Grace's Pictures (25 page)

“Hey, I did nothing.”

“Disturbing the peace ain’t nothing,” Jake bellowed.

Owen had hoped not to use rough intimidation. He would have to communicate better with his partner in the future.

“I don’t know where the guys went. I don’t.”

Jake shoved the man away. “Says you.”

The man straightened his coat and the two of them marched off. Then the first man stopped and turned. “If I did, I sure wouldn’t tell your kind of cop. If Feeny were here, he wouldn’t care.”

Feeny! That man grated on Owen’s nerves like a starched collar.

“Come on, Jake.”

“Where? There’s nowhere else to look. They’ve gone.”

“Suppose that pawnbroker is still open?”

Jake scrambled to catch up. “Let’s go see.”

The lights were still on, so Owen tried the door. It was unlatched, so they went in. The sound of boxes falling in a back room was followed by the appearance of the man Owen had spoken to earlier.

“Ah, come in.” The man beckoned them in with a wave of his hand. “I don’t want any trouble, Officers.”

“Still have that watch?” Owen approached the counter with Jake at his heels.

“Oh, it’s you. It’s yours for fifteen dollars.”

“What?” Jake nearly came out of his shoes.

“Hold on, Jake. I told you I’d handle this.”

The man lifted his hands. “I run an honest shop. Like I said before, I don’t usually sell to cops. I’m doing you a favor.”

“Fat chance,” Jake mumbled from behind.

Owen accepted a box from the man and lifted the lid to expose the O’Toole watch. He reached into his pocket. He’d brought some savings with him, what he kept under his mattress for emergencies. He hadn’t decided until this moment whether he’d pay the man. “Here you go.”

“What are you doing?” Jake slapped his hand on top of the bills on the counter.

“The man’s just doing his job, and I did tell him it was not police business.”

The pawnbroker grinned at Owen.

“But it was stolen while you were on duty. I don’t see why—”

Owen grabbed his partner by the collar. “We’ll be going now.”

Jake complained loudly all the way outside.

“Don’t you see, Jakey? We’ve earned his trust.”

“Paid for it, you mean.”

“Well, I suppose, but besides that I made him a promise and I did not go back on it. He’ll be on our side should we need him in the future.”

“You sure?”

“Instincts, Jakey. Instincts.” Owen might be getting a handle on things after all.

Owen visited the shop the next day.

“You again?” The man sat on a stool examining jewelry and glared at him from behind a magnifier.

“A word, if you don’t mind.”

“Look, Officer. I pay off some fellows from your precinct and in return, they stay out of here. I think I pay out enough.”

“I’m not looking for that. Something else.”

“Information, I suppose.”

“That’s right. You know I’m a man of my word, an honest cop. It’s my job to protect the hardworking citizenry, and I’m going to do it.”

The man smiled. “Well, it’s about time. It’s about ever-loving time! Come into my office.”

Owen followed the man into a back room and sat on a crate.
“What can you tell me about what goes on around here? I’m looking to find Goo Goo Knox. Know who I mean?”

“First, let me tell you about a little project some folks got going, businessmen and well-to-dos who don’t like public debauchery. Folks who want to put some pressure on the police force to get things done.”

“Go on.”

The man leaned back in his office chair and tented his fingers. “They are calling themselves the Committee of Fifteen. You might not have heard of them yet, but I’ll venture that in the future you’ll hear plenty. They are doing their own investigations, writing up reports—stuff the cops ought to be doing. When they present the information publicly, they figure the department will have no choice but to follow through.”

“Interesting. Citizens demanding the law be enforced. I like that.”

“Thought you would. Now, as for that Goo Goo fella.” He turned back to his desk and scribbled something on a pad of paper, tore it off, and handed it to Owen. “Go there. Ask for that fella. You probably have his face on your mug shot wall, so it shouldn’t be hard to find him. He’ll tell you what you need to know.”

“Why would he do that? Do I need to pay him?”

