Still Life With Murder (29 page)

Flynn scratched the back of his neck with the curling tongs. “Not to my way of thinking.”

“They did,” she said. “Even dead, Tulley resembles him. Did you think the man being attacked was Noonan? Was that why you didn’t try to intervene?”

“I didn’t try to intervene ’cause Tulley wasn’t worth it. Not that I’d have lifted a finger for Noonan either, God knows, but him and Tulley, they was easy to tell apart.”

“Even in that alley at night?” Nell asked. “If I were to encounter one of those men under those circumstances, I’m not sure I’d know which one I was seeing.”

Somewhat testily he said, “Yeah, well, I got good eyes. Always have.”

“Good enough to see in the dark?”

“I’m like a cat. Speakin’ of which…” Flynn bent to heft the thrumming sack over his shoulder. “If there’s one thing cats know, it’s rats. Can’t keep these little buggers in the sack for too long, or they’ll take to tearin’ each other apart before Flossie gets a go
at ’em. I’ve even known ’em to gobble each other up, like them African what-do-you-call-em…cannibals.”

Jack eyed the sack uneasily as Flynn headed out of the barn.

Flynn turned to wink at him as he walked away. “Way I figure, it’s all part of the good Lord’s plan.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I
T WAS ALMOST FOUR O
’
CLOCK
the following afternoon before Nell could take a respite from her duties to pay a visit to William Hewitt, Gracie having been truculent about going down for her daily nap and Nurse Parrish having yet to awaken from hers. Nell relished the walk from Colonnade Row to Commonwealth Avenue, which took her past the Common and adjacent Public Gardens, transformed by last night’s freezing rain into a glittering fairyland of ice.

Carefully mounting the slippery front steps of Jack Thorpe’s townhouse, Nell knocked loudly—in case Will was upstairs in his guest room—and waited. The lace curtains on the glass-paned double doors were tied back, affording her a clear view into Jack’s foyer and down the hallway that led to the library and dining room. Nothing hung from the hooks on the ornately carved, mirrored hallstand; the crystal calling card tray was empty and gleaming, as was the porcelain urn meant to hold umbrellas.

Nell listened for footsteps, but didn’t hear any. She chafed her arms through her overcoat, chilled now that she wasn’t moving—or perhaps it wasn’t the cold making her shiver so much as the prospect of demanding, at long last, some straight answers from Will about the night of Ernest Tulley’s murder.

Kathleen’s account of Will’s altercation with Tulley suggested that it wasn’t jealousy, after all, that had provoked his fury toward the merchant sailor, but outrage over an attempted rape. It had been fairly early in the evening—too early for him to have lapsed into an opiated stupor—and he did appear to have a history of protectiveness toward women; there was that girl in Shanghai, and the beating he’d dealt to
Mathilde’s assailant. But would his rage have incited him to murder four hours later, especially after smoking opium all night?

Nell knocked again, muttering, “Come on, you must be home. You probably just woke up.”

What had begun as a task undertaken grudgingly on Viola’s behalf—to ferret out the truth of Ernest Tulley’s murder and save Will from the noose—was turning into a rather more heartfelt mission. Notwithstanding Seamus Flynn’s dubious eyewitness account, the more Nell learned of Dr. William Hewitt, the more she doubted his capacity for murder—especially such a brutal murder. Yes, he was a flawed man, but there was a spark of civility—perhaps even honor—that flickered stubbornly within the dissipated creature he’d allowed himself to become.

It was that, his willingness to trade the silver spoon he’d been born with for an opium pipe and a deck of cards, which baffled and disturbed Nell most. He’d chosen to embrace the lowlife, whereas she had striven for years to put as much distance as possible between herself and the morass of poverty and crime that had once held her captive. His path in life was the direct opposite of hers, a fact that distressed her more than it should.

Equally distressing was the extent to which she found herself tapping into old instincts and street lore she’d long assumed—indeed, prayed—she would never need again. How easy, and ingenuous, it had been to think of the old Nell as dead and buried. Like a grimy street blanketed by snow, her past could be cloaked in a pristine mantle of respectability, but it would forever be there, lurking just beneath the surface.

