A New York Christmas (7 page)

How could this have happened, in the space of a few
hours? It was the middle of the day, yet breakfast time seemed as if it had been in another era. Did Harley really imagine that she had killed Maria Cardew? With a knife from the kitchen? Did he think she was both stupid and cold-blooded enough to have committed murder rather than let Maria make a scene at the wedding?

Why? To protect Phinnie from embarrassment?

That was absurd, even insane.

Then, sitting on the hard bench that served as a bed, shuddering with cold in the bare, iron-barred cell, she knew the answer. Not to protect Phinnie from embarrassment at all, but to make certain that the wedding went ahead and Phinnie became part of the powerful Albright family, with its immense wealth. Harley had all but hinted as much to Officer Flannery. And then Phinnie would reward her appropriately.

That, of course, had assumed she would not be caught! Now all she would gain was a length of rope to hang her, or whatever they did with murderers in New York!

Would anyone tell her parents? Surely they would?

Then her father would come over and he would find the truth. He had no official status as a policeman, or
anything else, here in America, but that would not prevent him. He would do anything to save her. She was not guilty of anything except … what? Foolishness? Placing her trust in the wrong person? Overconfidence in her own ability? Perhaps pride? It was a miserable thought.

She was given supper; by then she was hungry enough to eat the rough and tasteless stew. The bed was hard and lumpy and the whole cell was bitterly cold. She slept very badly and woke up so stiff she could not move without pain. And of course there were no clean clothes for her, nothing even to wash in except cold water.

About the middle of the morning, the woman in charge told her that she had a visitor, and to straighten herself up and prepare to be conducted to the room where she could speak to him. She did as she was told, wondering if it would be Harley Albright. What could she say to him? He had practically accused her of killing Maria Cardew in a secret agreement with Phinnie, to save her from any embarrassment in her new life. She hated him for that so much she felt as if she would choke on her words if she even tried to speak to him. He was the one who had asked for her help in finding Maria.
And yet, furious as she was, she also knew that he was trying to protect his family. That part she could believe, and even sympathize with.

But when she was conducted to the interview room, her hands again shackled behind her back, it was Mr. Rothwell Albright who stood up from the hard-backed wooden chair, not Harley. He looked tired and so pale it was as if the cold had seeped through everything he wore and reached into his bones. Was it the prospect of scandal that affected him so much?

He looked at her with distress. “Are you all right, Miss Pitt? Unhurt?”

“I am not physically anything worse than stiff and cold, thank you,” she replied. She softened her voice. He had at least come to see her. She should be grateful for that. “Would you please contact my father to let him know what has happened to me? I have no way of doing so myself.”

“Should it prove necessary, of course I will,” he replied. His voice was gravelly, as if he had not slept either.

“It is necessary,” she said, with rising panic very nearly breaking through. Had he no idea what was happening? “They have accused me of killing Mrs. Cardew!
I didn’t even touch her! There was nothing I could do to help her.”

“I am afraid it seems otherwise,” he answered slowly. “Poor Maria. She did not deserve to die in such a way. She was a good woman … misguided, perhaps, but not evil.”

There was real grief in his face, in his eyes. It seemed that he did not share Harley’s view of Maria, whatever else he felt.

“Mr. Albright, I did not harm her in any way,” Jemima said earnestly. “Mr. Harley asked me to help find Maria and persuade her not to attend the wedding and cause embarrassment. That was all I attempted to do. I never saw her at all except for a brief glimpse in the park, and then the next morning when she was dead. I have no idea who hurt her. Please … please tell Phinnie that …”

He avoided her eyes. “Delphinia is very distressed. She has now lost all possibility of reconciliation with her mother, and this terrible manner of her death has cast a dark shadow over her forthcoming wedding. I asked her if she wished to send any message to you, perhaps of comfort or support. She declined. I’m … sorry.”

It was another blow. Maybe she should have expected it. Phinnie was as changeable as the spring weather at
home. But this hurt. Surely Phinnie knew her better than to imagine she would have killed anyone, let alone a frail old woman she had never even met?

But of course Phinnie would not be thinking, only grieving, and fearing that the scandal of murder would affect the Albright family, and spoil the longed-for wedding to Brent.

“I shall contact the best lawyer I can afford, Miss Pitt, and perhaps this matter may be dealt with before your family has to be informed.” Mr. Albright rose to his feet. “I am very sorry your visit to us has ended in this way.”

She watched him go out the far door without turning back, his perfectly tailored shoulders stiff, his white hair gleaming in the light. He had said nothing about putting up bail to have her released. Perhaps, considering the charge, it was not possible anyway. She would stay here, hungry, aching, and cold to the bone. Christmas was ten days away—they might not bring her to trial before then. And when they did—then what? Oh, please heaven he would tell her father, and he would come and shatter this nightmare!

O
fficer Flannery came to see Jemima late in the afternoon, as it was already getting dark. She saw him in the same bare interview room where she had been charged, sitting on the same wooden-backed chair.

He looked different without his police hat. He had thick dark hair with a heavy curl in it. He looked tired and cold.

“Are you all right?” He asked her the same question Mr. Albright had, and with something of the same anxiety.