The pawnbroker laughed. “Sometimes a fella likes to see a guy get what’s coming to him, know what I mean?” He leaned forward, elbows on knees. “Look, McNulty. I know there’s got to be good guys on the force. I figure you’re one of ’em. You can trust what I gave you. Can I trust you not to muck it up?”

Owen stood and stretched out his hand. “You most certainly can.”

23

“HELP, MISS GRACIE!”

Grace spun around before opening the oven, thankful she’d not caused the cake to fall with an unintended blast of cold air. “What is it, Hazel?”

“I can’t find my blue hair ribbon and Carolyn Feeny always has a blue hair ribbon. I have to have mine!”

“What did you say?”

“I said I need my blue—”

“No. Who always has a blue hair ribbon? Feeny, did you say, lass?”

“Yes. Carolyn Feeny.” She narrowed her gray eyes. “Why?”

Grace put a hand on Hazel’s back and turned her toward the stairs. “In the top right drawer of your bureau.”

The girl was halfway up the kitchen stairs when Grace called to her. “Is Miss Feeny’s father or uncle, or grandfather, perhaps, a policeman?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Which?”

“Maybe all of them.” She trudged up the steps.

Grace rubbed her tired eyes. Half the police force, maybe more, was Irish. But this was no coincidence. S. P. Feeny’s
nephew was on his way to interrogate her. She could feel it in her bones like the return of blustery winter.

Hazel reappeared, blue ribbon dangling from her hand.

“Give me that, lass.” Grace quickly tied it in the girl’s long, wavy brown hair. “Does Carolyn Feeny go to your school?”

“Teacher’s pet.” Hazel stuck out her tongue.

“Now don’t be like that.” Grace could not force a harsher reprimand. She knew what Feenys were like.

“I don’t like her at all. She is always raising her hand when Teacher asks a question. Way before anyone else can think of the answer.”

“Be patient and work hard. Your teacher will understand that you are a smart lass, Hazel Parker. Just as bright as the Feeny child.”

As they began the hike to the school, Grace tried to remember the faces of the children she’d seen there before and the adults who escorted them. But she’d never before considered the possibility that a Feeny could be among them, so she wasn’t sure. Today she’d look. She’d examine every face, looking for the roundness, the ruddy cheeks, the shifting eyes.

She saw it right after she’d dismissed the girls.

“Ouch, Miss Gracie. You squeeze my hand too tight.”

“Sorry, Linden.”

“Let go.”

She certainly would not. Not with someone so closely resembling her mother’s husband only a few feet away. “Let’s go. Hurry. I have more baking to do, laddie.”

They scrambled up the steps to the brownstone moments later. “Go get the pencils, Linden. You can draw at the kitchen table while I bake.”

“Yes, Miss Gracie.”

She pulled off his coat and mittens and he hurried off.

Breathe. He hasn’t found you yet. He doesn’t even know where you are.

She set Linden’s drawing gallery up and began assembling the ingredients for bread.

“Grace, come here,” Mrs. Parker called from the other room.

“I’ll be back in a moment, Linden. If Auntie Edith comes back with the caraway seeds, ask her to leave them on the counter for me.”

He nodded and continued his drawing of a man with a disproportionately sized head and arms sticking out where ears should be.

Grace answered the mistress’s call from the parlor. Alice Parker lounged on the sofa while the baby slept in a cradle nearby. “I can’t seem to find coralbells.” Scores of catalogs lay scattered around the room. Mrs. Parker tossed one onto the pile. “See what you can do, Grace. I’m going to take a nap.” The woman rose, her nightgown rumpled and her expression sullen. She waddled slowly toward the stairs.

“How are you feeling today?” Grace spoke to the woman’s back.

She turned slowly. “Like it’s all a waste.”

“What do you mean?” The baby stirred. Grace went to the cradle and patted his back.

Mrs. Parker’s gaze fell to the child and then back at Grace. “You are a better mother than I am.”

Stunned, Grace tried to argue.

“No, no. It’s true. One cannot give love when one is as unlovable as I am.” She turned back to the stairs.

Grace hurried toward her. “That’s just not true, Mrs. Parker. You are their mother. They love you.”

