Murder at the Breakers (17 page)

What about Jack? If what I’d learned today shed incriminating light on Reggie, I had to admit the same held true for Jack. He’d pled innocence in the yachting scheme, but Reggie certainly believed Jack had been a willing partner, at least at first. Did Jack need money? Was he in debt? Not for the first time, I admitted he might have given Uncle Cornelius his pocket watch as collateral, then entered into the illegal gambling plan to raise the cash to pay him back.

The possibilities made my head swim—not a good thing when one walked along a cliff-side path. Yet onward I went, needing the bracing wind in my face, my hair, fanning my skirts against my legs. I almost felt capable of taking flight. Light, airy, free. I rounded the bend at the corner of The Breakers’ property—and drew up sharp with a yelp.

“N
eily!”

My cousin and I nearly collided. He had come around the bend from the opposite direction, his steps as determined as my own, his head down and shoulders bunched. With the crunching of my own boots on the sand and rocks, as well as the preoccupation of my thoughts, I hadn’t heard him coming. Now we both stood ramrod straight like rabbits caught nibbling carrots by the kitchen maid. My heart nearly pounded its way out of my stays, and Neily, too, pressed a hand to his chest.

“You gave me quite a fright, Emmaline. What are you doing down here?”

“I guess I could ask you the same. I needed a brisk walk, I guess.”

“Same here.” He looked apologetic. “Things have been . . . hectic lately. Unsettled.” His rueful expression deepened and he quirked an eyebrow at me. “To the say the least.”

I nodded my agreement, at the same time wondering how I might work in a question or two about last night without giving myself away.

“You, er, look tired, Neily,” I ventured. “Is everything all right?”

“Well, let’s see. A man I’ve known most of my life is dead, my step-cousin is in jail on murder charges, and my father is threatening to disinherit me if I don’t do as he says.”

“Over Grace,” I said more than asked.

He shrugged and looked miserable. “Emmaline, what am I going to do?”

“I don’t know, Neily. Maybe in time he’ll come around. What about your mother?”

“She’s as adamant as Father. They don’t even know Grace, yet they loathe her.”

“Still, it’s all new to them, and you’re so young. Maybe in a year or two . . .”

“Maybe,” he conceded, but the hard line of his jaw spoke of impatience and stubborn resolve. The wind swirled around us, and Neily thrust up a hand to shove back a shock of hair blown into his eyes.

I swallowed a gasp. A slash of raw flesh scored Neily’s right hand across the palm and into the corner of his thumb. My throat convulsed with the biting memory of the knife pressed against it last night. Dear God . . . could it have been Neily holding that knife? My attacker and I had struggled—his hand could easily have slipped down onto the blade.

Oh, God . . . Neily? The waves and the wind and a crunching echoed in my ears. I realized I’d begun to back away from him. He reached out to grasp my shoulder and I flinched.

“Jeez, Emmaline, are you trying to fall? What’s wrong with you all of a sudden? Why are you looking at me like that?”

He tightened his grip on my shoulder and I went utterly still, afraid to move, afraid to look away from him for even a second. And desperate to form a reply that would placate him. Was he intending to push me over the edge?

“I . . . I’ve just got a lot on my mind.” I struggled to come up with a plausible excuse for my behavior. “Wh-when I said ‘maybe in a year or two,’ it made me think of Brady. Oh, Neily, what if he has to spend the rest of his life in prison?”

That seemed to work, for although he raised a hand to grasp my other shoulder as well, his grip loosened as he gave me a gentle shake. Relief weakened my knees, but I fought not to show it.

“That won’t happen, Emmaline,” he said. “I know it won’t. If you can be optimistic about Grace and me, then I can surely be as optimistic about Brady being exonerated. It’ll happen, and soon.”

My eyes filled with tears, dangerously obscuring my vision. If Neily had wished to push me to my death, nothing could have stopped him. Were his words sincere? Or meant to soothe me into dropping my guard? A second passed, then several, and Neily only smiled down at me and patted my shoulders until he finally released me.

“What a pair we are, huh?” He laughed weakly. “One would think we’d both come out here to jump.”

My heart skipped a beat. “Don’t say that!”

“Well, even if we were, at least we have each other to talk us out of it.” He shook his head. “Not sure that made sense, but you know what I mean.” He held out his hand. “What say we go up to the house for a stiff brandy?”

I took his offered hand—the left one, without the cut—and casually gestured toward his right. “That looks painful. What happened there?”

He didn’t miss a beat. “Oh, that. Cut it trying to open a tin of caviar.”

“Silly Neily,” I joked, keeping my voice light, “that’s what servants are for.” Though I guessed there hadn’t been any servants in the little harbor-side saltbox last night.

