Weak Flesh (7 page)

"Did you look in her jewelry box?" she finally asked.

"Of course, I did."

"And?"

"And it was filled with jewelry."

"Humph," she snorted, moving to the dresser and opening the elaborately carved jewelry case. It had inlaid pearl and gleamed as though someone still polished it every day.

"And did you look in here?" she asked, pressing one finger on the underside.

Much to Gage's astonishment, a small drawer popped out.

Bailey laughed, no doubt at the dumbfounded look on his face. "You didn't! Aha, admit it. You did not think to search for such a place."

"Is there anything inside?" he asked, ignoring her.

Bailey pulled out a few small items – a tiny gold ring that must have belonged to an infant, a lock of hair pressed between two sheets of fine linen paper, and finally, a gold ring with a miniscule ruby set in it.

"That's all." A look of comic disappointment transformed her face.

"Let me see that." Gage reached for the ring. "Have you ever seen Nell wear this?"

Bailey shook her head.

"Why would she keep it hidden?" He examined the inside. "Look here, Bailey."

She bent her unruly, dark curls over his hand. "Initials!" she exclaimed, bumping him with her elbow.

"EEC – those are Nell's initials! Ellen Elizabeth Carver. Someone gave her this ring as a gift."

"Someone she didn't want her family to know about."

"A clue," she said smugly.

#

Suddenly the unmistakable clatter of breaking glass sounded from downstairs. For a brief moment, Meghan stared at Gage without moving.

"What in hell?" He leapt up from his position on Nell's bed to dash out the door and bound down the staircase.

Meghan reacted more slowly. Torn between curiosity over the noise and a profound desire to find another clue, she remained rooted to the green wing chair until the angry hiss of raised voices floated up from the front lawn below.

She raced to the window in time to see Gage wrestling a younger man to the grassy lawn of the Carver's front yard. Opening the sash, she leaned out for a better view.

Because the man faced away from her, she couldn't see his face. "Get the hell off me," he shouted as he grappled with the Marshal.

Quickly Gage subdued him, straddling the man's body and pushing his face into the wet grass. Meghan could tell the man was drunk, his words slurred and thick on his tongue.

Gathered around the two men, a small crowd gawked at the scene. Gage forced the man's wrists behind his back, removed a pair of metal disks from his coat pocket, and snapped them on.

"Just take it easy now," Gage warned, his voice unflappable as ever, even though sweat beaded on his forehead.

"This is outrageous," Mr. Carver blustered from the front stoop of his house.

Several young boys hovered at the edge of the front lawn, their caps pulled low over their faces, fists jammed in their pockets. An elderly couple paused on the road and stared at the scene, wide-eyed and fearful but frozen at the sight of the tableau.

The Nolans and Reverend Jolly, his wife huddling behind him, stood at the far end of the porch as if the fracas somehow might taint them.

"I say, Marshal Gage, do you need assistance?" Nolan asked from the security of his place far back on the wraparound porch.

The look Gage flashed him revealed more than any words how useless he considered the offer. He glanced up to catch Meghan's eye as she leaned out the dormer window. He gave her a wink, followed by an imperceptible nod which she took to mean that she should continue searching Nell's room.

Had he'd accepted her as a partner?

After Gage had bound the man and thrown him into the back of his gig, he jiggled his reins and the horse trotted off in the direction of the Station House.

This was the perfect opportunity to look further while everyone was distracted by the arrest. However, Meghan had no intention of missing out on the details of what had just happened right under her nose.

Later she would find a way to sneak back into Nell's room and look for more clues. Right now she wanted to know what had just occurred in the very civilized parlor and on the very tidy lawn of the Carver house.

Mrs. Carver met her at the base of the staircase, her face pale and lovely in the faint glow from the lamps. She hadn't ventured outside to observe the scene. Why not, Meghan wondered?

"Are you all right, Mrs. Carver?" Meghan reached the bottom of the stairs and placed a gentle arm around her.

Mrs. Carver nodded. Meghan could see the backs of the other guests as they hovered in the dining room, still peering out the window. Gage's horses soon disappeared around the corner of Riverside Street.