And sooner or later the snow always melted.

Stripping off one cashmere-lined kid glove, she rapped on the leaded glass door until her knuckles were red. Finally accepting that he either wasn’t home or was choosing to ignore her, she tugged the glove back on and headed back the way she’d come.

She’d rounded the corner of Commonwealth and was halfway down Arlington—passing beneath the shop canopies to avoid a trio of fur-swathed matrons laden with hatboxes and shopping parcels—when she stopped in her tracks, turned, and retraced her steps about twenty feet. A flash of someone’s black coat in a store window had caught her eye. It shouldn’t have—nine out of ten Bostonians, male and female, dressed in black for the street—but there was a certain quality to the movement, a presence to the anonymous figure…

Yes, indeed. It was William Hewitt, in overcoat and low top hat. He stood at a glass-fronted counter with a huge scale on it, signing a slip of paper, as the proprietor wrapped up something small in brown paper. The gold and green sign on the shop door, shaped like a mortar and pestle, read:

JOSEPH MAYNARD & CO.
—Boston—
Offering all pure
MEDICINES, ESSENTIAL OILS,
EXTRACTS, POWDERS,
French and English
DRUGS and CHEMICALS at
WHOLESALE
to Druggists and Physicians, at the lowest prices for goods of fine quality
.

Open Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. until 8:00 p.m.
Saturday, 9:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m
.

In the window to the left of the door was a placard that read:

Proprietors of

COCOAINE, ORIENTAL TOOTH WASH,
SYRUP OF POPPIES, LAUDANUM,
PAREGORIC, DOVER’S POWDER,
WISTAR’S BALSAM OF WILD CHERRY

for the treatment of coughs, colds, consumption,
and lung diseases,

PERUVIAN SYRUP, AN IRON TONIC

for the treatment of dyspepsia, debility, dropsy, and humors,

DR. WALKER S CALIFORNIA VINEGAR
BITTERS,

the great blood purifier.

Nell tapped on the window. Will glanced toward her, looked pleasantly surprised, and motioned for her to come in. The man behind the counter—white-haired and goateed, with a starched apron tied over his frock coat—smiled and nodded as she entered. Will removed his hat as he bowed, tucking it under his arm. The shop, with its floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with bottles and jars, reminded Nell of an Occidental version of Deng Bao’s.

“Thank you, Dr. Toussaint,” said the apothecary as he handed Will the paper-wrapped parcel. “I hope you’ll rely on us for all your medical supplies.”

Nell slid her gaze toward Will, who was smiling in that private way of his as he tucked the parcel into his pocket. “I expect I will. By the way, Mr. Maynard, this is my assistant, Miss Sweeney.”

Nell mumbled something innocuous as the pleasant old gentleman greeted her. She waited until they were outside on the sidewalk to say, “So I’m your assistant now,
Doctor
?”

Will shrugged as he replaced his hat. “The professional discount is really quite remarkable, and they’ve started an account for me. It’s not too difficult to convince people you’re a physician if you know the right things to say.”

Nell didn’t bother pointing out that he actually
was
a physician, like it or not.

“I must say it was a pleasant surprise running into you today,” he said. “Dare I hope you’ve wandered into the Back Bay in search of me?”

So courtly was the greeting—surprisingly so, given Nell’s past interactions with Will Hewitt—that she was momentarily at a loss for words. It wasn’t only his manner that was unexpectedly civilized, but his appearance. The cut near his eye had almost completely healed, and the bruises had faded to mere shadows on his smooth-shaven jaw. His hair was well-groomed, his shoes like polished onyx, his attire neat and smart.

“You see?” He leaned close, as if sharing a confidence. “You’re not the only one who can look disconcertingly respectable.”

She took a step away, discomfited as much by his closeness as by the illusion that they were just ordinary acquaintances having a nice little chat on the sidewalk. There was nothing ordinary about William Hewitt, regardless of how conventionally he chose to dress or act. He might not have killed Ernest Tulley. That didn’t mean he wasn’t still dangerous.

