From This Moment (30 page)

Mr. Townsend’s reply was dismissive. “I saw the results of the police investigation myself. It was an accident. She drowned.”

“What was she doing on that bridge in the middle of the night? Was she there to meet you?”

He shook his head. “We limited our meetings to no more than once per week, and always near her boardinghouse where the streets were well lit and safe. I have no explanation for
why she was in south Boston, but Gwendolyn suffered from insomnia. It is possible she went walking when she was unable to sleep.”

It was true that Gwendolyn often had trouble sleeping, but Stella doubted she would have been so foolish as to go walking after dark in a dangerous part of town. “Gwendolyn was involved in dangerous work,” she insisted. “It’s possible someone tried to silence—”

“You’re exaggerating,” he interrupted. “She noticed men skimming from the public coffers and called it to my attention. She was also keeping an eye on how contracts were being awarded, because I suspected some men of graft and bribery. We’re talking about a few hundred or perhaps a few thousand dollars at most. This isn’t the sort of thing men would kill over. I would never have asked that of Gwendolyn had there been any indication . . .”

His voice trailed off. Mr. Townsend looked rattled, his voice uncertain. Perhaps he wasn’t so sure about the circumstances of Gwendolyn’s death, after all. If he suspected foul play, had he done anything about it? Or was he protecting his reputation by letting this inconvenient death be quietly swept under the carpet? For all his fine talk about justice and valor, if word got out he was meeting a woman half his age under cover of darkness, ultimately leading her to a violent death, it would forever mar his sterling reputation.

She looked him in the eye and asked the question she needed to know. “Did you love her?”

Annoyance flashed across his face. “Yes, I loved her.” His voice was harsh and defensive, but as his gaze strayed out the window, a shadow of pain darkened his eyes. “I loved her,” he said again, softer this time. He turned farther away from her and swallowed hard. It might have been her imagination, but
it seemed his entire body sagged beneath a terrible weight. “I loved her,” he whispered. “I loved her very much.”

He sounded shattered. It was impossible to doubt him. She’d seen too much of that haunted, lost look not to recognize it.

If Michael Townsend had truly loved Gwendolyn, then he would be the best person to help solve her death. Gwendolyn had trusted him implicitly. She’d called him a modern-day King Arthur, a man willing to battle dragons no matter how desperate the odds.

But Stella didn’t trust him. Not yet. She glanced at the photographs clustered at the corner of his desk. “Who is in the third picture?” she asked and glanced pointedly at the third mark in the dust.

“Gwendolyn.”

She drew a quick breath. “May I see it?”

He opened his top desk drawer with a whisper-smooth glide, removed a large silver frame, and handed it to her. The beauty of the photograph drove the breath from her lungs.

It was Gwendolyn, more radiant and beautiful than Stella had ever seen before. It must have been taken in a studio, for the soft illumination of light streaming from a window high overhead could have been created only by a master photographer. Gwendolyn’s face was in three-quarter profile, her eyes tilted to look upward toward the light. Her skin was luminous, the glints in the coils of her pale hair adding subtle depth. Only the barest hint of a smile graced her face, but she looked glorious and lovely. Happy.

“It was taken at a studio on Tarnower Street,” Mr. Townsend said. “The photographer keeps plates of his work, and I can have copies of this photograph made for both you and your parents.”

The lump in her throat made it impossible to respond. Gwendolyn had always been pretty, but this photograph captured a
depth of beauty Stella had never seen before. She instinctively knew it was because Gwendolyn was in love, flush with radiance and joy so powerful they made her glow.

“Thank you,” she managed to say. “I would like that very much.”

She handed the picture back to him, and he set it beside the other two photographs on the desk. “I will also make arrangements to have the letters you wrote to Gwendolyn returned to you. Please understand, I cannot return the other notes she compiled. Your sister’s greatest accomplishment was the information she gathered in those months before her accident. I cannot turn them over to you while the investigation into corruption at City Hall is still pending.” He paused and swallowed, his gaze straying to Gwendolyn’s photograph. “She had the heart of a warrior. I won’t abandon her mission.”

