From This Moment (37 page)

“Tell me what’s going on,” Romulus said once they were both in the enclosed carriage and on their way to the train station.

The carriage moved at a snail’s pace, rocking over the temporary path bisecting the park during subway construction. The interior was so cramped their knees bumped with each jolt of the carriage. It was vexing to be trapped in a confined space with a man he distrusted. Tension coiled in his muscles, and he longed to spring out and run the entire three miles to the railway station, but he needed information.

A muscle bunched and twitched in Michael’s jaw, and he stared out the window. A combination of panic and despair warred on his face—so odd for a man who’d always seemed cool and refined in all the years Romulus had known him.

“Well?” he pressed again.

Michael continued staring out the window. “Some sins you never stop paying for,” he whispered.

Romulus said nothing. Now that the door had been cracked, the rest was likely to come out soon. Michael drew a heavy breath and finally turned to look at him.

“I grew up with Ernest Palmer in a little village at Marblehead. We had nothing in common, but there were no other boys our age, so we played together, studied together. Got into trouble together.”

Michael swallowed hard and went back to staring out the window. “The richest family in town was the Aldens. Joseph Alden had a big house out on the point and owned a fleet of merchant ships. There was land, too. Mostly they used it to graze cattle, but the real money came from shipping. They had a grand house, but their barn was in bad shape because Joseph Alden was a miser and wouldn’t pay for repairs.

“I was thirteen the summer Ernest and I started getting into trouble. Marblehead is isolated, with little to keep adolescent boys occupied, and playing pranks on old Joseph Alden seemed like an amusing way to pass the time. One night we thought it would be funny if we could lure him out to the barn and dump a bucket of water on him. After sunset, we snuck into the barn and filled a three-gallon bucket with water. We propped it up on the top of a door left partially open, then hid in the barn. I had a brand-new turkey call that could send up quite a racket. I blew into that call so loud it could probably be heard all the way to Lighthouse Point. The cows didn’t like it. They were
outside in the field but woke up and started complaining. We figured it wouldn’t be long before Old Man Alden came out to find out what was amiss in the barn.”

Michael’s eyes closed, and he scrubbed a hand over his face. It was shaking. Romulus said nothing but could barely draw a breath. Adolescent mischief was nothing new, but from a man as composed and refined as Michael Townsend, it came as a surprise.

“I kept blowing into that turkey call like I was an angry tom trapped in the barn. Mr. Alden jerked the door open, and the bucket came down on his head. I still remember the sound it made. He fell to his knees, then pitched over flat on his face. We thought it was hysterical until he didn’t move. He didn’t ever move again.”

Michael expelled a ragged sigh. “We ran out of there as if our lives depended on it. By late the next day, word started circulating that Mr. Alden was dead, and the constable suspected murder. Samuel Alden, the old man’s only son, had been in the house that night. Samuel lived in New Bedford and rarely visited. Everyone knew the two men weren’t on good terms, and suspicion immediately turned to the son. Samuel stood to inherit the shipping fortune, and he was the only logical suspect.”

Romulus waited. This was so much worse than he’d suspected.

Michael turned to him with the grief of over thirty years in his eyes. “I think you can guess where this is going,” he said. “Ernest and I were both terrified but thought if we came forward, we would be put on trial for murder instead of the son. For months, I couldn’t sleep or eat or think of anything but Samuel Alden sitting in a jail cell for something I did. The trial came, and he was found guilty. He was sentenced to life in prison, and then my guilt intensified. Every morning when
I woke up in a room filled with sunlight, I thought of Samuel in a windowless cell. When my mother served hotcakes with maple syrup and crispy bacon, I wondered what he was served for breakfast. I knew if I came forward and confessed to what I did, they would let him go, but then I assumed I would have to take his place. Ernest warned me not to tell. If I went down, he would go down, too. So I stayed silent.”

Michael clenched and unclenched his fists. Outside the confines of the carriage, the normal noise of the city continued. A vendor hawked pickles, and hammering came from the construction site. The world around them was lively, but Michael was trapped in a thirty-year-old nightmare.