“Yeah, I learned that the hard way.”

Laughing, we made our way back through the gate, though I’m a bit ashamed to say I breathed a clandestine sigh of relief as we stepped onto the safety of the lawn.

“A gentleman to see you, Miss Emma,” Katie announced when she poked her head into the morning room early the next day. Her cornflower blue eyes twinkled and her freckles stood out against rosy cheeks. “A right handsome one, I daresay.”

Her cheerfulness led me instantly to know it wasn’t Neily or any other Vanderbilt calling on me, for Katie hadn’t lost her skittishness when it came to my family. Across the table from me, Nanny peeked over the latest edition of the Newport
Daily News
. “Who’s this, Emma?”

“Am I psychic?” I shot them both an impatient look. “Did he give a name, Katie?”

“Aye, Mr. Anderson.”

I was on my feet in an instant. “Show him into the conservatory, please.”

“Hmm, you seem awfully eager. He must be someone interesting.” Nanny rustled her newspaper. “Do I get to meet him?”

“No.” Hearing the brusqueness of my tone, I stopped halfway to the door. “Sorry, Nanny. This isn’t a social call. Mr. Anderson is helping me with Brady’s case, so whatever he’s come to tell me, I’m sure he won’t want to talk in front of others.”

“Well, whatever it is,” she said sweetly, “I’m sure you’ll be telling me before too long.”

I continued walking. “Always so sure of yourself, aren’t you, Nanny?”

“Right enough,” she murmured to my back as she noisily turned a page.

Quickly I ran up the back stairs to smooth my hair, remove the carriage jacket I’d donned in preparation of leaving the house, and replace it with an embroidered shawl. On impulse I slipped on my best diamond teardrop earrings, the same ones I’d worn to Gertrude’s coming-out ball. A quick check in the mirror brought me to a rueful halt.

“Not a social call,” I reminded myself. “So stop primping like a giddy debutant.”

Yet the earrings remained in place as I made my way back downstairs and to the conservatory. I found Derrick Anderson near the ocean-facing windows, leaning over to examine one of Aunt Sadie’s exotic statues. This one was a bronze casting of a scantily clad female, her body curvaceous, her expression stern, and her six arms snaking out from her sides. I’d always found something oddly sensual about the lines of those arms, and I found myself blushing now at how intently he was studying the piece.

“The Hindu goddess Kali,” he said, turning his head to peer at me but not quite straightening. “Gentle mother, fierce warrior.”

I shivered slightly as I watched his fingertips trace the curve of a shoulder. Foolishly I envied the statue for a moment, imagining that broad palm on my own shoulder. Then I tightened my shawl and looked past him, through the windows. “Yes, well, that describes my Aunt Sadie to a tee, I should think.”

“Aunt Sadie?”

“My great-aunt. Not a Vanderbilt,” I added for no good reason, or was it perhaps to let this man know I was of hardier stuff than even my obvious heritage suggested. Of course, the significance would be lost on him, since he never knew Aunt Sadie. “This was her house,” I explained. “Her things. Her life, actually.”

“Funny, because I’d say this house and these furnishing fit you to a tee.” He stood upright, looking almost ridiculously tall and broad in this feminine room. A certain quality, an elegance about him sometimes made me suspect a gentleman’s upbringing, yet at other times I sensed a raw and rugged energy running right beneath the surface, a vitality that left me unsettled.

My hand drifted to my throat. “And how would you know that, Mr. Anderson?”

“Too late to go back to being formal, wouldn’t you say? I wish you’d call me Derrick. I already think of you as Emma. I hope that’s all right.”

His cheekiness wasn’t lost on me. And yet. . . “After the other night . . . yes, it’s all right.” I smiled. “So what brings you here? Have you learned something?”

His hand trailed over one of the statue’s smooth arms in a parting gesture. He came toward me, and I resisted an involuntary urge to retreat a step or two. Was it because it suddenly struck me that other than Brady and my Vanderbilt relatives, Derrick was the first man I’d ever entertained in my home? I stood gawking up at him, very much feeling the breach of etiquette, hearing, in my imagination, Aunt Alice’s outrage.

He gestured to the wicker settee. “May we?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Of course. Can I get you anything? I was just having breakfast when you arrived. Nothing fancy, mind you, but Nanny’s a wonderful cook. Nanny’s my housekeeper and I’ve known her all my life. . . .” Goodness, I was rambling. I clamped my mouth shut and wondered why this man always managed to fluster me so. I sank onto the sofa and concluded with, “Coffee, perhaps?”