“I cannot tell you anything further,” she said more stiffly than she had meant to. It was her only defense against showing the fear and misery she felt. “I did not see Mrs. Cardew alive, except for a few moments in the park the previous afternoon, when she turned toward us and looked up at the snow on the branches. I would not even know it was the same woman if Harley had not told me. But he knew her; I did not.”

“Are you certain that you didn’t, Miss Pitt?” he said gravely.

“Yes, of course I am. I’ve only just arrived in New York.” Surely he must know that?

“Actually, you arrived over a week ago,” he pointed out. “At exactly the same time as Miss Cardew.”

“I know that!” Then she felt the chill of a new apprehension. What did he mean? There was no accusation in his eyes, only sadness.

“Did Miss Cardew know that her mother was in the city?” he asked.

“Of course not!” Jemima protested. “That is what Harley and I were trying to do—stop Maria Cardew from turning up and creating a scene, upsetting Phinnie at the wedding. Didn’t he tell you that?”

“He seems to now think that it is possible she
did
know,” Flannery replied.

Jemima was astonished. Suddenly nothing made sense. “If she knows it is because
he
told her! But why would he do that?” She was utterly confused. “Harley wanted the whole wedding to be a high-society event, with no hint of scandal to mar it. He told me he was even willing to pay Maria Cardew to stay away.”

“That would’ve been an extraordinarily foolish thing to do. If she was the kind of woman he said, then she could extort him for the rest of her life.”

“I told him that!” She could feel fear sharpening her voice, building up inside her like a trapped thing, ready to lash out. “I said there would be no end of it!”

“I want to believe you, Miss Pitt,” Flannery said gently,
“but the only thing in your favor is that he says it is possible that Miss Cardew not only knew that her mother was in New York, but also knew where she was.”

“If that is true then Harley told her,” she said again desperately.

“Yes, maybe …”

“Are you sure you didn’t tell her, even unintentionally?” There was an urgency in his voice, as if the grief of this tragedy touched him too. “Perhaps she would be able to piece it together from other things you said. Could she have guessed? Might she have known what you were doing anyway? If you mentioned where you had been that afternoon, could she have worked it out that her mother was there?” Flannery looked as if he wanted any of those options to be true almost as much as she did.

Jemima steadied herself with an effort. She must keep some control. Just at the moment it was her only chance to save herself.

“Even if she had worked that out from something I said, that doesn’t explain how Harley knew that she knew.”

“Perhaps he is trying to help you, Miss Pitt. It would
be in your interest if she did know. Then at least there is another person to suspect of having killed Maria Cardew.” He looked at her steadily, his eyes intensely blue.

“Harley would never accuse Phinnie of such a thing. And Phinnie wouldn’t do that,” she said miserably. “And I’m not going to try to blame her. She can be selfish and a bit silly at times—she’s terribly young—but she wouldn’t stab anyone to death, let alone her own mother! She just wouldn’t. Apart from anything else, she hasn’t the courage or the emotional intensity.”

He smiled a little ruefully.

“Honest, if not flattering,” he said.

“I don’t think I can afford to be anything but honest,” she confessed. And then she wondered, for a moment, if perhaps Phinnie wanted the marriage to Brent Albright enough to have elicited the information from Harley, and then crept out to try to persuade her mother herself. Could she have offered to keep her in comfort for the rest of her life, if she just let the marriage take place without upsetting anything? Once married to Brent, Phinnie would have the means. If the marriage did not go ahead, then she wouldn’t! If Maria Cardew
was as greedy and ruthless as Harley had said, she would understand that.

Was that impossible?

She said all this to Flannery, stumbling over the words, hating the sound of them in her own ears.

He looked unhappy, but he did not argue.

She knew the inevitable ending to her train of thought. She gave it words before he could: “Even if all that was true, Phinnie had no reason to kill Mrs. Cardew. Why would she? She would just pay her off until such time as the Albrights could deal with her more effectively.”

“Maybe she didn’t want them to know?” he responded. Now he was arguing to defend Jemima!

She shook her head. Phinnie would never manage to keep something like this from Brent.

Officer Flannery pushed his hand through his hair in a gesture of exasperation. “I’m trying to help you!”

“Thank you,” she said with a laugh that turned into a sob. “But are you sure you should be?”

“I don’t think you killed her,” he replied. “I just don’t know who did.”

“The door was open. Anyone could have gone in.”

“Why would they? Nothing was taken. There wasn’t much to take. No one else was seen. We spoke to all the other residents. No one saw anybody else.”

“I didn’t touch her,” Jemima said yet again. “She was dead when I got there.”

“Have you had anyone tell your family you’re in trouble?” Flannery asked her.

“Mr. Albright said he would, if we couldn’t sort it out quickly without their having to know. It would take my father a week or more to get here anyway. And what would he do?” That was a possibility she had not even thought about before, and in spite of her best effort she could feel the tears prickle behind her eyes, and the lump in her throat become almost too large to swallow.

Flannery stood up. He looked stiff and awkward.

“I’ll sort it out before then,” he promised, the color hot in his cheeks. “You won’t need him to come.”

J
emima remembered those words all afternoon, sitting alone in her cell with its solitary window far above
her eye level. She could hear other women prisoners shouting and sometimes even laughing, but it was a hard, raucous sound, totally without pleasure.