“Ernest and I are the only two people in the world who know what really happened,” he continued. “In those years, we did everything together, and this sort of prank isn’t something a boy does on his own. One of us couldn’t come forward without exposing the other. So we agreed to stay silent.”

“What happened to the son?” Romulus asked.

“He died in prison two years later. He contracted a lung infection in jail, and you don’t last long after that happens.” A bitter smile crossed his face. “After that, there seemed no point in coming forward. Samuel Alden paid the ultimate price for a stupid prank I committed and was too cowardly to own up to, but there was no going back and repairing the damage. The only thing I could do was look to the future. I cut all ties with Ernest Palmer and committed my life to making the world a better place. I earned a fortune but tithed half of everything I made to charity and the church. The Alden fortune went to distant relatives in New Hampshire, and the people who had supported Samuel over the years were left destitute. There weren’t many. He never married, and as far as I could tell, the only friend he had in the world was his housekeeper.
She was the only person to visit him in prison, and when she died twenty years later, she left an orphaned grandson behind. That was Rupert Lentz. He was seven years old, and I couldn’t bear the thought of seeing him go to an orphanage. Were it not for me, Samuel Alden would have been alive and able to pay his housekeeper a decent wage, but her association and loyalty to a murderer tainted her reputation. I adopted the boy and gave him everything. I treated him like my own son because I knew Samuel cared about his loyal housekeeper and wouldn’t want her grandson to end up on the streets. It was the only thing I could do for the ghost of Samuel Alden.

“Beyond that, I fought to clean up corruption wherever I saw it. I wanted to create a city on a hill, modeled on the ideals of our pilgrim forefathers. I dedicated my life to it. I thought that if I worked hard enough, kept to the straight and narrow, I could atone for my sin.

“And then I met Gwendolyn,” he said. His voice softened, and for the first time, a hint of a smile appeared on his face, but it vanished quickly. “I first saw her at a meeting where she was the stenographer. I spoke about my concerns that graft was creeping into the subway contracts. Costs were skyrocketing, and contracts were going through convoluted channels, opening the door to corruption. She sat at the secretarial table in the corner, faithfully recording every word I spoke. And after the meeting, she ran after me on the street as I prepared to board a trolley. She said that she’d spotted signs of corruption and didn’t know where to turn. I asked her to turn to me.”

His voice dwindled. “She was as rare as pure platinum . . . shining and strong and wholesome. She was too young for me, but she didn’t care—and I didn’t, either. The problem was that the more she looked for corruption at City Hall, the more she found. She turned over a rock and found Ernest Palmer beneath
it. When she brought me evidence of kickbacks in the tax assessor’s office, Ernest was the ringleader. I arrested everyone but him. He was the one man I didn’t care to take on. Gwendolyn continued bringing me incriminating evidence, and I stopped it where I could, but I stalled when it came to Ernest. Gwendolyn couldn’t understand why I hadn’t arrested him, and I told her I needed to wait until the time was right. I tried to divert her attention. I encouraged her to quit her work and attend law school, anything to get her out of City Hall. I saw her heading toward trouble and didn’t want the stink of Ernest Palmer to taint her. She died before anything came of it.”

“Who killed her?”

“No one killed her,” Michael said, annoyance creeping into his voice. “Gwendolyn slipped on the ice and fell from a bridge, but Stella’s crusade to prove otherwise has set Ernest off. Over the years, Ernest has been able to fund a very comfortable lifestyle by being the spider at the center of a web of corruption. He’s not going to let Stella endanger that, and now she’s gotten herself into trouble. I’ve overlooked a lot from Ernest, but I’m drawing the line here. I have no idea what he’s got planned for her in Boulder Point, but it’s not good.”

“He plans on killing her,” Romulus said softly, his voice vibrating with tension. Stella was alone, isolated, and may not even realize she was in danger yet. He pictured her as she’d been the last time he’d seen her—her chin tilted high in self-confidence, wearing an emerald-green suit, with a spectacular scarf tied to one side. Her audacity and sense of style weren’t going to get her out of this one.

“I think he’s just trying to scare her,” Michael said. “Both of us know what it is to have a murder on our conscience. He won’t do it again.”

