The Savage Heart (9 page)

“How can I convince you that it isn't a past to make you ashamed?” she asked gently. “No, don't.” She moaned when he turned away. She caught his arm and moved closer. “Matt, don't be like this!”

His arm was as rigid as a plank. He didn't even look at her. He'd distanced himself so completely that he might have been carved of wood, like one of those horrible facsimiles of Indians in front of cigar stores. She couldn't reach him.

“All right,” she said, loosening her grip on his sleeve. “You win. We'll pretend that I never said a word. You don't want to talk about anything personal with me. I'll remember from now on.”

She left him standing there and went into the house, aware of angry dark eyes following her. Perhaps she'd burned her bridges. Not that it mattered anymore. He'd made his position crystal clear. She hadn't realized how much it would hurt to have him shut her out. In the old days, he'd been enigmatic, yes. But warm and friendly with her. Of course, back then she'd been no threat to a grown warrior. Her adolescent self was someone to amuse and teach and indulge. But she was a woman now, and Matt couldn't manage a relationship that included the passionate kisses he'd given her in anger. He wouldn't risk his heart.

She went straight to her room, put her jacket and hat
away and sat down in the small rocking chair beside her window. Matt had noticed her physically for the first time since she'd come to Chicago, and it had made him wary of her. Now that he was seeing her as a threat to his peace of mind, there wouldn't be any more cozy chats, any more teasing exchanges. He'd keep her at arm's length, figuratively and physically. He'd never let her get close enough to threaten his peace of mind again.

It was a blow to her ego and to her vulnerable heart. Matt had been so much a part of her life, for so long, that it wasn't going to be easy to let him go. But he didn't want Tess, and he'd made it very plain that she wasn't going to be part of his future.

She began to doubt her instincts in coming to Chicago. It hadn't been fair to put the responsibility for her well-being on Matt, just because they'd been friends in Montana. She hadn't thought of how it was going to affect Matt's life, having her around all the time. Of course he'd feel some responsibility for her. Her father had saved his life, and she'd nursed him back to health. He would feel obliged to do anything he could for her. But it would be pity, not love; obligation, not pleasure in her company.

Matt might not want her in any permanent way, but that didn't wipe out years of friendship. And it didn't cure her of loving him. Her eyes closed as she rocked, and she felt the pain and need all the way to her toes. She'd been unfair. She'd been thoughtless and irresponsible. Now she had to make amends…somehow.

 

A
S USUAL OF LATE
, Tess didn't sleep well. She went to work the next morning worried and high-strung from a night of guilt and self-recrimination. She hadn't seen Matt when she left the boardinghouse that morning, but she hoped that he'd go ahead to the police station before anything could happen to Nan. She was so afraid for her. Not that she wasn't afraid for Matt, too.

She went about her duties conscientiously, all too aware that the matron on her ward didn't seem to like her and wasn't shy about letting her know it.

Miss Fish, or “the Barracuda” as she was known to her juniors, wore white gloves to test the dust on bedside tables and windowsills. She was meticulous about making sure that all instruments were faithfully boiled for the prescribed time after use, and that there were adequate supplies of bleached sheets and blankets for the patients on her ward. She starched her skirts so much that she rustled when she walked. Under them, barely visible, were spotlessly clean lace-up shoes. On her head was the cap that all nurses at the Cook County Hospital wore on duty. She was a credit to her profession and the very devil to work for.

Tess thought with bittersweet pleasure of the days when she'd been her father's nurse. There had been no Miss Fish to drive her mad. She'd had time to show concern and compassion for her patients. Here her day was one hectic rush to get things done. Often she felt that the patients got lost in the shuffle.

After a long morning counting instruments for the
second time because Miss Fish didn't trust her first effort, Tess walked calmly back down the ward and found herself suddenly face-to-face with Matt.

He hadn't seen her in uniform before. He studied her trim, neat figure.

Despite the mad beating of her heart, she displayed a calm expression.

“You shouldn't be here,” she said in a low voice. “Miss Fish will have a conniption fit if she sees you.”

“Miss who?”

“Fish,” she murmured, moving quickly into the hall. “She's my superior.”

He scowled as he looked around. “What do you do here all day?”

“What I used to do back in Montana,” she said. “Empty bedpans, make beds, take temperatures, boil instruments and generally give assistance when asked.”

His eyes narrowed. “Aren't you a little old for such a junior position?”

“I've never been formally trained, as most of these girls have been. I have only practical experience, and that's what sort of work I do here.”

“You don't assist the doctors?”

“Heaven forbid. Miss Fish would faint.”

He scowled. “Is she as prim as her name?”

She peered past him. “You're about to find out.”

