A New York Christmas (10 page)

“You’ll say something good of her?”

“I will.”

After leaving the coffee shop Jemima started to walk around the neighborhood, looking for the places where Maria might have shopped, eaten—specifically, bought food, or medicines for her friend Sara Godwin.

She moved slowly along the busy streets. In this poorer area they were far narrower than the avenues where the Albrights lived, but there was a variety in them that fascinated her. Strange foods were displayed like works of art—lots of pickles, cuts of meat she had never seen before, and every kind of sausage you could imagine, some with rich-colored skins. She knew enough to recognize some Italian names, and some German. Others she couldn’t even attempt to pronounce.

She saw women with different clothes, concealing their hair, and wondered if they would look half so mysterious dressed like anyone else. Their manner of dress concentrated attention on their marvelous eyes, full of expression. She wondered what their thoughts were of her. With her fair skin and auburn-tinted hair, she probably looked Irish to them!

After some questions, and a little laughter at her accent, she found an apothecary shop that seemed to stock a rich variety of medicines, all known by their Latin names.

She was trying to describe Maria Cardew to the woman at the counter when she heard an Irish voice behind her. She swiveled around and saw Officer Patrick Flannery standing about a yard away. He was not surprised to see her, although he would hardly have recognized her from the back. He must have heard her voice.

“Are you ill?” he asked with some concern.

“No, not at all …” Then she realized that she had little option but to tell him the truth. It was going to come out anyway, as soon as he spoke to the woman behind the counter. She must remember what her father had said about lies revealing more about you than the truth would.

“I met a woman who knew Maria Cardew. I wanted to hear about her, so I asked. The woman said Maria looked after a sick friend, Sara Godwin. I thought Maria might have bought her medicines here.”

“What difference would that make?”

“It would be a record of Maria Cardew looking after someone with considerable kindness. It would show she wasn’t the kind of person Harley Albright said she was.” Why did she have to explain that to him? Surely it was easy enough to understand. And why was she disappointed that he was so slow? She would probably never see him again, unless he came to arrest her!

“Does that matter to you, Miss Pitt?” His voice was still gentle.

“Yes.” She thought of the face of the woman in the park. “Yes, it does. I saw her alive only once, but there was something good in her. I don’t believe Phinnie hurt her mother, and I want her to have at least one pleasant memory of Maria. You can’t discard parents, even if you want to. They are part of who you are.”

For a moment there was raw emotion in Flannery’s face also, a mixture of pity and joy. “No, surely you can’t!” he agreed. “And it’d be the last thing I’d want.
My mother is the best woman I’ve ever known.” Then, as if embarrassed by his feelings, he went on quickly, “But I doubt you’d persuade Miss Delphinia Cardew of that. She hasn’t a nice thing to say about her mother.”

“Don’t take her too seriously,” Jemima pleaded. “She’s never known why Maria left her as a tiny child. It seems nobody knows. And now, when perhaps she could have met her and made some reconciliation, Maria is dead, and we’ll never understand.”

“She might have killed Maria herself, and yet you’re out here in the snow, walking around the back streets trying to find out something positive to tell her?” he asked in amazement.

Now it was Jemima who felt embarrassed. “I have other reasons. Don’t you think I killed Maria? Nobody seems to be doing anything to prove otherwise. I need to defend myself, and the only way I can do that is by finding out who really did kill her.”

“So you’re beginning by looking for every fine thing she did, any kindness, maybe every lame dog she helped over a stile?” he asked with a trace of humor.

“I’m trying to find out anything I can about her!” she said sharply. “She was stabbed to death with a knife,
probably from her own kitchen—or actually Sara Godwin’s kitchen. Somebody must’ve hated her pretty badly. That’s who I’m looking for. I haven’t done very well so far, but then, I started only this morning.”

It sounded ridiculous, put like that, and not only stupid but also hopeless. Suddenly she felt small and cold and very silly. She should never have left London, where she was safe and had her family to believe in her and help her.

She swallowed the lump in her throat and stared back at Officer Flannery. “Someone killed her, and whatever you think, I know it was not I!”

