Grace's Pictures (43 page)

And now Owen was about to surprise him before he could even try to make a bargain with the children as ransom. So long as the children were unharmed, this was perfect.

But all had to go as planned. The timing had to be spot-on.

Owen drew his pistol and inched onto the boat as Jake did
the same from the opposite side. They crept toward a window to look inside the boat.

A tapping came from the stern, and then a small foot appeared from under a cover. Owen hurried over and pulled off the tarp. The children had been gagged and tied to a stack of crates, but they did not seem harmed.

“Don’t worry. I got ya.”

They bobbed their heads.

“Now, when I get you loose, you have to be very, very quiet. Understand? Not a peep.”

They nodded again.

“Good.” He waved toward one of his lookouts.

The man hurried over, and together they got the children loose.

The boy started to cry.

Owen slapped his hand over the frightened child’s mouth. “Quiet, boy. Mac, take them on out of here.” When Owen let go, the children bit their lips and went with the officer.

Jake stood at the cabin door, taking aim, as Owen gazed into a porthole. Goo Goo and his gang sat around a table, leisurely playing faro. Knox probably wanted his men to learn how to cheat folks at illegal gambling, another vice of the city.

The men laughed and smoked, leaning back in folding chairs. They’d thought they had plenty of time—probably assumed the police were searching farther up near the west side docks. Who would look here? There had been an escape. It was the old case of making your pursuers think you’d run as far as possible, when you were really right under their nose.

Knox slumped in his chair, examining his cards. He had no idea what was about to happen. Owen paused and motioned for Jake to back off. Instinct told him something wasn’t right.

The barrel of a gun struck his ribs. A gruff voice whispered in his ear. “Call off your goons and order them to bring the camera.”

“A little late, aren’t ya, Smokey?”

“Those urchins don’t matter. We want that camera and you got it. Hand it over.”

Jake had managed to sink into the shadows.
Stupid Dusters, senses all dull, thankfully.

“My partner has it.”

Smokey spun around but aimed his rifle at Owen again before Owen could move. “You got nobody.”

Owen sensed his men advancing forward, slowly.

“Do you see a camera in my hands, man?”

Smokey shook his head. “Well, you make a better hostage than those kids anyway. They’d trade a cop, even a dead one, for the evidence, I figure. Nobody but a college-boy cop would go to so much trouble to run down the Dusters. Don’t they tell you anything from up at Tammany, man? Dimwit! Get down there.” He cocked his head in the direction of the cabin. “You and me’s gonna show Goo Goo I was the one who caught you.” He moved starboard.

“Afraid of Knox, aren’t you? Is that any way—?”

“Shut up!” Smokey staggered, even more dangerous with that loaded weapon because of his drugged state.

Owen took a deep breath. “Hold on, Davis. Better to have that evidence than a dead cop, you know. The department will track down a cop killer, even for a college cop like me.”

“You got it or not?”

“Jake, send that camera over here.”

Jake was far smarter than any fuzzy-minded addict.

A shot rang out.

The idiot had fired aimlessly, hoping to hit a target he couldn’t see. Owen turned and grabbed for the weapon, but Davis stumbled back and pointed it at him. Owen held his arms up. “You want the camera or not?”

That caught his attention.

“Jake, you hear me?”

“Sure thing, boss.”

Something, a box of some sort, slid toward them and landed at the gunman’s feet. Davis reached for it, and Owen grabbed the barrel of his weapon, wrenching it away. The boys playing cards scrambled on deck. New York’s finest surrounded them, guns at the ready. If there was one thing the city’s gangs did not like, it was being outnumbered. When cops outnumbered gangsters, the cops usually won.

But this time the gang leader was in jeopardy, so they put up a fight. Owen rolled to the ground to get out of the line of fire. Pain shot up from his ankle, but he couldn’t be sure he’d been hit.

“Owen, your gun,” Jake yelled.

The pistol Davis had forced him to drop earlier rolled toward him from the the starboard side. He got off a few shots.

“Hold up!” Jake yelled. “We got ’em!”

Goo Goo could not escape this time.

43

WHEN THE CHILDREN
burst through the precinct doors, followed by several policemen, Grace joined their father in gathering them up and planting kisses on their cold cheeks.

“I got out of the ropes,” Linden said, showing her his wrist. “I was quiet. A good boy. I’m going to be a policeman one day.”

“Let me look at you all.” They seemed fine and unscathed. Grace held the lad tight and closed her eyes, thanking God.

“You all go on home now,” the police captain said. “We’ll take care of the criminals and get your statements later.”

Owen and another policeman limped in behind them. Linden ran over and hugged Owen’s knees.

“Are you all right?” Grace asked, pulling Linden back.

“Fine. Just a twisted ankle. You all should go along home now.” He smiled.

“Thank you,” Grace said. “You do a good job chasing down criminals and robbers.”

