Murder at Beechwood Read online

  “Oh, yes, of course. I’m sorry.” I wondered at my strong and instant reaction to the idea of Katie having left the baby unattended, that the person in whose charge I had left him had returned without him. It seemed I harbored some surprising maternal instincts as well, and the smile dancing in Nanny’s eyes told me she’d noticed, too.

  I held out my hand. “Let me see what you’ve got there.”

  Katie dropped into my palm an embroidered handkerchief edged with lace—no ordinary lace, mind you, but an intricate pattern shot through with golden silk threads. Puzzled, I searched for an initial worked into the embroidered design, but there were only flowers.

  “This was costly,” I said.

  Katie nodded her agreement. “Do you suspect the mother might be a lady of quality?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose a maid could have gotten hold of this handkerchief, but the question would be why?” I fingered the tiny yellow and pink flowers and curling pale green vines embroidered on the linen portion of the handkerchief. This was meant to dangle from a manicured hand during a ladies’ tea or luncheon, or to ward off a sheen of perspiration during a garden party. “This isn’t here by chance. I’m fairly certain of that.”

  “A clue, then,” Nanny said, reading my thoughts as she so often did. “Someone wants us to know where this baby came from.”

  “A rather obscure clue, though. With no initial or crest of any sort, this could belong to anyone and have come from anywhere, even off island. For all we know, someone brought the child over on the morning ferry.”

  “Not so, at least not this morning.” Nanny reached to take the handkerchief and crossed the room to hold it in the brighter light of the front window. “We all heard what we believed to be a squall before sunup. The morning ferry wouldn’t have arrived yet.”

  Katie’s hand flew to her throat. “You don’t suppose the poor lad was outside all night?”

  “All night?” The very suggestion sent me hurrying out of the room and nearly colliding with Stella, on her way back to the parlor with the baby. We both stopped short, yet the slight jarring the baby received didn’t disturb him in the least. His eyes remained closed, his lips working as if still sucking on the bottle.

  “Are you all right, Miss Emma? You’re as white as a sheet.”

  I waved away Stella’s concerns while my own burgeoned. “I’m fine, but I’m going to call Dr. Kennison again. What in the world can be keeping him so long?”

  But I’d no sooner reached the alcove and lifted the ear trumpet when a knock sounded at the front door.

  “He’s fine, Emma. Lungs are clear, his heart’s strong. Has a good grip, too. I’d say this is one healthy little fellow.” Dr. Kennison folded his stethoscope and slipped it into the medical bag at his elbow, the black leather worn and cracked from years of steady use.

  I sighed with relief as I leaned over the kitchen table and rewrapped the swaddling blankets snug around the baby’s pink body, which had only begun to grow plump in the way babies did at several weeks old. Our young man had awakened briefly during his examination, whereupon he surveyed the doctor with a puzzled frown, squeezed the offered finger, blew a bubble between his lips, and drifted back to sleep.

  Poor thing. How long had he cried before I finally found him this morning? “You don’t see any signs of exposure, then, Doctor?”

  “Emma, relax. Even if he had been outside all night, which I very much doubt, don’t forget it’s summertime. The air wouldn’t have done him a lick of harm.”

  A few minutes later I walked him to the door. “So for now you’ll keep mum about this, Doctor? I’d like a chance to discover who he is and why he was left here before too many people learn of his existence.”

  “If you think that’s best. Now, mind you mix his formula exactly according to the directions. I can’t tell you how many undernourished infants I see whose mothers added too much water, trying to stretch their supply.”

  “We’d never do any such a thing.” The very notion appalled me and I instinctively hugged the baby closer. “We’ll take the very best care of him.”

  He reached out a finger to stroke the baby’s head. “I’m sure you will. If you need me, telephone. Otherwise I’d like to see him again in about a week. Say, Thursday?”

  Beyond him through the open door a cloud of dust formed at the end of my driveway, and seconds later a police buggy came into view. “That’s Jesse. Someone must have told him I called the station. Well, good-bye, Doctor, and thank you.”