He looked at her as if she were a lost child. “I think here’s a smart place to start,” he said. He looked past her to the woman behind the counter. “What did you sell to Mrs. Cardew, please, ma’am? We need to find as many people she knew as we can, so we can learn a thing or two about her. Then we’ll leave your shop, so you can be getting on with your business.” He smiled at her, looking kind, but also large and stubborn and very official.

The woman pulled out her records and told him everything she knew. Maria Cardew had spent quite a lot of money on medicine for Sara.

“And did she happen to mention her friend’s illness?” Flannery asked.

“Consumption,” the woman answered. “The poor soul. No cure for that, but Mrs. Cardew made her life a lot easier. Had some real strong spells, she did.”

“Thank you.” Patrick Flannery smiled at her and the woman looked pleased.

Outside on the pavement he stopped, standing closer to the street than Jemima, protecting her from the splashes of passing vehicles.

“And what did you plan to do next?” he asked.

“Food shops,” she answered. “She might have bought special items for Sara. There might even be a doctor …”

“Are you sure you want to do this?” he said doubtfully. “You might find she wasn’t as nice as you think.”

“Of course,” Jemima said quickly. “I don’t believe she was a saint. If she was, then why did someone kill her?”

“Well, I suppose there’s the chance she knew something that was dangerous,” he said. “She might unintentionally have witnessed an argument or a fight, someone making an illegal deal or …” He stopped abruptly, a faint color in his cheeks.

She laughed, then instantly wished she had not. It
would have been far more ladylike to have affected not to know what he meant. “I’m sorry,” she said contritely.

He blinked and shook his head. “Don’t apologize. Perhaps I shouldn’t have said—”

“Of course you should. She may very easily have seen somebody where they should not have been, or with someone they should not have been with. But how do we find out what, if anything, she knew? And if it really mattered so much as to kill her for it.”

“High society is very proper in New York,” he told her quickly.

Jemima was taken aback. Did he consider her part of that high society and somehow worry that he had offended her by being so candid? How could she undo that impression?

“I know that,” she said. “I am staying with the Albrights, remember? They are far more correct than anyone I know at home. But …”

“But what?” he asked, now watching her very carefully, although she did not know what the intensity in his face meant. She was beginning to feel self-conscious.

“But very often, the higher up in society you get, the less ‘proper’ you are,” she answered. “My great-grandaunt
Lady Narraway’s father was an earl, and she is the most outrageous person I know. I think you would like her enormously, though that is a little presumptuous of me to say.”

“Do you like her?” he asked with interest.

“As much as anyone I’ve ever known,” she answered without hesitation. “When she was young she was said to be the most beautiful woman in Europe. Now she is far older, and I think she still is. But she is brave and funny and terribly wise, which is what matters.”

“In what way is she wise?” He was asking because he wanted to know. There was no challenge in his voice, or in the expression in his eyes.

She thought for a moment. She wanted him to understand what she meant. It mattered to her, but she wanted to do Aunt Vespasia justice as well, and that was not easy.

“She knows what matters and what doesn’t,” she answered, choosing her words carefully. “She remembers what she receives, but never what she gives. She doesn’t hold grudges, and if she thinks something is funny she will laugh, whether it is the ‘done thing’ or not. She loves the opera, and gorgeous clothes. She is honest
when it is fashionable not to be, but she is never unnecessarily unkind. And she will fight to the death for a cause she believes in.”

“Do you wish to be like her?” he said gravely.

She did not have to consider that. “Yes,” she said instantly. “Yes, I would like that more than anything else.”

His expression was hard to read, as if powerful emotions were in conflict inside him.

“Then please take care of yourself,” he said softly, “so that you may have the opportunity to do that. You’ve given me many ideas about where to look for Maria Cardew’s killer. You need to be careful. Whoever it is won’t want to be found.”

“Of course not,” Jemima agreed. “And I am not at all sure that the Albrights wish the matter given any more coverage in the news than has already been given.”