The woman turned her gray face toward Grace. “I’m afraid I just don’t care.”

“Wait.” Grace hurried over and snatched up a seed catalog. “Look.” She flipped to a page of line-sketched daisies. “When you don’t feel love, you turn to what’s beautiful, don’t you? I know you do, because I’ve done that myself.”

Mrs. Parker walked to the mantel and took a deep breath, fingering the evergreen branches. “I suppose you are right. Nature soothes me. Every time I plant a seed and am rewarded with a bloom, I feel gratified that I’m a part of the process, a contributor to the beauty somehow.” She turned toward Grace, gripping her gown to her neck. “Sounds foolish, doesn’t it?”

“Nay. Not foolish at all, ma’am.” Grace scooped up the baby. He nuzzled against her. “Don’t you see? ’Tis the same. These children are beautiful creations. God created the flowers you delight in and also these children. And you are certainly responsible for bringing them into life, no less than the garden you tend. They are lovely. Look at them. I know when I do, my soul is uplifted.”

For the first time Mrs. Parker smiled. “And why is that, Grace? Why do innocent things of beauty inspire us?”

“Reverend Clarke, in his sermon on Sunday, said that becoming childlike will draw one closer to God. He said Jesus himself told his disciples so. I don’t know about such things. I only know what I see, but maybe . . .” She hesitated.

“Go on, Grace. I’ve never heard Reverend Clarke’s sermons. Tell me.”

“I’m not the one to be explaining such things, ma’am. Perhaps Mr. Parker—”

“No, no. You tell me what you think.”

Cornered. Like that toad in a jar again. “I . . . uh . . . I
just see something remarkable in the children’s faces. Maybe we need them as much as they need us.” Grace placed Douglas in her arms.

“I’ll take him upstairs to his crib,” his mother said, cuddling him under her chin.

When the mistress left, Grace turned back toward the hall and encountered Mr. Parker’s sister. “Well done, Grace. Well done.”

“You heard?”

“Indeed, and McKinley himself could not have offered a more poignant speech and certainly no truer one.”

“Thank you. I don’t know if it helped.”

“Well, we often don’t know. We just have to do our best to encourage others.”

“I must get to the bread now.” Grace’s heart soared as though sunbeams shot through it, enlightening the truth and chasing away the lies she had allowed to fester there.

The woman followed her into the kitchen and patted Linden’s shoulder. “A fine artist you are, my boy.”

The lad beamed.

“I think you should take your paper and pencils up to the playroom and draw the general’s portrait, don’t you?”

“The one Miss Gracie made for me?”

“Yes, the clothespin one.” Auntie Edith saluted like a soldier. “Every good general has his portrait made.”

“He does?”

“Of course.”

Linden grabbed his things and headed for the back stairs. “I’ll do a good job. You’ll see.”

“Of course you will, sonny. You’re a Parker, after all.”

When he was gone, the woman chuckled and began
measuring the flour for Grace’s bread. “I am afraid my brother has not done well by his wife.”

A shiver ran up Grace’s neck. She should not be having this kind of conversation. She remembered the reverend’s wise advice. “He is a good provider. Nothing else is my business, Auntie.” The woman had insisted Grace address her the same way the children did.

“You might say that, but truly, my dear, you run this household. You know this family intimately.”

“I . . . uh . . . My job is to . . .”

“Fiddlesticks. I think you should know a few things. That way you will be more prepared to carry out your duties.”

Grace didn’t want to listen. She stirred the batter with abandon.

“It concerns the children, Grace.”

Grace had been trying to compensate for the lack of parental affection in this house. Edith might be preparing to correct her for that. Perhaps that earlier compliment had not been what she’d thought. Grace bit her lip and dropped the seeds into the batter.

Edith wiped her hands on her apron and leaned against the sink. “My brother was an only son, and our father put high expectations upon him. I’m a bit older than George, and I noticed these things. He was a sensitive little fellow, and our father believed he had to toughen him up. I’m afraid he chose harsh words to do that, always telling the boy he was not measuring up. Father thought that would make him try harder.”