Heiress (36 page)

“Yes, I used to live here,” she said quietly.

She drew her breath in as the Chronicle Building came into view. It hadn’t changed in nearly twenty years. Minerva and the bell ringers still graced the apex of the building. The arched doorways beckoned welcome. The pigeons took roost on the lamppost out front where the newsies once lounged.

The driver pulled over across the street and helped them out.

“Do you wish that I wait?” he asked in an accent she placed as Irish. Across the street, the elevated train rumbled by.

Lilly had a tight grip on her hand.

“No, thank you,” she said, paying him. She stopped for a moment and simply smelled the city, the smoke and oil from the train, the trolleys, the animal scents still cluttering the street, the odor of gasoline, the smell of chestnuts roasting, the hubbub of pedestrians passing by.

“Extra, extra, read all about it! Local heiress accused of murder!”

Esme caught the ring of a local newsie, his voice rising from his perch on the corner. She glanced at him, tempted, for a moment, to press a dime into his hand, to buy herself a crisp paper, to smell the newsprint.

Read the headline.

But her father beckoned.

She waited then scooted Lilly across the street, between trolley cars.

She stopped for a moment, under the statue of her father.

“Is that my grandfather?” Lilly asked.

“Yes,” Esme said, and turned to see if he might be looking down on her from his round window. The window remained dark.

As they entered, her gaze went to the cloakroom, where Oliver had hidden her from her father, where he’d declared his love for her.

Unexpected tears pricked her eyes. So long ago, but the grief came at her, fresh, blunt. She drew in a quick breath.

“It smells like the
Times,”
Lilly said, standing in the middle of the circular room.

“It’s the newsprint,” Esme said, finding herself again. “The pressroom is right through those doors.” She pointed to her left.

She wasn’t a desperate young woman any longer, afraid of her father’s wrath. She had a business, a fortune of her own.

She’d been married, lost a husband, had a daughter.

She was long over Oliver and the effect of his memory running rampant through her heart.

“Let’s go meet your grandfather,” she said and led Lilly up the stairs to the
Chronicle
offices.

Although the
Copper Valley Times
had expanded into the mercantile next door, and although Esme had acquired three more linotype machines and a rotary press, the breadth of the
New York Chronicle’s
city department, the row of editorial offices on both sides of the building, the massive library, could cause her baroness heart to leap. The
Chronicle
had such power, such influence.

She could admit that she still someday hoped to helm it.

She entered the reception area, half expecting someone she might know. A broad woman in a suit sat at the desk, her dark hair piled behind her head. She looked up, offering a smile that didn’t quite meet her gray eyes. “Can I help you?”

“I’m here to see the publisher,” Esme said, tucking her arm around Lilly.

“He’s not in yet.”

Esme glanced at the clock. Nearly nine a.m. “That’s not like him.”

“No,” she said. “He had a family emergency of some sort. You may wait, if you’d like.” She gestured to a bench along the wall.

Esme glanced at the closed door. “I’d rather wait in his office, surprise him.”

The woman gave her a look. “I don’t think that would be appropriate.”

Esme smiled. “No, you don’t understand. I’m his daughter. And this is his granddaughter, Lilly.”

The woman’s smile fell, her eyes narrowing. “I’m not sure what kind of trick you’re playing, but he doesn’t have a daughter. Or a wife, for that matter. Perhaps you should leave.”

Esme’s heartbeat quickened at her words, a hiccup of her breath. “Perhaps we’re not talking about the same person. I’m looking for August Price. I’m his daughter, Esme.”

The woman wore the pallor of a Montana winter. She swallowed, and it was the way her hands shook before she clasped them in her lap that unnerved Esme the most. She managed another smile, this one kinder than the last. “I’m sorry, Miss Price, but your father hasn’t been the publisher here for two years. He’s…”

Esme pressed her hand to her stomach.

“He’s resting comfortably at home, waiting for his time.”

The clocked chipped away at her heartbeat as she tried to find a response, anything but to stand there numbly, staring at the poor woman. Finally, Lilly took her hand. “Mama?”

Esme glanced at Lilly, saw her standing there, stricken.