He chuckled. “Thank you for trusting the New York City police, Miss McCaffery. I know that was difficult for you.”

It had been. And so was trusting God. But look what had happened. The best outcome.

Grace followed Mr. Parker and the children out to his carriage.

When they were all tucked in bed, Grace approached Mr. Parker. He seemed to have aged ten years. “Please, let me stay with them. If they have bad dreams, I’ll be right here.”

“Thank you, Grace. I’ll be in my chair all night if any of them need me.”

Auntie Edith paced back and forth in front of the parlor hearth, holding baby Douglas. “I was worried sick.”

“Let me take the baby. Everything is fine now.” Grace carried the slumbering lad upstairs.

Sometime later Grace found that she, like Mr. Parker, could not sleep. Still dressed in her day clothes, she came downstairs. Popping her head into the parlor, where Mr. Parker sat in front of a roaring fire, she offered to make warm milk. “And Edith?”

“Thank you, Grace. Edith’s gone to bed.”

When she brought two mugs back with her, she noticed the man had been crying. “Don’t worry, Mr. Parker. The children were not harmed at all.”

“I have no doubt about that. Linden’s bright disposition seems untarnished, and the girls just seem more angry than anything else, a justified anger. And they are sleeping, yes?”

“All of them like bears.”

“Good, good.”

“Then what, if I may ask, is on your mind? Thinking about their mother?” She swallowed a mouthful of the warm milk, praying that she hadn’t overstepped.

“I had a long talk with Reverend Clarke. He helped me see that God does not blame me for my past and that it’s not too late to right wrongs. I’m donating the tenement I own in Chatham Square to the Tenement House Committee of the
Charity Organization. They are doing some fine work on the Lower East Side, making living conditions more acceptable. I’m donating funds as well, and Reverend Clarke says First Church will help too.”

Thank you, God. I did not have to bring up the tenement.
“Well, that’s a good thing, no?”

“Very much. I’m not sad, not really. I have regrets, but mostly I am vastly overwhelmed how God forgave me. I am redeemed and no longer a slave to those old feelings of unworthiness.”

She set her mug down on a side table and clasped her hands in her lap. “Oh, Mr. Parker, what a wondrous thing.”

They sat quietly for a moment, watching the flames. Grace did not think that the fire’s glow was what had transformed this man’s expression. His entire face was smoother, his eyes brighter, the muscles in his jaw more relaxed. This was what she’d been searching faces to see, what she saw in her mother, Reverend Clarke, Mrs. Hawkins, and Owen. But she hadn’t realized that the inner glow was something that could instantaneously come upon a person. It wasn’t there, and then it was.

“Grace?”

“Aye, yes, Mr. Parker?”

“You’re Irish. Perhaps you are familiar with the ancient Irish hymn ‘Be Thou My Vision’?”

“My mother used to sing it to me at night.”
Before the workhouse,
but she did not need to explain.

“There is a verse that speaks to me:

“Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise,

Thou mine inheritance, now and always;

Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,

High King of heaven, my treasure Thou art.”

“Beautiful, Mr. Parker.”

“Ah, yes. I am no longer seeking man’s empty praise. Tomorrow the children and I will plant coralbells.”

A fitting tribute to Mrs. Parker. Grace was happy she’d told him about the flowers.

She went upstairs trying to remember the rest of the verses. The tune was firmly in her head but not the words.

“Ma, I will miss you so!” Grace clung to her mother in Hawkins House’s parlor. Her mother was preparing to return to Ireland. S. P.’s business was finished, and the baby had received a leg brace to help his bones grow straight.

“And I you, my heart.”

“Let’s take a walk. Me, you, and the baby. I need to ask you about something.”

“That’s why we came early, darlin’. So we could have a wee bit of time together.”

Grace was surprised when S. P. agreed. Owen McNulty had stopped by, and the two of them were engaged in police talk. The influence of Tammany Hall and other such topics the women had no interest in.

They stepped out into the cool, dry air. Ma looped a blanket over the wee one’s head, hoisted him on her shoulder, and they headed toward Battery Park, a spot more pleasant to take a walk in than it had been in previous days. They paused where they could look at Lady Liberty holding her torch over the harbor.

“Ma, remember that old hymn you used to sing to me at night, ‘Be Thou My Vision’?”

Her mother began to hum.

“There is a part I can’t remember. The verse that begins ‘Be
Thou my Wisdom, and Thou my true Word.’ I can’t remember the rest. Can you sing it to me?”

“Surely, I can. Let’s sit on this bench. Patrick gets heavy.”

They sat, and Grace leaned her head on her mother’s shoulder and stared down at the baby. So beautiful. So innocent. So recent from the hand of God.

Ma began to sing.

“Be Thou my Wisdom, and Thou my true Word;

I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord;

Thou my great Father, I Thy true son,

Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.”

“Ma? Is it true that I can be God’s dwelling place?”

“Oh, nothing truer than that, my child.”