  The two men exchanged greetings before Jesse made his way to my front door. “Morning, Emma.”

  “Good morning, Jesse. Did they tell you I telephoned, or can you read my mind now?”

  As with Gayla, I’d known Jesse all of my life. We both hailed from the Point, the colonial, harborside section of Newport that had changed little in the past century. Though he was some ten years older than me, we’d forged a friendship based on our common origins and, more recently, through our mutual efforts to solve crimes and see justice done. Jesse hadn’t necessarily approved of my involvement in local criminal matters, but neither had he turned down the vital information I’d been able to offer him.

  “Read your mind . . .” he said. “ ’Fraid I don’t know what you mean by that.”

  It was then I noticed the grim set to his mouth. At the same time, his gaze dropped to the baby in my arms. We spoke at the same time.

  “What’s happened?” and “Who’s that?” jumbled together in a confusion of words. I led him into the parlor.

  “Left here?” he said with a shake of his head after I’d explained. “On your doorstep?”

  “I know it sounds unbelievable, but it’s the truth. I telephoned the station earlier, but you weren’t in. If you never got the message, what brings you here?”

  Leaning forward with elbows on his knees, he ran a hand through his auburn hair and blew out a breath. “There’s been an incident. A murder, Emma. This morning.”

  “Oh, Jesse. Who?”

  “That’s just it. We don’t know. No one recognized him and he carried no identification. He was a young man, mid-twenties, driving a rented carriage.”

  “From Stevenson’s Livery?”

  He nodded. “The death wasn’t far from here, where the road curves around Brenton Point. He went off the road into the water—”

  I gasped, a hand to my mouth. Nearly the same thing had happened to me last summer. As in my case, I guessed this was no accident. “He was forced off the road?”

  “No, Emma, not quite. He went off the road because he’d been shot. Clear through the chest, from dead-on. The best we can figure is someone lay waiting for him, and when he rounded the bend they took a clear shot.”

  Jesse and I had fallen into a pattern over the past year. After I had proved my investigative skills more than once last summer, he often came to me when a case had him particularly perplexed, as now. We’d mull over evidence and possible motives. Jesse said it helped him see the facts more clearly. I was glad to help, but sometimes I wondered if his frequent visits were prompted by more than protecting Newport from crime.

  The baby, awake now, squirmed, and I realized how tightly I held him. I loosened my arms, shifting him from one shoulder to the other. A shiver traveled my length. “Jesse, this child was left on my doorstep sometime between last night and this morning. Do you suppose there could be a connection?”

  “At this point, anything is possible.”

  My mind raced. I needed to move, needed to pace as I considered these developments. Seeing me struggle to come to my feet, Jesse took the baby from me and settled back in the wing chair, cradling the child as if doing so were second nature. I couldn’t help smiling at the picture they made.

  Then I turned away, counted off ten steps toward the window, ten back. Mentally I listed the events of this morning, picturing the details as I knew them. I came to a halt. “Jesse, you said he was driving a rented carriage. Was he dressed like a wealthy man?”

&nbs
p; “Not at all. If anything, he appeared more like a groom or a groundskeeper. A workman of some kind, certainly.”

  “Not a man who would have an expensive piece of linen and lace in his possession.”

  “Certainly not.”

  “But someone might have given him the handkerchief we found in the swaddling, perhaps at the same time she entrusted him to deliver her child here.” I fell silent and began pacing again. Jesse watched me, gently jiggling the baby against his chest. I came to another halt. “But then who would murder him?”

  “Someone who didn’t want the child traced here. Someone who didn’t wish to hurt the child, but who wanted to make certain the one person who delivered him here could never tell anyone.”

  A possible scenario formed in my mind. “Either the mother is desperate to prevent her family from learning of her pregnancy, or the family . . . or perhaps even the child’s father . . . wants the boy hidden away and the mother to never learn where.”

  “Either is entirely possible, if there’s a connection between the two,” Jesse conceded. “That’s still a big if at this point.”

