Row. He’d carried her into the house and all the way up to the third floor nursery, kissing her sleep-flushed cheek as Nell tucked her into bed. That kiss had made Nell’s heart clench.

Skinner rose behind his desk as Nell and Will entered his office, which stank of meat and onions; a wad of greasy paper lay on the floor next to his overflowing wastebasket. He wore the cordially baffled expression of a man facing visitors whom he knew he’d met recently, but couldn’t quite place.

“Mrs. Kimball’s funeral,” Will reminded him. “Miss Sweeney is the lady who was overcome by the heat. I’m the physician who—”

“Yes, yes, of course. Of course. Dr. Hewitt.”

Skinner invited them to sit in the pair of cracked leather chairs facing his desk, then took a seat himself, his hands linked over his plaid-vested stomach. “I’m told you have some information for me?”

“Quite a bit, actually,” said Nell as she unfolded her sketch of Mrs. Kimball’s bedroom.

“It’s about Virginia Kimball’s murder,” Will said.

“Ah. Yes, well...that’s not actually an open case. It’s been resolved, so I’m afraid any information you have wouldn’t really be of any...” Skinner stared at the sketch as Nell flattened it out on his desktop, frowning as he realized what it was.

“This is the scene of the murder.” Pointing to the sketch, Nell said, “Here’s where Mrs. Kimball fell. Fiona fell in this direction. Here’s where her killer was standing. Here’s where the blood from her head wound—”

“How did you get into that house?” Skinner asked, his voice like rolled steel, all business now.

“A more pertinent question,” Will said, “might be how could you have seen what we saw and still have blamed the murder on Fiona Gannon?”

With a condescending little smile, Skinner said, “I assure you, my conclusion, and the conclusion of the county coroner and the inquest jury—erudite gentlemen, all—was arrived at after a thorough consideration of the facts.”

Will said, “Perhaps the inquest jury didn’t have access to all the facts.”

Skinner said, “Perhaps you ought to leave police work to the Police.”

“That might be reasonable advice,” Will said, “if the police in this city would stop holding their hands out long enough to actually investigate the crimes they’re supposed to be solving.”

“I believe I’ve heard enough,” Skinner said as he rose to his feet. “I’ll thank you both to take your little drawings and your theories and—”

“You lied under oath during the inquest, Detective, and we have proof of it.” Will made this statement as casually as if he were discussing the weather. “What’s the punishment for policemen who commit perjury? Dismissal from the department?”

“Oh, I’m sure it would be dismissal plus a prison term,” Nell said.

The detective sat back down with an unconvincingly blasé smirk. “And what makes you think I lied?” His bravado was belied by a telltale tightness in his speech and his restless eyes that kept looking for something new to focus on.

Will unwrapped his handkerchief from around the bullet he’d found on Mrs. Kimball’s bedroom floor. “I fished this out of the blood that had soaked into the rug under Fiona Gannon’s head.” Holding it out so Skinner could see it, he said, “It’s the bullet that killed her. As you can see, this is no thirty-one caliber lead ball.”

Skinner stared at the spent slug with a rigid lack of expression. “So?”

“So you testified that Mrs. Kimball’s Remington, a thirty-one caliber five-shooter, was missing three rounds when you found it at the scene. We do know that three bullets were fired in that room that afternoon—one into the window frame, one into Mrs. Kimball, which was buried with her, and one, this one” –Will held the bullet between thumb and forefinger— “into Fiona Gannon’s head. The bullet from the window frame came from the Remington. This one did not, nor, it’s safe to say, did the bullet that killed Mrs. Kimball. According to Maximilian Thurston, she always kept the Remington fully loaded. So if only one bullet was fired from it that day, how did it end up with three rounds missing?”

“Unless,” Nell suggested, “you fired two yourself before handing it over to Mr. Watts for ballistic testing. Of course, you testified that you’d found it with those rounds missing—hence the perjury. The coroner perjured himself, too, undoubtedly at your behest, about the bullet having remained in Fiona’s head. You knew everything all along. You saw the blood spray, you saw Fiona’s wound...’

“You saw those powder burns on her face and cap,” Will said. “You knew the direction in which she fell. You had to know her killer was standing right next to her with the gun pressed to her head. Mrs. Kimball was mortally wounded and in respiratory distress. She couldn’t have gotten up and done it herself. The evidence of a third person in that room was overwhelming, yet you contrived, you and the coroner, to paint Fiona Gannon as a thief and a murderess.”

“Did you suggest to Orville Pratt that he have Mrs. Kimball’s house cleaned to expunge it of evidence,” Nell asked, “or did he come up with that idea himself?”

In a flat, strained voice, Skinner said, “You are delusional,
Miss Sweeney
” –he sneered her name— “if you suppose I’d submit to an interrogation from the likes of you.”

With quiet wrath, Will said, “You will submit to far worse than that from me, Detective, if you presume to address Miss Sweeney in that manner again.”

Skinner looked away with an air of ostentatious disdain, but it was an unpersuasive performance; William Hewitt knew how to exude an aura of cold menace that other men paid attention to.

“What’s your interest in this?” Skinner asked Will.

“Miss Gannon’s uncle believes her to be innocent, as do Miss Sweeney and I.”