He sat beside me with an indulgent smile. “Nothing, thank you. I have some news about the blue house. I’ve discovered who the owner is.” He paused, perhaps for effect, and I found myself pressing forward to the very edge of the seat cushion. “A part-time Newport resident named John Benjamin Parsons.”

“Jack!”

“You know him?”

“Of course I know him. He’s a good friend of my father’s.” My mouth fell open and I clutched the edges of my shawl in tight fists.

“Emma, are you all right?”

“Jack . . . and Adelaide . . . I never would have guessed . . .”

“Well, it would appear so, unless there’s some other reason for their nighttime meetings. She’s never indicated anything to you?”

“Not a thing. And neither has Jack.” A dull pain pushed at my temple. I couldn’t make sense of this latest revelation. “Jack and Adelaide . . .”

“He’s quite a bit older than she is,” Derrick pointed out.

“Not as old as her husband and besides, Jack doesn’t look his age at all. But . . .”

Suddenly I remembered the afternoon I’d spent with Adelaide, when she first told me how Mr. Goddard had been sent to spy on Neily and Grace Wilson. That was my first inkling that Neily might have had a motive to want Alvin Goddard out of the way. Adelaide said she’d overheard Uncle Cornelius and her husband discussing the matter. But if she and Jack were using the same house to meet in as Neily and Grace, then Adelaide had known of the affair firsthand.

Good heavens, had she purposely shed guilt on Neily in order to lift it from Jack?

“Emma?” Derrick nudged my arm. “Where are you? What are you thinking? How well do you know this man?”

I snapped out of my reverie and turned to face him fully. “Not as well as I thought, apparently. Derrick, can you find out . . . things . . . about Jack Parsons? His finances, his debts if he has any. I need to know—”

“Slow down.” He pressed a palm to my forearm, the gesture sending tingling heat up to my shoulder and beyond. “Does this man figure into your brother’s case?”

I forced myself to focus. “Brady sneaked into Uncle Cornelius’s room that night to replace a set of plans he’d pilfered, plans outlining a secret buyout of a New England railroad line. Jack Parsons is a member of the board of directors of the line, so he stands to lose a good bit of money. You see, the line has been losing money and the stocks are down, so the company will sell at a sharp loss instead of a profit. Not only that, but Uncle Cornelius was predicting corruption on the part of the board is going to come to light. According to Brady, the line has lost money more due to skimming off the top than to flagging business.”

Derrick looked skeptical. “And you believe that’s a motive for Parsons to have murdered Alvin Goddard? Why not Cornelius himself—”

“No one in their right mind would do away with Uncle Cornelius. That would bring the highest authorities here to investigate. But killing Mr. Goddard would halt the plans at least temporarily and give Jack time to cover his tracks.”

“Hmm. Possibly.” I could see by his frown that Derrick’s doubts persisted, so I told him about the pocket watch with its etched
P
and about Reggie’s fixed yacht tournament. Halfway through, his expression eased and he began nodding. “But we don’t know for certain yet that Jack Parsons is in financial straits. Where is he staying?”

“A house on Lakeview Avenue, just off Bellevue.”

“Big house? Servants?”

“Not quite a mansion, not by The Breakers’ standards, but big enough. He’s got a butler and a cook, a maid as well, I would think.”

“So how would he be affording all that if he’s got money troubles?”

I eyed him askance. “Credit, of course. He wouldn’t be the first to pretend his pockets are deeper than they are.”

His hand, still resting on my arm, slid lower until his fingers curled around mine and sent my thoughts for a whirl. He, however, seemed as sharp as ever. “Before we get ahead of ourselves, let me see what I can find out about Mr. John Benjamin Parsons, or Jack as you call him.”

He was still holding my hand, his thumb absently tracing circles around my first knuckle . . . and tying my insides in not altogether unpleasant knots. I tried to focus, but it wasn’t easy. “What if you can’t find the information? It can’t be easy to snoop into a man’s finances.”

“I’m a reporter, aren’t I?” He grinned.

“Seems a tall order for even the most seasoned investigative reporter.” A sense I’d had before about this man returned to nudge my curiosity. “My guess is you have a source somewhere within the Four Hundred.”

“I might.” He regarded me a long moment, his gaze heating my skin, bringing a burn to my cheeks. “But a good reporter never reveals his sources.”

He released my hand and slapped his knees in preparation of rising, but hesitated. “Will you do something for me in exchange?”

“That is our bargain,” I reminded him.

“I’d like you to visit with Adelaide Halstock and try to get her to confide in you about this affair she might or might not be having. Don’t be obvious, just be a good listener. And maybe bring up this Jack Parsons, since you know him, too, and see how she reacts. . . .”