Still Life With Murder (16 page)

“He’s a charity project of the lady I work for.”

“And that would be…?”

“Mrs. John Amory Lowell.” They were August Hewitt’s main competition in the textile business, the Lowells. Although indisputably one of the First Families of Boston, Mr. Hewitt
regarded them as relative newcomers, their presence in His City dating from barely over a century ago. They were, in his estimation, “avaricious parvenus who got where they are by marrying their cousins,” and he did not receive them. He would be furious, of course, that a Lowell matron with philanthropic pretensions had arranged for his son’s release, but his pride—and the risk of exposing William Toussaint’s true identity—would leave him no choice but to let it go.

“Mrs. Lowell, eh?” The little man’s eyes filled the thick lenses. He sat up, tucked his chair in, straightened some papers. “Most kind and generous of her to take an interest the…less fortunate.”

“I quite agree.”

“Yes. Yes, indeed.”

He fussed and fiddled until Reichert returned—at a trot this time, and breathless, keys clattering. “What’s the matter, man?” Cavanaugh demanded. “And where the devil is William Tou—”

“I think he’s dying,” the guard panted. “He was having some kind of fit when I went in there, and then he just…He’s laying there, gasping for air, and he don’t answer when I—”

“I’ve got to see him,” Nell said. “Let me—”

“Out of the question,” Cavanaugh retorted. “Ladies aren’t permitted in the men’s cellblocks.”

“I—I’m a nurse. I can help him.
Please
.”

The deputy warden shook his head resolutely. “It’s strictly against procedure. If I make an exception for you, I’ll be compelled to make it for—”

“How do you suppose Mrs. Lowell will react when I tell her you allowed this man to die rather than bend the rules just this once?” Nell demanded.

Streaks of pink stained Cavanaugh’s cheeks. “Take her back there,” he ordered Reichert. “But make sure the prisoners are all in their cells first, and don’t leave her side for a moment.”

The big guard ushered her through the administrative core of this cruciform granite monstrosity to a door fashioned from iron bars and wire lattice, which was locked and manned by two keepers. Their jaws dropped when they saw Nell. She and Reichert had to wait while the prisoners were herded into their cells, whereupon the door was unlocked and she was escorted into a long, cavernous atrium lined with four stories of cellblocks. It was surprisingly bright, sunlight from tall windows reflecting off whitewashed walls—a far cry from any jail Nell had ever seen the inside of.

Some voices rose above the drone resonating in the vast corridor. “Look what Reichert done brung us!” someone bellowed from one of the cells, to the accompaniment of snickers and lascivious moans. “A late Christmas present, d’you reckon?”

“Bring her up here,” someone called from the tier above. “I’ll do the unwrappin’.”

There followed a cacophony of wolf whistles, guffaws and suggestive remarks, most of them far more lewd than anything she’d heard at Flynn’s Boardinghouse last night. “Sorry about them animals, miss.” Reichert shook his head as he rummaged among the keys on his ring. “This is one of them
modern
prisons—” he sneered the word “—where they let ’em run around in the yard all day and feed ’em beefsteak for supper.
I
don’t have it that good. You ask me, we should burn this place down, and the lot of ’em with it. How’s
that
for progressive?”

Unlocking a cell door toward the end of the row, he called out, “Toussaint?”

Nell stepped around the guard and into a good-sized, sun-washed cell, sucking in a breath when she saw the inert form of William Hewitt in a fetal position on the narrow bed, chin tucked to his chest, arms locked around his middle. His bruise-mottled face was pallid, his eyes half-closed and bleary. He looked like every corpse Nell had ever seen.

She made a feverish sign of the cross as she leaned over him. “Doc—”
Careful
. “M-Mr. Toussaint.”

“Toussaint!” Reichert nudged the insensate man with his truncheon. “You still with us?”

He was answered with a strangled breath, such as a victim of consumption might produce in his death throes. William Hewitt was alive, after all—but in even worse condition than Nell had anticipated. This close to him, she could see how he trembled. A sudden spasm gripped him; he clutched at his stomach, groaning.

Laying the coat on the foot of the bed, Nell fumbled in her chatelaine—the small bag bulging with its contents today—for the little bottle she’d brought with her. “Mr. Toussaint, can you sit up?”

She touched his arm; he flinched. “Take
me
!” he cried hoarsely. “I’ll do it! I’ll do it, you bastard!”

