Don't Die Under the Apple Tree (24 page)

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Authors: Amy Patricia Meade

BOOK: Don't Die Under the Apple Tree

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Yet upward she continued.

As she neared the third level of the skeletal structure, a shout came from the yard below. Delaney had caught up. “Rosie! Rosie, get down!”

Undeterred, she continued to climb.

“Rosie, please come down. I don't want to hurt you!”

“You don't? Is that why you marched me here with a gun in my back? Is that why you dragged me out of an alley?”

“I had to, Rosie. You gave me no choice. But I don't want to hurt you. Really.”

“Oh, and I suppose that's why you followed me in the first place. Because you didn't want to hurt me?”

Delaney began to climb after her, the gun still in his right hand. “I wasn't supposed to follow you. It was going to be one of Costello's men, but I asked for the job. I asked for it to make sure you were safe. And when”âhis hand slipped, but he recovered his balanceâ“And when Hansen was attacked, I made sure that happened after you had left the bar. I ... I didn't want you to get hurt. I wanted to protect you because Iâbecause I love you.”

Breathless from her climb, but close to the planking, Rosie screamed, “Love? Is that why you were willing to let me go to jail?”

“I didn't want to ... I didn't,” Delaney sounded as though he was close to tears.

Rosie stepped onto the wooden planking. As she did so a shot rang out and she felt a burning sensation in her right hip that caused her to drop to her knees. “Oh!” she gasped.

She endeavored to get back onto her feet, but it was too late. Delaney was already at the other end of the platform, his gun pointed directly at her. “I do love you, Rosie. But even love isn't enough to protect me from Costello's men.”

As Rosie lay upon the wooden planks of the platform, her hand reached behind her torso into the darkness and fell upon something cold, hard, and metallic.

Delaney cocked the gun and pointed it at Rosie's heart. “I can't let them kill me, Rosie. I'm sorry.”

She tried on a sympathetic look, all the while grasping the object behind her. “I guess that's it, then. I have nowhere else to run, do I? I just have one last request.”

“What is it?”

“Well, I was raised Catholic, like you were. Remember the days at St. Cecelia's?”

“I do. I knew I loved you even then.”

“And I'mâI'm sorry I didn't notice.” The words brought a rush of bile to her mouth. “Seeing as there's no priest here to administer Last Rites, could you at least join me in a prayer?”

Delaney shook his head gravely. “Don't make me do that, Rosie. This is tough enough.”

“Please?” she begged. “I don't want to go without seeking some sort of absolution.”

Delaney nodded and hung his head as Rosie began reciting the Hail Mary. “Hail Mary, full of grace, Our Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of Godâ”

With that final invocation, Rosie grabbed the pneumatic rivet gun Kilbride had left outdoors, clutched it tightly in both hands like a battering ram, and lunged toward Delaney. Pushing hard on the trigger, she sent the tip of the gun into Delaney's chest with several blasts of air.

Delaney, crying out in agony, fell backward off the platform, causing a relieved, but exhausted, Rosie to plop onto the planks and catch her breath.

He's gone. He's finally gone.
She wiped the rain from her face and began to stand up so as to start her descent down the scaffold.

Just then, she felt a hand grab her right ankle, prompting her to scream.

Hanging from the platform with one hand and holding onto Rosie with the other, Delaney was either attempting to climb back up or to pull her down with him.

Screaming the entire time, she flopped onto her stomach and frantically clawed at the planks, the nearby hull, anything that would keep her from sliding off the platform.

As she felt herself being pulled closer to the edge of the platform, closer to falling to the yard below, a shot rang out. Rosie, expecting to feel another burning pain, closed her eyes and braced for the worst.

However, it wasn't a burning sensation that she felt but the sensation of Delaney's fingers loosing their grip on her ankle. Within seconds, they disappeared altogether. She opened her eyes in confusion.

Illuminated by a nearby streak of lightning, Lieutenant Riordan stood at the opposite end of the platform. Bruised, bloody, his left arm dangling limply at his side, he dropped the gun from his right hand and collapsed beside Rosie.

“Riordan!” she exclaimed. Thankfully he was still conscious. “I thought ... I thought Delaney ...”

“He did.” He smiled. “I don't look like this for nothing.”

“Where did he get you?”

“Shoulder. Left shoulder. You know, that's a helluva climb you make every day.”

Half-crying, half-laughing, she nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, but Monday's climb will seem a lot easier than this one.”

“I heard shots. Are you okay? Did he get you?”