He had his bowler hat in hand. He turned as the older woman joined them. He thought of prunes when he saw that drawn face, which looked as if it never smiled.

“Miss Fish,” he murmured politely, and made her a slight bow.

She was taken aback when he lifted her hand to his lips in a continental way, and she went red-cheeked.

“My cousin speaks of you with awe,” he said pleasantly. “You must be very important to command such respect among your nurses.”

Miss Fish almost babbled. She straightened her sleeve nervously. “You are a flirt, young man,” she said, but in a distinctly pleased tone. She was visibly flustered. “I presume that you came to see Miss Meredith on some urgent matter?”

“A grave matter,” he assured her. “Otherwise I should never have ventured to interrupt her work.”

“In that case, you may have five minutes in which to speak to her. Don't dally when you finish, Meredith,” the woman added in a strict tone. She always called them by their surnames, presumably to keep them in their place. She looked at Matt and actually smiled. “Don't detain her unnecessarily, young man. Even family has no privilege here, in the face of urgent work.”

“Yes, ma'am,” he said with a pleasant smile.

She flushed again, nodded curtly at Tess and took herself off down the ward with a back like a fire poker.

Matt had to smother a grin at Tess's perplexed expression.

“What a nice touch,” she said. “Did you practice in the mirror until you perfected that suave manner?”

“For weeks,” he agreed. His face lost every trace of mirth, however, as he began to speak. “I've been at the
police station most of the morning. I didn't want to come until I had something optimistic to say. But that hasn't happened, so I've come anyway.”

“Is it Nan?” she asked at once. “Is she all right?”

“That depends on your definition of well-being.” He took a breath. “She's in jail.”

It took Tess a moment to absorb what he'd said. She turned her head the least bit, confused. “In jail? Nan? On what charge?”

“Murder in the first degree,” he said bluntly. “They found Dennis Collier in his living room this morning with a pair of scissors stuck through his neck. He was quite dead.”

Tess felt Matt's hand on her arm, steadying her. “Don't take it like that,” he said curtly. “She isn't guilty. I knew it the minute I spoke with her. Greene doesn't believe she did it, either, but her sister went to sit with a sick friend, Greene was called out to work, and Nan was alone for several hours. She has no alibi for the time Collier was killed, and her neighbors heard her threaten to kill him before she left the house earlier last night.”

“Oh, dear heaven,” Tess said. She straightened her dainty white cap and pushed back a wisp of hair. “She couldn't kill a worm. She's not that sort of woman. I know she didn't do it.” She looked up. “But can we prove it?”

“I don't know. Greene says it's doubtful, unless she was seen somewhere. Even that might not help.” He glanced down the ward, where Miss Fish was looking at them pointedly.

“You must help her,” Tess pleaded, wide-eyed. She touched his sleeve. “Please.”

He stiffened and moved back from her until her hand fell. “You don't have to plead with me on her behalf,” he said curtly. “Greene and his superior have already asked me to investigate the murder. I would have done it even if they hadn't.”

She let out a relieved sigh. “I can help.”

His eyebrows rose. “You can?”

She glared. “I'm not stupid or helpless. I can ask questions or follow people around for you.”

His stiff posture relaxed as he looked down at her, and his sudden smile was indulgent. She looked belligerent and very pretty with her cheeks flushed and her big green eyes accusing as they met his. She was pretty. Too pretty. The smile faded as his eyes fell to her soft mouth and he remembered with an inconvenient ache how it felt to kiss her.

The cold glare, coming right behind the warm smile, made her uncomfortable. “I'd better get back to work. I'll do whatever I can to help. Nan is the only friend I have.”

The wording hurt him. He knew that he'd alienated her, but he hadn't realized that he'd done it to this extent. There was another aspect that haunted him. Tess was the only “family” that he had. His cousins were so distant and foreign to him that he wouldn't have known them if he saw them on the street. But Tess was a part of his past…and very much a part of his present.

“We'll talk about it later,” he said, bringing his mind
to bear on the present. He glanced at Miss Fish, who was pointedly staring at her junior. “Your matron is getting a bit testy.”

“Yes, I'm sure she is. She's quite strict.”

“I'll leave before I get you into trouble.” He started to go and then turned back, his face solemn and stern. “Don't visit the jail unless I'm with you. There are some extremely unpleasant criminals incarcerated near your friend. It wouldn't be proper for you to go there alone.”

She lifted her chin and wanted to argue, but it would have been difficult at the moment. “We can talk about that later, too,” she said sweetly.

He sighed with resignation, tipped his hat and went back toward the front entrance.

Miss Fish came striding up to join her young nurse. “While you aren't rushed, Meredith, I'd like you to make up some extra iodoform gauze.”