Nell edged closer with the bottle—warily, given his delirium. “I have something to make you—”

“Christ, no.” He shuddered convulsively, his eyes glazed and watery. “No, no, no…I would have done it. I
would
have.”

“Mr. Toussaint.
William
. Listen to me. I’ve got—”

“Damn you to Hell,” he rasped, “So help me God, I’ll make you pay for—”

“Will.” She touched his arm.

He flung her aside with one fierce sweep of his arm. Nell yelped as her head struck the wall, thrusting her hat down over her eyes. She tore it off to find Reichert looming over Will, snarling, “You dog. Is that how you treat a lady who’s trying to help you?”

“No!” she cried as he slammed his club into Will’s stomach. Will groaned and curled into a ball, retching violently but bringing nothing up; Nell suspected he hadn’t eaten since his arrest. “Don’t! He doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

“Animals, the lot of ’em,” Reichert muttered, shaking his head.

“Here.” Sitting on the edge of the bed, she uncorked the bottle. “This will make you feel—”

“It’ll kill me.” Struggling to a sitting position, he backed away from her. “Stockade Creek’s full of typhoid.”

Stockade Creek? “It’s medicine, not water. Here.” Curling one hand around the back of his rigid neck to hold his head still, she brought the open bottle close to his nose. “See?”

He stopped fighting her as the distinctive scents of camphor and aniseed wafted from the open bottle, which contained an opium tincture familiar to just about everybody who’d ever sought relief from a bad cough or a bout of diarrhea.

Will’s rheumy gaze met hers for a fleeting moment. There was recognition, surprise, and unless she was very much mistaken, a glimmer of gratitude in his expression as he wrapped his hand around hers and tilted the bottle to his mouth.

“Stop!” she exclaimed as he gulped its contents. “You’ll kill yourself, taking that much!” Prying his fingers open, she loosened his surprisingly strong grip and wrested the bottle away, appalled to find he’d half-emptied it.

He sank back against the wall, eyes closed, dragging in wheezy breaths that grew gradually slower and less erratic, until she couldn’t hear them at all anymore.

Reichert leaned over him, prodded his shoulder. “Is he…?”

“William?” she said anxiously. “Will?”

There was no response.

“This don’t look good,” Reichert said. “What
was
that stuff?”

“Oh, God,” Nell whispered. Had she just helped William Hewitt to commit suicide? “Will?
Will?
” She patted his face.

He stirred, his breath coming in stertorous little hitches that alarmed her until she realized he was chuckling. “I’d have to drink a quart of paregoric to do myself any harm—or much good, for that matter.” He raked both palsied hands through his hair.

Oh, thank God
. “I know it’s not very strong, but it was all I could find at home.” It was laudanum she’d been looking for as she’d rummaged in vain through the Hewitts’ medicine cupboard; the most popular opiated tonic on the market, laudanum contained more than twice as much morphine as paregoric.

“It’ll do,” he said, reaching for the bottle, “assuming I get enough of it.”

“No!” Nell stood, tucking the bottle securely in her bag. “You’ve had too much already, and I need to get you out of this place. Here, put this on.” She shook out the fine, double-breasted black frock coat and helped him into it. It was a cast-off of his father’s that Viola had intended to donate to charity. Mr. Hewitt had them made on Savile Row in London; they all looked exactly alike.

“I’ll show you out the back way,” Reichert told her as Will rose awkwardly to his feet, holding onto the wall for support. “So’s you don’t have to run that gauntlet again.”

Will’s progress out of the building and across the yard to the brick wall surrounding the prison was slow and erratic, with Nell supporting him most of the way. Not only was he woozy, but there was that limp of his to contend with. Despite his leanness, he felt heavy and unwieldy, frequently stumbling and having a hard time regaining his feet. It called to mind all those black, frigid nights Nell had had to walk her father home from Dougal’s Tavern, with him swaying and lurching and crooning his mournful “Kathleen, Mavourneen.”

Reichert escorted them through the front gate and returned to his post, leaving them on bustling Charles Street, blinking against the glare of sunlight off yesterday’s snow. Will slumped against an iron horse trough, a wavering hand shielding his eyes. Hatless, collarless and grimy, with a pale, bruised face and two days’ growth of beard, Dr. William Hewitt looked every bit the quintessential derelict; a casual passerby would assume the elegant coat was stolen.

He doubled over, fingers digging into his stomach, groaning a cloud of vapor into the frosty air.