"What happened?" Meg whispered. "Who was that man?"

"Don't you recognize him, dear? He's Michael Hayes."

"Oh." Meghan knew the name, but had not met this particular one of Nell's many suitors.

A young medical student, he attended the University of North Carolina and Nell had spoken of him rather warmly. But then, Nell spoke of all her beaus in a theatrically romanticized way.

Mrs. Carver lowered her voice. "He's been drinking. I think he's taken Nell's death quite badly."

"Had he a – an understanding with Nell?"

Mrs. Carver patted her arm. "Oh, my dear, you know Nell. I am sorry to say this about my own daughter, but she might have had an understanding with any number of young men."

She lowered her gaze, but not before the pain of reality flickered through her faded blue eyes.

"But why did he come here? What did he want?"

The older woman shook her head. "I don't know, but he seemed particularly angry with Mr. Carver. He – he tried to strike him."

Meghan could see that the strain of the day, with the loss of her daughter and the unsavory affair with a drunken suitor, was far too much for a woman of Mrs. Carver's sensibilities.

"Please let me help you upstairs." She led the other woman toward the first step.

Mrs. Carver made no protest and allowed Meghan to guide her to her bedroom and assist her with removing her shoes. She lay down at Meg's urging, and then Meghan drew the draperies against the fading light.

She covered Mrs. Carver with a light quilt. "Shall I send Bessie to see to you?"

"Yes, please. She'll prepare a potion to ease my headache. Thank you, darling." Mrs. Carver's eyes fluttered closed, the blue veins of her lids like thin gashes against her pale face.

Meg left quietly, glancing around the room once more. Spare, almost monk-like in its severity, it held the narrow bed, a dresser and nightstand.

However, on the east wall was a fine leather-bound collection of books. A rocking chair sat near the window beside a round table covered in a crocheted tablecloth. A reading lamp and a miniature portrait of Nell rested on the delicate lace cloth.

Meghan was struck by the singular solitariness of the room, a chamber designed for one person. She'd never noticed before, nor paid any significance to the fact that Mr. and Mrs. Carver did not share sleeping quarters.

Chapter 8

Gage hauled Michael Hayes out of the back of his gig and marched him up the stairs to the jail cell. Shoving the sodden drunk into one of the three empty cells, he slammed the door shut and looked disgustedly at his shoes, thick with Hayes' vomit. The front of his shirt was stained and sour with the same puking mess.

"Hey, Marshal," Will Pruitt greeted him as he looked up from his place at the duty desk, taking in the stink and disarray of the two men. "What happened? Who's that?"

"A drunk," Gage said unnecessarily. "When he finishes throwing up, take him outside and dump a couple buckets of water on him. Then empty the chamber pot."

Pruitt wrinkled his nose, but didn't say anything. Gage didn't expect his instructions, however unpleasant, to be questioned. Pruitt peered around the corner into the cell where the man sat on a cot, leaning over the chamber pot, his head in his hands.

"I'm going for a walk," Gage added. "And, Pruitt?"

"Yes sir."

"Get someone to clean out my gig. The bastard about ruined the seats."

#

Meghan slipped down the hallway from Mrs. Carver's bedroom. She fingered the thin ruby ring she'd hastily stuffed into her skirt pocket when Gage ran downstairs to handle Mr. Hayes.

Removing the item, she stared at it and ran her finger over the tiny stone. The slender rim of gold was barely wide enough to hold the initials. Nell's initials, Meg was sure of it.

But who had given her the ring? Perhaps James Wade or Michael Hayes, both of whom Nell was apparently fond enough to accept such a personal gift and both of whom were impoverished enough to be unable to afford a larger stone or a wider band of gold.

If one of those two men had given her the ring as a promise of affection, might he not have killed her if she'd rebuffed him? James or Michael? Or another man of whom Nell had never spoken?

Susan might know, Meghan mused. Didn't sisters often share secrets?

Figuring she still had a few minutes before Mr. Carver realized Meghan had remained upstairs, she walked quietly down the hallway toward Nell's bedroom. The thick strip of Aubusson carpet running the length of the floor from the staircase well to the master suite muffled her footsteps.