“Yes, Miss Fish,” she replied, forcing herself not to groan aloud. The gauze was tricky to prepare because one had to mix iodoform with glycerin, alcohol and ether. The sterile gauze in precut lengths was then dropped into the mixture and pressed uniformly to preserve the evenness of color. The preparer had to work quite rapidly with her surroundings as sterile as an operating room. The gauze was then rolled into strips and placed in sterile glass jars. The nurse who had to prepare it always groaned. It was one of the most difficult of the routine tasks.

“Meredith, have you ever considered taking formal training?” her superior asked suddenly. “As you know,
we have several graduates of the Illinois Training School for Nurses here at the hospital, and they draw a larger salary than you do. You certainly have the qualifications to earn your diploma, and your prior experience working for your father would be taken into account, I'm sure.”

“I hadn't thought about it,” Tess confided, “but it is something I think I might like to pursue. I love nursing. I cannot conceive of any other career.”

“Yes, I discerned that. Most attractive young women of your age are married. You have no wedding plans, no beau?”

Tess's eyes grew sad. “No, Miss Fish,” she said dully. “No plans at all.” And that was true—because Matt didn't want to marry her and she couldn't conceive of marrying anyone else.

Miss Fish seemed to soften a little. “If you do decide to take the step, I know the administrator of the school. Come and see me, and I'll give you an excellent letter of reference.”

Tess smiled. “That's very kind. Thank you.”

“You are intelligent and skilled, despite your lack of formal training. You work harder than most of my juniors do and you never shirk tasks,” the older woman said. “Such dedication does not go unnoticed here.” She nodded dismissively. “Tend to your duties, nurse. When you finish the gauze strips, you might prepare a mustard plaster for the Watkins child.”

Everyone in the hospital was fond of the ten-year-old boy in the children's ward. He had a stubborn pneumonia
that nothing seemed to help. Tess had been afraid at first that he had tuberculosis, but the doctors had found nothing to indicate it.

Billy was a frail and sickly child whose parents never came to visit him. They had five other children, of which he was the youngest, and both parents worked in a cloth mill. Tess had met them only once, and found them cold and unemotional. A bright and funny child, Billy was so unlike his family that he seemed not even to belong in it. The nurses petted him, to the doctors' disapproval. Even the dour and strict Miss Fish had once been seen sneaking him a peppermint stick.

“Is his chest no better?” Tess asked.

“It's no worse, at least,” Miss Fish said noncommittally. “Go back on duty now.”

“Yes, Miss Fish.”

 

T
HE NEXT DAY
, S
ATURDAY
, was Tess's day off. It was early and she waited in the parlor for Matt to come down. She wanted to be sure she intercepted him in case he was planning to skip breakfast so he could rush straight to his office.

Sure enough, she'd been sitting on the rosewood sofa only a few minutes when she heard his footsteps on the staircase.

He was checking his pocket watch when she came to the doorway of the parlor to meet him.

He gave her a quick, wary glance.

“Are you going out?” he asked, taking in the fact that
she was obviously dressed for a day out in a black suit with a white blouse and a wide-brimmed hat with jet-beaded trim.

She nodded.

“Where?”

She looked up at him and smiled. “I thought I might talk you into taking me to jail to see Nan. You said you didn't want me to go there alone. But if you won't go with me, that's exactly what I'll do.”

He glared at her. “You've become something of a thorn in my side just lately.”

“When haven't I been?” she retorted. She clutched her small bag tightly in her hands. “Do you have anything pressing on your schedule?”

“Not that pressing, I suppose. Jail is no place for a lady.”

“That's why I want to see Nan.”

“Very well,” he said in a resigned tone. “Let's go. But not without breakfast.”

 

N
AN WAS IN A SMALL CELL
all by herself, but near enough to some of the male prisoners to make her uncomfortable. Tess saw at once why Matt had insisted that she not go to the jail alone. She was grateful for his company, especially in the face of the cold-eyed jailer who looked at her in a way that chilled her blood.

When he opened the cell door to admit Tess and Matt, Nan was sitting on her narrow bunk with her hair disheveled and wearing the same skirt and blouse she'd had on two nights before.

“Good heavens!” Tess exclaimed, rushing over to Nan and kneeling in front of her. “You poor dear. Hasn't anyone thought to bring you a change of clothing?”

“My sister did, but I daren't…” She leaned forward, flushing. “They watch me all the time,” she whispered.

Matt's dark eyes narrowed. “I'll speak to your brother-in-law. He should be able to do something about that!”

“That's very kind of you, Mr. Davis. I'm in his bad books, even though he knows I didn't kill Dennis.” She lowered her eyes. “He knows I'm going to have a baby—that it's not my husband's. I am a terrible woman!”