He told Stella to make an appointment with the clerk at the front desk for next week, when he would have her letters and two copies of the photograph ready for her.

It was a dismissal. A gentle one, but not something she could ignore.

As she left the office, she knew only one thing for certain. Michael Townsend was lying to her. Gwendolyn’s photograph was much larger than the modest outline in the dust from the third photograph.

There was someone else he did not want her to know about.

15

R
omulus dragged out the bottom drawer from Evelyn’s desk and set it alongside the others on the table. He was making a mess of her carefully organized drawers, but he couldn’t find the accounts-receivable ledger and was tired of bending over to peer into the back of the oversized drawers.

He’d come to the office an hour early today to search for the ledger before his staff began to arrive. It was embarrassing to be this incompetent in managing the weekly operations of the magazine, and he didn’t want an audience as he stumbled through managing his first payroll. His employees were already skittish about the stability of the magazine, and with Evelyn gone, that concern was compounded. Everyone depended on Evelyn, and although Romulus could be counted on to swan about town solidifying their reputation as the premier science journal in the nation, they didn’t know if he could run it.

His staff expected to be paid today. The infusion of cash from the New York investors was being paid in installments. He wasn’t certain there was enough cash in their account to cover
all the pending expenses, so yesterday he’d gone to a pawn shop to earn a quick five hundred dollars for his diamond cuff links.

He’d stayed up past midnight writing out bank checks, but he couldn’t make sense of the double-entry bookkeeping method Evelyn used. She’d tried to explain it to him once, but it was so convoluted he’d quickly lost interest and swore she could have his firstborn child if she promised never to burden him with an accounting ledger again.

It was going to be a while before Evelyn returned to rescue him from his incompetence. He’d had a telegram from Evelyn saying there had been no improvement in Clyde’s hearing, so they would be staying at the health resort until the swelling in his ears had diminished entirely.

It meant Romulus was going to have to handle all the financial aspects of the magazine, and frankly, that terrified him. What was the difference between the bank-payments ledger and the magazine-invoice ledger? They seemed to keep track of the same payments, and he didn’t want to be dinged twice for the same bills. Should he ignore one of them?

The office door opened with a gentle
snick
and Millicent O’Grady entered, gaping at the catastrophic mess on Evelyn’s desk. The redheaded accountant had been with them for two years, and she’d been making calf eyes at him for most of it. She was the last person he wanted to ask for help. It might stoke the romantic fantasies she harbored toward him, but he couldn’t have his incompetence exposed to the rest of his employees. He had the best staff in all of Boston, and they might start jumping ship if they sensed the magazine was in danger.

“Miss O’Grady,” he said pleasantly as he slid Evelyn’s drawers back into their slots. “I’d like a word with you about the accounting ledgers.” With luck, he’d be able to dump them all on her desk so he could return to battling the injunction against
the magazine. The first court date was next week, but he’d made little progress in mounting a defense while also trying to manage Evelyn’s responsibilities.

Millicent removed her hat, smoothing strands of hair back into her coif. “Yes, sir,” she said a little breathlessly and approached the desk.

The door opened again, and three members of the editorial staff wandered in. A copyeditor and his lead chemistry writer followed. He exchanged nods with the men as they removed their coats and drifted toward their desks.

“Let’s speak in my office, please.” He didn’t like encouraging her and had a firm rule about never meeting with any female employee aside from Evelyn behind a closed door, but this couldn’t be helped. He scooped up the sales-invoice ledger and all the bank registers.

He dumped the ledgers on his desk and waited until Millicent was inside before closing the door. He adjusted the blinds on his office window to be sure they were as open as possible. “Evelyn always handles payroll and the financial ledgers,” he said. “I know you handle our basic accounting, but can you shed any light on Evelyn’s double-entry bookkeeping? It would be best to hand that task to someone with experience.”

Millicent blanched. “Oh my, I’ve never even tried it. Miss Evelyn is very particular about the way she handles the books. I just keep track of accounts receivable.”