“I
was
looking for you,” she said. “There are some things we need to discuss. You should know that—”

“Would you like to take a walk in the Gardens?” he asked.

She hesitated, nonplused by the invitation.

“I want to do it before the ice melts. Here.” Taking her by the elbow, he started guiding her across Arlington, toward the entrance to the Boston Public Gardens. “You can interrogate me while we walk.”

“T
HEY LOOK LIKE SPUN GLASS
,” Will said of the leafless, ice-glazed trees bordering the path along which they strolled, his limp keeping them to a leisurely pace. “The lower the sun sinks in the sky, the prettier they look.”

There was, indeed, a crystalline majesty to the Gardens today, and a blessed sense of exile from the buzzing city that surrounded them; they’d passed only two other pedestrians since entering the park. Nell was glad she’d let Will talk her into coming here. Indeed, she was enjoying herself so much that she’d almost forgotten her purpose in seeking him out. “I don’t know whether Jack Thorpe told you this, Dr. Hewitt, but Pearl Stauber has disappeared.”

“I haven’t actually seen much of Jack. We keep different hours. Who’s Pearl St—” Recognition lit his eyes. “Ah. Yes,” he said, a little sadly. “Pearl.”

So. He
had
remembered her—not just from Flynn’s, Nell realized, but from their encounter twelve years ago.

Nell said, “She left her flat, apparently of her own free will, late Sunday night or early Monday morning, and hasn’t been seen since. Detective Cook is determined to find her, and it will go badly for you if he does. She’s the one who heard you threaten to make Ernest Tulley ‘pay with his life.’ Her testimony could send you to the gallows.”

“Look at the icicles on that fountain,” he said, pointing. “They reach almost to the ground, and some of them have merged together. They put diamonds to shame, don’t they?”

“Why did you tell me you were fighting over Kathleen Flynn,” she asked, “when in reality, you were trying to keep her from being raped by Ernest Tulley?”

“You
assumed
I was fighting over Kathleen Flynn. Bad habit of yours, those assumptions.”

“You confirmed them. ‘Clashing horns over a female,’ you said. ‘Oldest story in the book.’”

“Was I smoking gong at the time?”

“Yes, but—”

“Well, then.”

“You must think I’m a very great fool, indeed, if you expect me to believe that it was the opium that made you say that.”

“You have many and various facets to you, Miss Sweeney,” he said with a smile, “but foolishness is not one of them.”

“Seamus Flynn says he saw you murder Ernest Tulley.”

“Really? The evidence certainly seems to be piling up.”

“You deliberately misled me,” she said testily. “You’ve been toying with me all along, withholding the truth and letting me stumble round in the dark—Jack, too—when all we’re trying to do is keep you from being hanged.”

“I told you once before, Miss Sweeney—some people are meant to hang.”

She stopped walking. “Not you.”

He turned to face her. Gravely he said, “Don’t be so sure.”

“Tell me the truth, for once!” she demanded. “Did you kill Ernest Tulley because of what he did to Kathleen?”

He closed the space between them, seizing both ends of her loose scarf to halt her when she tried to back up. Tugging her none too gently toward him, he bent his head until his face filled her field of vision, his gaze searing, his vaporous breath mingling with hers. “I am growing weary, indeed,” he said quietly, “of your refusal to tuck in your scarf. One would think a grown woman would have more sense.”

He crossed her scarf as if preparing to tuck it in himself. She snatched it away from him, stumbling back. “I am sick to death of playing these games with you, of begging for a shred of cooperation, only to have you laugh in my face! There are people who want to execute you for what they think you’ve done, Dr. Hewitt. You could
die
. If you do nothing to help yourself, you probably will.”

“And you think I don’t realize that.”

“You don’t seem to, not really.”

He gazed upward, into a tangled network of ice-dipped branches ignited from within, spectacularly so, by the setting
sun. “If only I didn’t.” Reaching into his coat pocket, he withdrew the little paper-wrapped bundle he’d purchased at the apothecary. “Do you mind if we sit?” he asked, nodding toward a nearby iron bench. “My leg. It’s…”