“Well, you are not going to wander around the streets in a neighborhood like this, asking questions about a murdered woman,” he said sternly. “That is the perfect way to get hurt.”

“I’ll be careful,” she promised.

“No, you won’t. You’ll follow any clues you find and walk all around here, up back alleys and into places
where you won’t be welcome,” he argued. “I can’t let you do that.”

“But you can let me be convicted of something horrible that I didn’t do?”

His face looked pinched. She had hurt him.

“I’m not going to let that happen either,” he said rashly. “I’m coming with you. I’ll find whoever really killed her, and you’ll be safe.”

For a moment she saw in his eyes something beautiful, and then she looked away. She could not afford such thoughts. The New York police believed she had stuck a knife into the heart of Maria Cardew. If she were to survive, she must prove that she had not, and the only way to do that was to discover who had.

“Thank you,” she acknowledged. “Where shall we begin?”

He made a sharp little sound that she thought was laughter.

“Continue,” he corrected. “As you see very logically, it was a crime of deep emotion. Someone either hated her or was frightened of her. The only reason for fear of an elderly woman in her state of health must have been that she had knowledge that could have ruined someone.”

“We don’t know that she was ill; that was her friend Sara Godwin,” Jemima pointed out. “Why can’t we find her? Wouldn’t she know who might have killed Maria?”

“We can look for her, but she might be anywhere. She could even be dead, given that she was so ill. She must have had a hard life. She probably worked too much and didn’t eat very well.” There was pity in his voice, and Jemima liked him for that. It made her think for a moment of her father. He was always sympathizing with the wrong people—at least, wrong as far as both the police and society were concerned.

Then she forced that thought out of her mind. If she were to think of home and family at the moment, she would dissolve in tears and that would be both embarrassing and useless.

They were sheltered where they stood, but it was time to move. For a start, walking would get the blood circulating again, and make them warm, even if it took them away from the narrow alley and into the broader, straighter streets, where the buildings on either side funneled the east wind off the water.

“Where are we going?” she asked after several minutes.

“Best local bakery,” he answered. “Then the butcher.
She’ll have made chicken soup, maybe got bits and pieces many folk don’t want. My mother used to do that, when times were harder.”

Jemima kept up with Flannery’s pace with difficulty. He had not stopped to think that while she was tall for a woman, she was still several inches shorter than he, and wearing heeled boots and a heavy skirt. It was a kind of oblique compliment that she did not want to spoil by lagging behind.

She tried to think what kind of information Maria Cardew could have had that could be so dangerous. At her age it didn’t seem likely that she was having inappropriate relations with anyone. And anyone important enough to matter would not be frequenting this area. The locals around here were immigrants, the hardworking poor.

They reached the poultry shop, and yes, the owner knew Maria quite well, kept good pieces for her and slipped them in with the other bits he sold her cheaply. He was distressed to hear of her death.

“She was a good woman,” he said, pulling his mouth into an expression of disgust at such a tragedy. “Always had a pleasant word. I don’t know what the world’s coming to.” He glared at Flannery. “And what are you
doing about it, eh? Just one poor old woman, no money, no power, so what does it matter?” He sighed, shaking his head.

“We’re going to find out who did it,” Jemima said firmly. “But it isn’t easy. For a start, why would anyone do that? She had nothing worth taking.”

The butcher stared at her. “Who are you? You talk oddly.”

“I’m English,” she explained. “I know some of her family, and I liked her. I want to know what happened.”

“She wasn’t English. She was as American as anyone. She was born here!” He made it a challenge.

“I know. But she lived in England for a while. She was married to an Englishman.”

“Oh?” He raised his eyebrows. “She didn’t say anything about that. Only man I ever saw her with was black!”

There was a moment of silence, then Flannery spoke.

“Black? Did you know him?”

The man shook his head. “Not from round here. But he spoke regular, so he could have been from anywhere. He didn’t mean her harm. Spoke softly to her, and she to him.”

“But she knew him?” Flannery said.

“Only saw him a couple of times. Like I said, not from round here.”