“Stop that,” Tess chided gently. “You're not terrible.”

“Certainly not,” Matt agreed. “We'll do all we can for you. Have you any idea who the murderer could be, Mrs. Collier? Was there someone who hated your husband enough to kill him?”

“I did,” she said miserably, folding her hands in her lap. She shook her head wearily. “I do realize that I'm the best suspect they're likely to find. I had reason to hate Dennis.” She picked at a fingernail. “He didn't know about the baby. If he had, I fear what he might have done. I believe he would have killed me. He had criminal friends…or at least I think they were criminals. They probably taught him a lot of ways to do dreadful things…like kill me.”

Matt leaned back against the bars, frowning. “I thought your husband was a telegrapher?”

“That's what he did to pretend that he was a decent citizen,” Nan said coldly. “But he was caught up in something dishonest, with a group of men who all dressed nice and
had plenty of money to flash around. I don't know exactly what they did to get the money.”

“Did you hear them say anything that might give a clue about it?”

Nan pushed back her hair. “They didn't talk much around me,” she said. “I heard bits and pieces now and again. Little of it made any sense to me.”

“What about recent days, Mrs. Collier?” Matt asked. “Can you remember the last of these conversations you overheard?”

Nan looked agitated. “Well, just last week there were a number of men sitting in our parlor… I was working in the kitchen.” She looked forlornly up at Tess, then back at Matt. “Dennis told me to make sandwiches and…and salads for them to eat with their beer… He bought beer by the keg, you know, as if he were a barkeep….” She looked around distractedly, running her fingers through her hair.

“It must have been hard on you, Nan,” Tess said sympathetically. She had risen some time before and was standing next to Matt, at whom she shot a glance. Upon his nod, she prompted gently, “You were working around the kitchen, and you heard something.”

“Yes, yes. Dennis said a man named Marley…that he knew how to get around locks. He said ‘I'll get him to help.'”

“Marley?” Matt echoed.

“Yes, but I don't know if it was his first name or his last name. I don't even know if he was here in Chicago.” She put her face in her hands. “I'm so sick. My sister fainted
when they came to arrest me. She doesn't think I did it, but she's scared, too.” She lifted her red-rimmed eyes. “Mr. Davis, they'll hang me if I can't prove I didn't do it, won't they?”

“No court is going to hang a woman who's in the family way,” he said tersely.

“But they might not care.” She moaned. “They'll make me out to be as bad as those girls who work in bordellos. The jury will all be men, and they'll convict me as sure as there's a sun.”

“Now, now,” Tess said gently, crossing to Nan and holding her hands tightly. “You mustn't think that way. Remember the baby and try to stay optimistic. Matt's doing all he can to save you, and so am I.” She brightened. “Nan, I'll get the girls together and that will give us strength. You're well liked, and none of them will believe you capable of murder. But you'll be tried by an all-male court, and that won't sit well with our group at all.” She was thinking out loud. “We might be able to help in some way.”

“They won't want to help me when they hear about the baby,” Nan said miserably.

“Nan, some of our members advocate having all children out of wedlock and out from under the control of men.”

“Oh, of a certainty, keep men for breeding stock and then kill them…” Matt muttered.

“Matt!” Tess cried, scandalized.

Nan brightened a little. “Well, Tess, I did hear one girl
say something along those lines. I'm sure she was joking,” she added hastily, with an apologetic glance at Matt.

“Don't worry about offending me,” he said. “I've had years of listening to Tess's thoughts on women's emancipation.”

“Some of our fellow marchers have rather radical ideas,” Tess had to admit. “There was a group once that advocated living like Amazons.” Her face colored. “Of course, they thought men should be kept on leashes and in cages.”

He chuckled. “No doubt. And I suppose you find that concept rational.”

She glanced at him. “They'd have to make a very large cage to hold you.”

Nan looked around her. “This one seems to hold me very well.” She twisted her skirt in her hands. “What shall I do?”

“Try not to worry,” Matt said solemnly. “Remember, you have us on your side. Meanwhile, there's no real alternative to leaving you here. I'm sure if there had been a way to accomplish it, your sister and her husband would have found it already.”

Nan nodded. “They did appeal to the judge, but it's a capital crime, and they won't discuss bail.” She turned her gaze to Tess. “Do you think you might find a book or two for me to read? It's frightening in here, and I have too much free time. Or could you bring me some wool and some knitting needles?”

“I'll do what I can,” Tess said.

“Mr. Davis, please ask my brother-in-law to stop by and
see me,” she added. “I'm a bit scared being here alone, and that jailer…well, he's rather offensive and getting bolder with his remarks by the hour.”