The Whiskey Tide (7 page)

     
Kate nodded. That shipment of a thousand cases stuck in Canada was worth ten thousand dollars. "Not that it matters. The subject's closed as far as Mama's concerned. So Uncle Finney gets to go on boasting about his investments like half the other men who were here today." She paused, struggling to make her tone careless. "Who's his chum who walks like a pigeon?"

     
Aggie looked blank and then laughed. "Oh, you mean...?" She curved out her chest and bobbed her head. "That's Malcolm Townsend. Gobs of gold for cufflinks? I think he's a big wheel in dry goods or something downtown, but he also has a spanky little speakeasy out on the road to Beverly."

     
Kate smiled vaguely. A few minutes later she went upstairs and tore the letter from Scotland into a hundred pieces.

Four

     
Felix Garvey lighted a cigarette and flicked a grain of tobacco from the pleat of his white linen trousers. The phone he held to his ear rang twice before his employer answered.

     
"The problem's solved," Felix reported.

     
The problem's name was Sylvia, a small time singer who had complicated Hugo Brewer's life. Girls like her came and went with Hugo, but when he'd tired of this one, she'd made a scene, threatened to go to his wife.

     
"You're sure?" There was relief in Hugo's voice. He was keen on all the family trappings.

     
"She'd been drinking. The window was open. She fell out."

     
Not exactly how it had happened, but a safer version for Hugo. The boss didn't care how Felix dealt with men who complicated his liquor business, but he didn't like to hear about details. Felix wasn't sure how he'd react if he knew Felix had hit the girl too hard and broken her neck.

     
"Too bad," Hugo said, but his voice held little more than token remorse.

     
They hung up and Felix stretched out in a chair, surveying the swank apartment stretching around him. A cut glass vase held florist's flowers. He liked the sight. Liked knowing all this was his.

     
He hadn't intended to kill the stupid little singer tonight, but she'd lipped off to him. When he'd walked in instead of Hugo, she'd tossed her head and said tell Hugo to come himself instead of sending his lackey. Felix had hit her. She'd called him a name. He'd hit her again. Too hard.

     
That created complications there in the center of Boston in one of its finest hotels. It was Felix's ability to assess a situation and plan with utter calm, however, which had helped him rise so quickly in the employ of Hugo Brewer. Felix didn't waste time on nerves. Nerves were for fools.

     
He had viewed things dispassionately, contemplating several plans of action. Then he took a nearly full bottle of scotch that set on the dresser, poured some of it over the front of the girl's dress, flushed most of the rest down the toilet and set the bottle back in place. All that remained was opening the window and pushing her out.

     
It was the girl's own fault she was dead. She should have held her tongue. Felix couldn't stand girls who smarted off.

***

     
Even standing behind the desk, Malcolm Townsend looked like a pigeon. His chest thrust out and his round head gave the impression it might dip forward to peck at any moment.

     
Kate extended her hand and walked toward him. Her stomach was clamped together so tightly she scarcely could breathe. Social interaction terrified her. Avoiding it was one of the things that had attracted her to research and writing reports.

     
"Mr. Townsend, I'm Kate Hinshaw, Phinneas Taylor's niece." If he thought Uncle Finney had sent her here, all the better. He'd take it as an endorsement. "You have an order of whiskey stranded in Canada. I have a boat and a crew. I can bring it."

     
"Er...." He shook her hand, caught slightly off balance. "I had no idea...." She hadn't given her name when she'd called yesterday and cautiously told him she could bring in the goods he needed. He sat abruptly and waved her toward a chair.

     
"You're young."

     
Kate had no ready answer and so she said nothing. Beneath her gray suit with its mourning ribbons pinned to the pocket, her heart crashed so she was sure he'd hear it. She concentrated on letting her hands rest quietly on the arms of her chair, an unnerving ploy she'd learned from a fearsome Latin instructor whose required courses she'd been relieved to complete.

     
"You mean a serious crew, I hope," he said after a moment. "Not a bunch of college boys out for a lark."

     
"Of course not."

     
"Oh, yes... that boat of your father's." He had figured it out. "Fair sized." His fingertips balanced uncertainly on the edge of the desk. "I'd need to know who they were, your crew. The man in charge, anyway."

     
"You know I couldn't possibly tell you that."

     
Malcolm Townsend pursed his lips in thought. "You'd be able to do it this week yet?"

     
"Of course." His concern over time puzzled her, but perhaps he already had a purchaser for the liquor and was afraid of losing the sale. She'd promise whatever was needed to get the job.

     
"All right. I'll pay you six hundred dollars."

     
Without a word Kate rose and started for the door. As she reached for the knob he spoke again.

     
"Okay. How much did you have in mind?"

     
She turned slowly.

     
"To bring in a thousand cases? Twelve."