He tried to block frustration from leaking into his voice. “Is there anyone else in the office who would know how she did it?”

“No, sir. I handle the arithmetic aspects, but she handles the complicated things.”

“I see,” he said, trying to force back the rising tide of panic. He could hire a professional accountant, but after completing payroll last night, there wasn’t a lot of leeway in the budget
for new staff. Two of their advertisers were demanding refunds rather than accepting an extension of their advertising contract, but he didn’t want to pay. If word of that got out, others would want refunds, as well.

“Thank you, Miss O’Grady. That will be all.”

Millicent left, and he stared at one of Evelyn’s accounting ledgers, wondering what to do next. He picked up a pen and tried to make a list, but it seemed overwhelming.

The office door opened with a bang, startling him and causing a glob of ink to spill across Evelyn’s tidy accounting ledger.

He looked up to see Stella tearing through the main office door. She careened through the desks in the front office and yanked open his door without knocking. It was impossible to tell if she was terrified or delighted.

“I need your help!” she gasped out. “Michael Townsend is A.G. He admitted it.”

Romulus stood. “What are you talking about?”

“The man Gwendolyn was meeting. A.G. I assumed A.G. was someone’s initials, but it’s the
attorney general
.”

That was a surprise. He’d always known Michael Townsend to be a straight-laced, bookish type of man, not the sort to run around under cover of darkness.

He sat down, using his handkerchief to blot the ink stain on the ledger before it soaked through to damage other pages. “What do you want me to do about it?”

“I need your help! He’s brushing me off and refuses to turn over Gwendolyn’s papers, even though he admits he took them.”

He balled up the handkerchief and tossed it into the trash. It was a fine silk handkerchief, ruined because Stella West couldn’t walk through a door without terrorizing the office. “Does Michael Townsend think your sister was murdered?”

“No.”

“Excellent. You can stop gallivanting around town and pestering law-abiding citizens.”

“But I think he’s lying! Or at the very least, he isn’t telling me everything. I can’t just walk away. He knows more than he’s telling. I’ll bet you can get through to him.”

His hands clenched into fists. Stella’s sister had died five months ago, and there was no need for urgency in reopening the case of a woman who probably died due to an unfortunate accident. “My magazine is hanging on by a thread,” he said tightly. “Payroll is due today, and the books are a mess. Advertisers are starting to line up for refunds, and if I can’t keep this ship afloat, members of my staff will start leaving. My association with you has called my professional judgment into question and may well have contributed to the injunction against the magazine. And you want me to drop everything so I can go pester the state’s top attorney?”

She winced a little but did not back down. “Would you?”

“Look around you!” he hollered as he shot to his feet. “On the other side of my office window are men and women who depend on this magazine for their livelihoods. And downstairs are another thirty people who are expecting to be paid. Forgive me for not having you at the top of my priority list today.”

“You don’t need to talk down to me.” She said it as though he were the irrational one in this conversation. Didn’t she understand what was happening?

“I had to sell a pair of diamond cuff links to ensure the payroll checks won’t bounce!”

“Horrors. However shall you hold your head up when so shabbily dressed?”

His eyes narrowed. This wasn’t about the attorney general; she was angry he wasn’t ready to fall on his knees and lavish her with rose petals and love poems. He drew a steadying breath. “Look, I’m sorry if I disappointed you—”

“Sorrow pours from you like a tidal wave. It’s a miracle I’m able to remain standing in the path of it.” Her voice was hard, and her eyes glittered.

“I don’t want to get married,” he snapped. “I have no room in my life for any kind of romantic commitment, and since that seems to be the direction you are pushing us, it’s best to be frank. I have no time today to go chase down your ghosts.”

Stella sucked in a quick breath. “Gwendolyn isn’t a ghost. She was
real
. She was beautiful and courageous and one of the finest—”

“And she’s dead.” He pointed to the people on the other side of his office window. “They are alive. They depend on me, and I owe them my loyalty. Now, get out of my office so I can work. Find someone else to be your knight in shining armor. I’m done. Finished. I truly have no desire to see you again or pursue our association any further.”