  “Yes, but I think the latter is more plausible. I can’t picture a mother—someone who has just brought life into the world—being capable of taking a life so cold-bloodedly. I believe I know where to start searching—for the mother, that is. And something tells me if we find the mother, we’ll find your murderer.”

  “Be careful of stretching again, Emma.”

  “How many times have I been correct in the past?”

  That silenced any further protests he might have made. The baby kicked his little legs and Jesse changed his position to a more upright one, which seemed to satisfy the little fellow.

  My heart squeezed. They presented so homey a scene Jesse could almost have been the boy’s father, except for the complete difference in their coloring. Where Jesse was fair and auburn haired and possessed keen blue eyes, the baby’s eyes were a deep blue-green that suggested they would turn dark—as dark as the nut-brown hair dusting the crown of his head.

  “You know, you’re a natural at that,” I said to him. Just then shuffling into the room, Nanny twittered lightly in agreement.

  “I don’t see how you’ll ever find the mother unless she wants to be found,” Jesse said, apparently choosing to ignore my observation.

  I chewed my lip to hide the smile that refused to go away, and went to sit beside Nanny on the sofa. “Tomorrow night is June thirtieth and Mrs. Astor will be holding her annual ball to kick off the summer Season. I’m on the guest list—well, not strictly as a guest, mind you. I’ll be working, taking notes for my Fancies and Fashions page. Every member of the Four Hundred who’s in Newport will be there. It’s as good a place as any to begin asking questions.”

  I glanced over at Nanny, who agreed with one of her sage nods.

  “And what makes you think a woman who gave birth so recently will be at that ball?”

  “She’ll have to be,” I replied to Jesse. “If my suspicions are correct and the mother is a society lady, she’ll make every effort to attend the ball to quell any rumors that might have sprung up during her confinement. A woman can’t simply stop making her usual appearances without her peers noticing, not to mention wondering and whispering. She might get away with the excuse of having been ill, or visiting relatives in the country or some such, but she’d be desperate to reenter society as soon as possible and have everyone see her carefree and happy and, more to the point, laced tightly into her corset.”

  Jesse winced. “Sounds painful. Not to mention unhealthy.”

  “It is, on both counts.” I smoothed a hand down the front of the sprigged muslin I’d hastily donned earlier. I wore stays, but not nearly as tightly as fashion dictated. In the past it had been a source of disagreement between my aunt Alice and me. “Loose stays suggest loose morals,” she would often admonish. Only to add in a rush, “Not that you are of loose morals, Emmaline. Heaven knows you are not. But one does not wish to give a wrong impression, does one?”

  Jesse again shifted the baby from one shoulder to the other, his large hands fumbling when the blanket began to unwind and a tiny foot dangled freely. I bit back yet another grin and came around the sofa table to help tuck those miniscule toes safely back in. I pretended not to notice the blush suffusing Jesse’s face or how he avoided my gaze.

  He said, “I’m still not sure why you’re so convinced the mother is a society lady. She could be a lady’s maid or even a laundry maid. And if the murdered coachman was involved, he could have been the father, all too eager to hide the evidence of his indiscretion.”

  “Then why murder him?” I shook my head. “It makes more sense that he was murdered to preserve a secret. And who more than anyone else would wish to hide the evidence of an illegitimate birth?”

  When neither Jesse nor Nanny answered, I threw up my hands. “A member of society! Someone with heirs or who stands to gain an inheritance, or who wishes to preserve his reputation, along with that of the woman who birthed the child.”

  “Emma,” Jesse said, “rage knows no class distinctions. Rich or poor, an angry brother or father might have shot that man, not to mention we haven’t yet found a definite connection between the two occurrences. Anyone could have gotten hold of that handkerchief. Have you considered that the mother might want you to believe the child hails from a wealthy background in the hopes you’ll do better by it?”

  “As if that would make any difference to us,” Nanny replied with a huff.

  “No, it wouldn’t.” I resumed my place beside her on the sofa. “But it might to a lot of people. Jesse does have a point, one I hadn’t considered. A desperately poor mother might have thought she was influencing us by leaving a false clue. Perhaps she thought that rather than delivering him to an orphanage, we’d find a good family willing to take him in, or we’d raise him ourselves.”