“Are you all right?” she asked. “Dr. Hew—”

“I told you not to come,” he gasped, gripping the trough with rigid hands. “You should have listened to me.”

Was it that he hadn’t wanted her to see him like this, ailing and humbled? Or had he been trying to protect her from an experience he knew she would find disturbing, even sickening? Was it pride or a deeply buried chivalry that had motivated him? The latter was not impossible. A man might be capable of murder, yet harbor a perverse spark of nobility in his breast, as she knew all too well. Such men were the most dangerous of all.

Nell spied an empty Hansom Cab half-hidden behind a streetcar rumbling through the graying slush of Charles Street, and hailed it. “Come,” she urged, gesturing for Will. “I’m to see you home.”

“I’ve no money for a cab,” he said as the compact black coach drew up in front of them. “The Station Two gendarmes cleaned me out quite thoroughly, I’m afraid.”

“They stole your money? The police?”

“My money, my watch, my cigarette case…Let’s see…coat, vest…oh, yes, my sleeve buttons…”

“They stole your coat and vest? Are you sure they didn’t just set them aside to use as evidence?”

He shook his head. “One of them tried them on and said his wife was good at getting bloodstains out. I left my hat and overcoat at Flynn’s. No doubt they’ve been filched by now.”

Shaking her head, Nell prodded him toward the waiting vehicle as its driver, seated high up behind the open-fronted cab, tipped his hat to her. She said, “Don’t worry about the money. Where are you staying?”

“Not far from here. You needn’t come.”

“Your mother insists. She wants to know where you live and to be assured that you’ve gotten there safely.”

Despite Will’s condition, he gestured for Nell to enter the cab first and supported her elbow as she stepped up into it, settling herself at the far end of the tufted leather seat. No sooner had he climbed in beside her than he slumped down, wrapped his arms around himself and closed his eyes. He was shivering, but she suspected it was more from the opium sickness than from the cold. The paregoric had eased his misery only marginally, it would seem.

“Where to?” the driver asked.

“Dr. Hewitt.” Nell shook his shoulder. “You need to give the driver an address.”

“What did you mean,” he asked blearily, “don’t worry about the money?”

She withdrew a fat envelope from her bag and handed it to him. “There’s about two-hundred dollars there, I think—what was left over from the Pawner’s Bank after paying your way out of jail. Your mother wanted you to have it.”

He sat up straight, thumbing through the bills.

“You folks want me to take you someplace?” the driver asked. “If not, I’d appreciate it if you’d—”

“Corner of Tyler and Kneeland,” Will answered, stuffing the money in his trouser pocket. The driver flicked his reins. Turning to Nell as the cab started rattling down the street, Will said, “Tell Lady Viola I’ll pay her back as soon as the cards start falling my way.”

“Is that how you’ve been supporting yourself?” Nell asked.

“I assumed you knew.” A shudder coursed through him; he rubbed his arms.

“Here in Boston, or…”

He shook his head. “There are gaming hells aplenty in other, less troublesome cities—New York, Shanghai, San Francisco…”

Shanghai?

“I’d been steering clear of London and Boston—too many people one wouldn’t care to run into…post mortem, as it were.” Ruefully he added, “But then I followed a high-stakes faro game here a couple of weeks ago, much against my better judgment. Thought I could keep to the shadows, win a pocketful of rocks and slip away quietly. Should have listened to my gut, eh?”

He gave her a mild little smile that disconcerted her, inasmuch as it seemed to suggest some sort of understanding between them, not to mention his presumption that she sympathized with his plight: arrest for murder.

Hunkering down in his corner of the seat, Will folded his arms, crossed his legs and closed his eyes. He fell utterly still and remained so, despite the jouncing of their vehicle as it wove and dodged among the horse cars, carriages, carts and pedestrians jostling each other in the narrow cobblestone lanes of Beacon Hill. As they rounded the King’s Chapel Burial Ground, quaint brick row houses gave way to elegant granite buildings with canopied shops at ground level:
S.A. KING, Photographist; A.B. CHILD, Dentist; EMIL F. NOLTE, Hairdresser; C.F. POTTER, Ladies’ Boots
. The shopfronts grew humbler as the main business district gave way to the South Cove, their windows devoid of awnings, their signs—COAL, FISH, JUNK, IRON FENCES, BACON, LUMBER—crudely lettered. Even when the modern granite-block roadbed retrogressed to archaic brick, causing the cab to jiggle maddeningly, the man beside her did not stir.