“He killed Gwendolyn.”

Michael’s voice lashed out. “Why do you keep insisting on that? Gwendolyn’s death was an accident. Rupert did the autopsy. He saw no signs of foul play.”

“Stella found a photograph of Gwendolyn’s body. She had bruises on her throat.”

“Nonsense. Rupert told me it was a clear-cut case of accidental drowning,” Michael insisted. “I saw the postmortem report filed in the police department. There is no mention of bruising and Rupert didn’t take any photographs, so I don’t know what Stella thinks she saw, but it’s wrong.”

“The photo was taken by a police photographer right after Gwendolyn was pulled from the river. It was filed in the city archives under
Jane Doe
.”

The color drained from Michael’s face. He looked as if he’d been shot. “No,” he whispered.

At least Romulus could be assured that Gwendolyn hadn’t died by Michael’s hand. His skin was chalk white. No man could feign that reaction.

Michael turned his face to the carriage wall. He did not speak again.

19

T
he rocking of the boat slowly roused her. The boat pitched and swayed, adding to the nausea in her stomach and the pounding in her head, but Stella remained motionless and kept her eyes closed. Too many times over the past few hours, she’d started to stir, only to have that sickeningly sweet rag pressed over her face again, fogging her mind until she slipped back into oblivion. So she remained motionless and strained to hear the voices in the boat through the sloshing of the waves.

Were they on the ocean? The air smelled salty, but with the foul taste in her mouth and the lingering stink of chloroform in her nose, it was hard to tell.

“What a wreck,” a voice mumbled.

“What would you expect? The place has been abandoned for thirty years. Ever since the sea cut the promontory off from the mainland.” The voice sounded like Ernest Palmer’s, and Stella stifled a groan. Ernest knew all her business. How often had she used the telephone in the archives? She’d thought he was being kind by letting her call her parents, but all the while he must have been eavesdropping. It explained how he knew her
parents had been planning a trip to Boulder Point. He certainly would have known all about her mother’s fragile mental state.

“It still seems like a waste to me,” another voice said. “I’ll bet that cannery employed at least fifty people. They probably made millions.”

“It will be a fine place to wait until . . . well, for as long as we need.”

The steady sloshing of oars dipping into the water and the corresponding tug of the boat made Stella suspect they were rowing out to an island. Just knowing she was surrounded by water caused a sweat to break out over her skin. Cold, slimy boards mashed against the side of her cheek, and she fought the urge to panic.

The boat tilted, and a slurry of cold water hit her face. Not much, but she instinctively recoiled as salty water ran into her nose.

“Hey, I think she’s awake again.”

She wasn’t going to let them stuff that rag over her face anymore. She pushed upright, sputtering from the water in her nose. Every muscle in her back and neck ached, but this was no time to baby her abused muscles.

It was hard to see through the glare of sunlight, but her eyes soon adjusted. Four men sat in the boat, but Ernest was the only one she recognized. Two men rowed, and one held a rifle pointed straight at her. Instinct urged her to flee, but she was surrounded by water on all sides.

“Now, don’t panic,” Ernest said, holding up a hand as though to quiet a barking dog. “We aren’t going to hurt you.”

They’d already hurt her. That drug had fogged her brain, and water was everywhere . . .

“I’ve always liked you,” Ernest continued, “but we needed to get you out of City Hall for a spell, see?”

“Why are you doing this?” It was hard to speak through the cottony feel in her mouth.

Ernest winced in pretend sympathy. “Well, you’ve been a little on the nosey side, ma’am. Asking a lot of questions and poking into files where you had no business. And that’s a problem. So we’ll keep you out here for a short spell, then we can all go home, right?”

His tone was placating, but the others in the boat looked tough. On second thought, her gaze trailed back to one of the men rowing. She recognized him from City Hall, and he had an odd name. It rhymed. She struggled to recall it . . . Mason . . . yes, Jason Mason. He was a clerk in the Harbor Department.

None of the men had made any effort to disguise his face from her, which meant they didn’t fear she would report them to the authorities, and that wasn’t good. In all likelihood, she was going to end up at the bottom of the ocean. Her parents would never know what had happened to her.