Several doors down, Nell's bedroom door remained ajar. Meghan carefully pushed on the door and crept into the now semi-dark room. The gauzy curtains fluttered at the window where she'd left the sash open over an hour ago, and gray light filtered in through the open window, faint, but enough to see by without lighting a lamp.

An eerie chilliness crept down her spine. She ought to go. If Mr. Carver caught her in Nell's room a second time, she'd have no protectors. Neither Mrs. Carver nor Tucker Gage was near enough to bail her out.

Wasn't the ring enough of a clue? It didn't seem so, for it might have a perfectly good explanation, a gift from either parent or another relative. Didn't Nell have a wealthy uncle who was a judge in New York?

No, not a family member, Meghan concluded. Nell's parents would have expected her to wear it openly. If the ring were so easily accounted for, she wouldn't have secreted it away in the special compartment of her jewelry box.

Sometime between staring at the ceiling behind Gage's head earlier and calming down Mrs. Carver, an idea had popped into Meghan's head. She must think as if she were Nell. Meg had always been far more adventurous than her friend in every endeavor except romantic liaisons.

If her friend were involved in a clandestine relationship with an inappropriate man or men – and Meg hated to admit to the likelihood of this – how would she have hidden information? Having no flair for romantic notions, Meg was stymied.

If not a diary, what? If not in letters, where would Nell have put her girlish thoughts and feelings about her suitors? She and Nell were close friends, but they seldom discussed boyfriends. Meg had none, from choice she told herself, and Nell had far too many, a fact she knew Meg heartily disapproved of.

Now she must pretend to be Nell if she hoped to find the answers. What would Nell have done?

Meghan walked around the room, tapping her finger against her lips. She made a slow, circuitous route from the armoire on the right, to the huge canopied bed, and beyond the window to the bureau and wing chair. Nothing came to mind.

She bit her lower lip and frowned. Nell had three younger sisters to keep secrets from. Where would she have hidden private information to prevent their tormenting her and perhaps telling her parents?

Meg certainly knew where
she
would hide a significant scrap of paper or memento to keep from prying eyes, and she only had Papa to fool. She glanced at the bureau. She'd have fixed the letters to the bottom of one of the drawers.

However, being a police officer, Gage had surely thought of that and searched there himself.

Or she might've tucked it among her delicates, though that was hardly a unique hiding place. Meg had found her father's snuff supply in his underwear drawer when he'd sworn to give up the filthy habit.

Both were places Nell also might've chosen, but didn't apparently. Meghan collapsed onto the soft cushion of the wing chair and wiggled her bottom to get comfortable, accidentally feeling the thick padding of the chair.

Ah, that was it! The plumpness of the cushion had reminded her. She would have carefully ripped open one of the cushion's back seams – after all, those sewing lessons ought to be put to some practical rather than boringly ornamental use – and hidden the contents deep within the batting.

Violà!
She'd have stitched up the seam and no one would have been the wiser.

That's what Meghan would have done.

But Nell was much less imaginative when it came to such nefarious activities. Wasn't she? Or had her friend absorbed some of Meg's ideas over the years when she'd forced the younger girl to play pirates and sailors?

Meg glanced at the window, feeling the inexorable passage of time while she did nothing but debate her next move. She wasn't usually a girl paralyzed by inaction and indecision. For a brief moment she wished Gage were here to advise her.

Jumping up, she approached the armoire and began a search for Nell's sewing basket. She found it at the back of the upper shelf and within it a tiny pair of embroidery scissors.

Hurriedly, she removed the cushion from the upholstered wing chair, and sitting on the edge of the bed, began the tedious task of removing the back seams. She squinted in the dim light. She must work quickly, but carefully, for she did not know if she had time or light enough to re-stitch the item.

She labored one tedious inch at a time, snipping and pulling the fabric, snipping and pulling.
Damn!
Mrs. Carver had taught Nell to be a careful seamstress and the stitches were painstakingly tight.

At last she'd undone a space wide enough to poke two fingers inside. She probed the batting. Nothing. She needed a larger opening. She continued the work, aware of the failing light and the gradual decrease of noise from below stairs.