  If Nanny thought I wouldn’t notice the sudden change in her posture, or how she clutched her hands in her lap, she was greatly mistaken. “Nanny! Do not even think it. We cannot keep this child.”

  She turned to me with a wounded expression. “Why not?”

  “Lots of reasons! For one, a child needs parents—two of them. The state isn’t likely to let me adopt him, or even foster him for any extended length of time. Isn’t that right, Jesse?”

  “I’m afraid so,” he said.

  A sudden and wholly unexpected rush of disappointment temporarily knocked the breath out of me. I struggled not to show it. Good heavens, did I, despite my protests, hope this little boy would find a permanent place in our household?

  “What about me?” Nanny puffed up with self-importance. “I was married for nearly thirty years.”

  “I realize that, Mrs. O’Neal, but . . .” Jesse suddenly looked uncomfortable. His cheeks colored again, the curse of his pale complexion. “It’s your age, Mrs. O’Neal. The courts might deem you, to be blunt, too old to take on an infant.”

  Nanny pursed her lips, and Jesse turned his attention back to me. “They might allow you to keep him while a search was made for his next of kin, but that’s about all, Emma. Since you’re unmarried, it’s unlikely they’d allow you to adopt him. For now, though,” he added with a wink, “what the courts don’t know won’t hurt them. See what you can find out, but only about where this fellow belongs. Leave the murder to me.”

  I nodded, only half listening. My reaction to the prospect of the child’s leaving continued to shock me. If I felt this way within mere hours of his arrival, how would I feel days from now? Or weeks—or however long it took to find his rightful home? Would I be able to simply hand him over to a stranger?

  Now when I chewed my lip, it wasn’t to hide a smile, but to bite back wholly unexpected, stinging tears.

  Chapter 3

  Jesse settled the baby back in my arms. “This certainly wouldn’t be the first time a family abandoned an inconvenient child,” he said. “Thank the stars whoever it was had sense enough to bring him her
e, where he’s safe.” He spoke those last words roughly and quickly dropped his gaze again. “You know, Emma—”

  “If his family is wealthy,” I interrupted, “there could be an inheritance at stake. He could be in danger if his existence sets that inheritance in dispute. Until we know more . . .” I trailed off and he nodded. Whatever he’d been about to say before I interrupted hung in the air between us. A year ago I’d glimpsed a portion of Jesse’s heart—a portion he’d apparently set aside specifically for me.

  I had yet to decide what to do about that. He was a good man and despite the ten years’ difference in our ages, he and I had so very much in common, not the least of which involved being born and raised in Newport, and having rarely gone anywhere else—or wishing to. We were of a kind, he and I, and yet...

  I simply didn’t know. Other girls were wives and mothers by my age, but I felt no rush to enter that arena. Perhaps it was because I’d been independent for too short a time, and relished my individuality far too much to give it up—for anyone.

  “In the meantime,” Jesse said, “I’ll send officers out here to check on you several times a day. The chief won’t like it, but . . .”

  “No, Jesse. We’ll be fine. Until we know more, it would be better not to speak of this, not to anyone.”

  “All right, but I’m still sending the men.” He smiled sadly, and I felt the double impact of my last statement. I’d been referring to the baby, but to Jesse, perhaps my words meant we would not speak of our hearts or where the future might lead us.

  Yet, who was I trying to fool? Myself? Perhaps. Jesse? Probably not. Whenever I saw that gleam in his eye, it was the arms of another man, Derrick Andrews, that I imagined around me, and I believe Jesse knew it.

  He said good-bye and with my shoulder I nudged the door closed behind him, then leaned against it and snuggled the baby’s head beneath my chin. Another summer had barely begun and already I found myself embroiled yet again in deception and murder, not to mention once again lost in the confusion of my own longings with no answers at hand. I let out a breath, and from deep inside me a tear squeezed its way to my eye and rolled down my cheek.