At home. “He’s not dead, then?” It sounded stupid to say, but the words issued from her before she could pull them back, the desperation in her tone making even the secretary wince.

“A stroke, ma’am. He has some facilities, but only on a good day.”

A stroke. How could they not have told her, not have sent a telegram? Heat started in her stomach, spread out through her body, took over her muscles.

“Come, Lilly,” she said, turning. Then, “I’d like a copy of today’s paper, please.”

The secretary handed it over and Esme folded it, tucking it under her arm.

They entered the street, the heat now turning to waves in her brain. She squeezed Lilly’s hand and hailed a cab, not caring about decorum. She’d lived too long in the West to care that people might think she’d turned bohemian. Wild.

In fact, a part of her had.

She climbed into the cab. “Six forty-five Fifth Avenue, please.”

Lilly tucked in beside her, very quiet.

Esme held the paper on her lap. “They couldn’t send me a telegram?” She shook her head, stared out the window. The city seemed dirty, still emerging from winter, black snow lining the gutters. “I suppose this is what I get, what I should have expected. But if they weren’t going to cable me when Father had his stroke, then why now?”

Come Home.
Only two words, and she’d just assumed they were from her father. The sender was simply, The
New York Chronicle.

Someone else from the
Chronicle
had sent it to her.

She’d stopped sending the
Times
thirteen years ago. How had he known where to find her?

They passed a brand new hotel on the corner of Central Park, pigeons waddling around the fountain in search of sustenance. Lilly’s gaze glued on the magnificent row of residences of high society’s “400.” She wondered if Mrs. Astor still had her New Year’s ball.

Probably Jinx and Foster lived somewhere on this side of town.

Esme opened the paper. Stared at the headline, read it again.

“What is it?” Lilly leaned back, tried to read over her shoulder.

Esme could barely mouth the words. No, it couldn’t be— “Your Aunt Jinx is in jail for murder.”

* * * * *

The last week had turned into a snarl of events so that Jinx could barely sort it out. She’d been standing above Foster’s body, his blood seeping into her dressing gown, her skin. Bennett had arrived—no, he came before, to her room. Then he’d left her, and—yes, he was wearing his coat, carrying his gloves, clearly leaving. And Amelia had appeared, then, behind her, Neville, and Lewis. Someone had screamed, and it seemed Bennett had pulled her away from the body, held her, although even when she recounted it to her counsel, she couldn’t be sure.

Yes, yes, she had been in her room. Yes, she’d seen the dueling pistols.

Yes, she’d wanted him dead. That confession came out in a rush, harsh and angry after the police had the impudence to drag her from her home—they’d barely allowed her to dress—to the Tombs, where they interrogated her.

Yes, she wanted him dead, but she didn’t kill him. No, she didn’t have a reason to kill him. Yes, sometimes he used his fists on her, but he had that right, didn’t he?

Yes, she knew how to fire a gun—had done it for entertainment at a number of Newport picnics. Foster had even sent her to a private tutor.

And yes, okay, yes, she had wanted him dead! Yes, she’d fought with him just that evening over their son, over the war, over her fear that he would die in battle. Of course she loved her country, but she loved her son more—that wasn’t so hard to understand, right?

She’d gone to her room after the fight. What brought her downstairs?

Noises. Yes, noises. And…

No, of course she didn’t plan it. No, she didn’t wait until his back was turned, take the dueling pistol, point it toward his head, pull the trigger.

Who else could have killed him?

She needed a drink, licked her lips instead, not sure where to start. She thought they’d offered her a drink then, but she couldn’t be sure.

Yes, of course she was alone, who else would she have been with? She remembered that statement, remembered the silence that echoed through the interrogation room, the way she folded her hands on the chipped wood table, praying her heart wouldn’t betray her.

No one could find out that Bennett had come to her. Not without asking why. Not without discovering the truth.

Of course, she’d read about the Tombs, the Manhattan House of Detention, heard about the bridge of sighs that convicts would traverse on their way to a hanging. Heard that convicts hurled themselves from the third floor tier rather than endure their stay, but truly, she didn’t kill him. She shouldn’t be here.