“I thought he got me, but ...” She reached down to her right hip, only to have her fingers meet, not blood, but metal. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out Delaney's hip flask, which now bore a dent the size of a bullet hole.

Rosie stared at the object in disbelief and repeated the words Delaney had spoken upon giving it to her: “In case you need it.”

Chapter Seventeen

Sunday morning materialized from the rainâsunny, clear, but seasonably cooler. After filing a report at police headquarters and having her cuts, scrapes, and abrasions tended to at the hospital, Rosie returned home, collapsed upon her sofa, and slept the sleep of a free woman.

She awoke six hours later, showered, donned a blue plaid dress with a white collar, and set off on the IRT to Brooklyn. Seeing the station in broad daylight fought off the chill she experienced as she stepped onto the platform, but she would not be deterred from her quest.

After a brief stop in Greenpoint, she then traveled to the third floor of Kings County Hospital, where Jack Riordan, his arm in a cast that stretched from his shoulder to his wrist, sat in bed, reading the morning paper spread upon his lap.

“Did we make the front page?” Rosie asked as she peeked her head in the door.

“Nope. King George VI did.” He pulled a face.

“King George? Did he take a bullet to save a woman from jail, too?”

“No, he gave the George Cross to Malta. But we're on page three.”

“Well, better luck next time, I suppose,” she teased.

“I do hope you're joking.”

“I am.” She smiled and handed Riordan a white waxed paper bag of crullers she had purchased prior to her visit. “These are for you. A thank-you for saving me from Delaney.”

“You didn't need to do that. It's my job. And from what I can remember, you were doing okay on your own. Well ... except maybe for when Delaney was trying to pull you off the scaffold,” Riordan teased as he opened the bag and sniffed its contents.

“Yeah, âexcept' for that I was doing fine.” She laughed.

Riordan chuckled and took a bite of cruller. “Mmm ... these are good.”

“Yeah, I got them from the bakery my mother wants me to work at.”

“Oh, are you leaving the shipyard?”

Rosie shook her head. “No, after everything that's happened it might come as a shock, but I'm actually starting to like it there.”

“Good. I'm sure the cause could use more women like you.”

Rosie blushed and cleared her throat awkwardly. “Well, I'd ... um ... I'd better be going. I have a lot of packing to do.”

“Packing?” Riordan asked with a start. “I thought you were staying at the shipyard.”

“Oh, I am. But I'm moving to Brooklyn. Back to my mother's place. Katie and Charlie will be living with us, too.”

“Brooklyn, huh? I'm glad.”

“Why? So I'm no longer stirring up trouble in Manhattan?” Rosie joked.

“No. Because I live in Brooklyn, too. Being in the same borough will make it easier to check up on you,” Riordan stated with a smile.

“Check up on me?” Rosie repeated as she felt the color rise in her cheeks.

“Sure. I've invested too much time clearing your name to let you run afoul of the law again.”

“Run afoul of the law? And say, what do you mean you cleared my name? I wasn't exactly wringing my hands in despair waiting to be rescued from the gallows.”

“No, you weren't,” Riordan agreed, with more than a hint of admiration in his voice.

“If anything, I single-handedly solved the case,” she half-jokingly said.

“Single-handedly?”

“That's right.”

“Uh-huh ... I could argue that I pitched in a little, but since I'm a gentleman and already in a considerable amount of pain, let's just call it a draw, shall we?”

“Agreed,” Rosie said with a sparkle in her eye.

“Besides”âRiordan's face grew somberâ“now that we know what's really going on, the question isn't âWho solved the case?' or âWho saved you from Delaney? ' It's âWho's going to save the waterfront from Costello?'”

Rosie shook her head slowly and frowned. “Who's going to save any of us, Lieutenant Riordan? The Nazis are taking over Europe and Africa, mobsters are taking over New York, profiteers are taking over the war effort, and our government nods its head and cries âVictory' in spite of it all. What hope is left?”

Riordan reached into the white bag and handed Rosie a cruller. “You,” he replied. “You and other people who aren't satisfied with just making do, Mrs. Keefe.”

Rosie bit her lip in thought. “Well, I guess my being at Pushey made a little bit of a difference, didn't it? At least to the women there.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And youâwell, you make a difference every day.”

“Not
every
day, but I try.”

“Yeah, but if you and I can do it, we all can do it.”

“Exactly.” Riordan raised his cruller and “clinked” it against hers. “To you, Mrs. Keefe.”

She giggled. “To you, Lieutenant Riordan.”

“And to you moving to Brooklyn,” he added with a boyish grin.

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