     
He shook his head. "Impossible. A thousand. Not a penny more."

     
Her ears rang with disbelief. He was going to agree. They'd have something — a small amount, anyway — to pay toward the loan on the house.

     
"If you're caught, I'll deny I have anything to do with it," he warned.

     
Kate nodded. Her heart was clattering again with the thought of the danger. If something went wrong and she ended up in jail.... She couldn't let herself think of it.

     
"I'll need something in advance." She walked back toward the desk. She was gripping her handbag so hard she felt sure she could never pry her fingers loose to open it.

     
Townsend twirled the dial on a safe in the corner. He opened it. Crossing to her, he counted out ten twenty dollar bills.

     
"The rest when you deliver," he said. He gave her the details of where to pick up the liquor. "Call and tell me when you can land — just say the picnic's such-and-such a time. I'll tell you where. There'll be trucks to meet you."

     
She nodded again. Now that it was actually happening, she was too terrified to speak.

     
Outside Townsend's red brick building her legs turned flimsy. They wouldn't carry her back to the streetcar line. She leaned against the front of the building and watched traffic pass on Essex Street and wondered desperately if she really could manage what she'd just agreed to do. She'd make a list. Check off items, the same as a school project.

     
She thought about Pa, whose life had been devoted to upholding the law. A tear scuttled along the edge of her nose to salt her lip.

***

     
"You're setting a good example for the rest of us, Kate. Getting dressed and out."

     
Her mother attempted a smile, trying to smooth things over with compliments after their clash over Uncle Finney. Kate lowered her eyes. Her guilt weighed on her like a velvet coat on the hot August day. Surely the others could see it. She'd missed a streetcar because of her wobbly legs and gotten back just in time to join them around the dining room table. It was the first time they'd all been together there without Pa. Peg had put on starched white place mats trimmed in cut embroidery, and a silver bowl filled with pink roses and baby's breath. Her mother was sitting in Pa's chair. So its emptiness wouldn't shout at them, Kate thought, admiring the gesture. But the sting of her mother doubting her truthfulness lingered.

     
"I thought I should look for a job," Kate said forcing a bite of Peg's pimento cheese sandwiches down a throat that would never be hungry again. "Teaching, maybe."

     
Rosalie made a small sound of protest.

     
"You mean not finish college?" Mama looked confused. "But surely you wanted—"

     
"I couldn't possibly leave you all now." Kate tossed her napkin down and fled. She lay on the couch in Pa's study pretending to read until she heard the wiping of shoes and the bang of the kitchen door that announced Billy McCarthy had arrived for his thrice weekly chores. She gave him half an hour to help Peg with the cleaning up left from the wake and to hear the advice and admonitions which the cook loved dispensing. Then she strolled downstairs and through the side door into the yard.

     
She had shed her suit jacket. A cooling breeze fluttered her white blouse while the sun warmed the strand of pearls knotted under its collar.

     
"Afternoon, Miss Kate." Billy looked up from digging dandelions with a discarded butcher knife. There was a smudge of dirt across his freckles. "Your little brother managing okay with all the folks in and out these last few days, is he?"

     
"Yes, thanks." The errand boy often showed a protective concern about Woody even though he was scarcely half a dozen years older. From her pocket Kate produced a two dollar bill and held it down to him. Billy's eyes widened, not so much at the money as with foreknowledge stealth was about to be required. "Billy. I need to ask you something. But you must forget that I did."

     
His head didn't move, but his gaze swept the yard. A line of lusty old lilacs separated them from the house. Without a word he took the money, whisked it into a pocket and waited. His trousers were mended. His hair was in need of a trim. For an instant Kate struggled with guilt at making him part of her plans.

     
"There's another of those if you can give me the information I need," she said. She drew a breath. "Do you know anyone used to handling a boat in open seas who could sail
Pa's Folly
to Canada and back for me? I'd pay quite well. He'd need to be very good and very discreet and — and not a Nervous Nellie."

     
The freckles on Billy's face shifted into a knowing grin. Kate blushed.

     
"Reckon I know somebody might do it. Joe Santayna. Works on his uncles' big eighty-footer. Knows just about every kind of boat there is. He's no Nervous Nellie. Fought in France and got a medal, my Ma says. You want me to ask him if he'd be interested?"

     
Inside her pockets Kate's hands worked so nervously she realized she might burst the seams. She willed them to stillness.

     
"Would you know where to find him right now?"

     
Billy parked the knife he'd been digging with carefully in the earth.

     
"Well... boats are in. He's likely at Finnegan's, or maybe Constantine's. If not, somebody might know."

     
"Then I want you to take me there. Meet me at the car. I'll tell Peg I have errands to run and need you to help me. We'll pick up whatever groceries she wants on the way back."