They’d hadn’t even had the decency to put her in the cells next to the Warden’s residence that overlooked Centre Street.

Instead, they’d shoved her onto the top floor of the women’s prison, like an ordinary criminal, her cell overlooking a vast inside courtyard, open to the view of the woman across the thirty-foot channel. Jinx sat on the metal bed in her five-foot cell, unmoving, hungry, shaking, watching a roach climb through a crack in the wall, back and forth, between her cell and her neighbor’s. She watched the sunlight appear from the street outside, a fluid orange on the opaque window that ran floor to ceiling in the cell, the height of all three tiers. Bars crisscrossed it, cutting through the wan daylight.

They’d taken her reticule, and given her instead an aluminum spoon, large bowl, and a cup. Her money they’d replaced with aluminum chips, used as currency, and on her first full day, a commissary man entered the floor, selling combs and writing paper. He also had sandwiches, but they smelled so rancid Jinx decided to continue her fast.

Surely someone would come for her.

Her counsel appeared early the second day. Mr. Loren, a pinched man with no chin, tall, with hard eyes. He had her read a confession she didn’t remember giving.

“Are you sure no one else could have committed this murder?”

She’d paused on the question long enough for him to ask it again.

“No. None that I can think of.”

Bennett wouldn’t kill his own brother, would he?

I’m going to kill him.

His words, softly, lethally spoken in her chamber, rattled through her again, and yet again. What if he’d gone downstairs, found Foster—

But he’d been standing in the foyer in his coat, had appeared genuinely horrified.

Repulsed at what she’d allowed her life to become.

I can’t believe you didn’t come to me. I would have given you a different life. A happier life.

Down the hallway, a woman hummed, a haunting melody that made Jinx put her hands over her ears. It drummed inside her, however, something mournful and raw. She scooted to the back of her bunk, pulled her legs to herself, wrapped her arms around her knees. She had refused to use the toilet in her cell, in view of all the world, until the urge became too much, and nothing would make her lay her head on the lice-infested wool blanket. But exhaustion ripped through her, her limbs on fire, her brain foggy, until she collapsed in slumber.

She hadn’t killed her husband, had she? She braced her forehead on her knees. Why had no one come for her? Her mother, certainly, should have heard the news, should be fighting for her freedom. She, better than anyone, knew how cruel Foster could be.

Maybe it was best if the police didn’t talk to her mother.

Oh…the news. She pressed a hand to her throat. Foster’s murder would have made the papers.

She’d always longed to make the front pages, something beyond Page Six, but for some grand ball, perhaps, or a charity event she’d hosted.

She might be ill.

“Mrs. Worth, you have a visitor.”

She looked up at the voice, the matron, a large woman who might have made an excellent housekeeper the way she communicated authority. Jinx got up, ran her hands over her skirt. It was about time someone came to get her. Finally. Perhaps they’d found the real killer.

She kept her head up as women called to her, names that made her ears burn. Yes, well, they belonged here, not her.

They walked through the doors at the end of the cellblock, the steel grating through her, resounding in her spine, then she followed the matron down the hall to the Police Court entrance.

A guard looked her over, revulsion in his eyes.

She must look a wreck—she didn’t even want to imagine what she must smell like, but— “Get your eyes off me,” she snapped.

The matron opened an inner door and she stepped through, expecting to see the tall pensive form of Mr. Loren.

No. Bennett waited on a wooden chair, his hat between his fingers, lines drawn into his face. He looked up at her, something so raw in his beautiful eyes, it made her heart lurch.

Bennett rose as she walked over. “Are you well?” His voice, however, came from far away, as if he’d had to pull out a vellum card and read the words to know what to say.

“I’m fatigued and tired of this game the police are playing. They need to find the real murderer, put him in this awful place.”

“Your counsel is working on getting your confession overturned—he said you hadn’t signed it, that you had no recollection of your words.”

“I confessed to nothing.” Or, had she? She shook her head, ran her fingers over her eyes. She needed a bath and a long rest. Then she might be able to unravel the last few days. Forget them, even. “Did they find the murderer?”