Chapter 19 #2
Sweat trickled down Bragg’s temples. If he wasn’t a man of the law, murder would be the only way to really ensure that the man never came back to harm them.
“Yeah?” O’Donnell opened the door.
Bragg stared.
Francesca stood outside the closed front door of Daisy’s house, waiting for Homer to answer her knock. The sadness she felt for Daisy remained, and its weight was crushing. She simply could not take it.
Homer opened the door. “Miss Cahill!”
She was surprised—he was not in his dark suit, but far more casual dress. “May I come in? Are you going out?”
“We have no duties now. The house is as clean as a whistle, considering we are not allowed to touch the study or Miss Jones’s private rooms. Mr. Hart has left no instructions. I had hoped to visit my daughter on Staten Island.”
“I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.” Francesca managed a smile that felt wan. “You need not stay here on my account. I came here to think.”
“Is everything all right?” Homer asked, his dark eyes on hers.
“Not really,” Francesca said.
“But…Mr. Hart has been released. He is innocent, is he not?”
Francesca tried out another feeble smile. “Yes, he is innocent. This isn’t about Hart. I have just learned some very sad facts about Daisy. I wish she were alive. I wish we had never, ever exchanged a single harsh word.”
Homer was startled, and Francesca recovered her composure, which was shaky indeed. “Please, I prefer to be alone, actually. I don’t need anything.”
Homer was hesitant, but Francesca encouraged him again, and finally he went to get his things so he could leave.
She was alone in the front hall, the door closed behind her.
Francesca glanced around at the pale, cream-colored walls, the smooth polished floors, and into the first salon, the doors of which were open.
Suddenly Daisy appeared, rising from a sofa, her grace as fluid and elegant as ever. She was smiling.
Francesca sighed. It was so easy to imagine Daisy alive, the way she had so recently been. She wiped some tears from her cheeks.
“I wish I had known you better,” she whispered, walking to the threshold of the salon where Daisy had entertained her several times.
“I wish I hadn’t been so frightened of you, but you were so beautiful, and I admit that I am insecure.
” The empty beautifully furnished room was absolutely still.
She realized she had been hoping to feel Daisy’s presence, not that that would solve or change anything.
But this room was entirely impersonal now.
Francesca walked out. There were more tears. How terribly had Daisy suffered as a child? How could any man behave so foully to his own daughter? Why hadn’t someone realized what was going on and prevented it? She paused on the threshold of the study.
“I am sorry that we fought,” she whispered. “But I understand now. I really do.”
The study—small, dark and unlit—should have been cozy, but it was not. Even in the shadows, there were bloodstains all over the multicolored Persian rug on the floor. “Who did it? Daisy, I will find your killer, but I am currently at a loss. Did your father murder you?”
Of course, there was no answer. But this room did not feel empty and vacant, like the salon.
Francesca tensed. She was not alone in the small study. The hairs on her nape prickled and, filled with unease, she turned.
Martha Gillespie stood there. “Why won’t you leave the dead alone?”
Before Francesca could answer, Martha raised a small gun.
“Why won’t you leave us alone?”
In that moment, as he stared at O’Donnell, he wished he were more like his half brother. If the roles were somehow reversed, if it were Hart who was defending Francesca, he would not think twice about really getting rid of O’Donnell. Bragg had no doubt.
Surprise and even fear flashed in O’Donnell’s eyes.
Then he saw the case Bragg carried and his relief was evident.
Bragg walked past O’Donnell, thinking about the gun he wore, thinking about the East River, where so many bodies were tossed.
An odd desperation had filled him. How had he gone from the pursuit of justice to a desire to commit murder?
Beth O’Brien stood by the kitchen table, her blue eyes on the attaché case he held. O’Donnell closed the door. Bragg saw that he, too, stared at the briefcase. Their greed filled him with revulsion and disgust.
“I guess your pretty wife has been telling you how hard it’s been for us these past few months,” O’Donnell asked, walking over to him.
Red rage filled him. O’Donnell had terrorized Leigh Anne.
But when he spoke, he was surprised at how unemotional and calm he sounded.
“She has told me that you wish for a fresh start. There are better employment opportunities in the south, I believe.” He went to the kitchen table, not looking directly at either the man or the woman, but very aware of them from the corner of his eye.
Both O’Brien and O’Donnell came to stand there, as well.
He laid the case down and unbuckled the two straps.
Then he opened it completely, revealing the stacks of bills inside.
“I imagine such a gift will be very helpful,” he said, his heart thumping with a peculiar and sickening force.
He added very softly, still not making eye contact, “You can count it if you wish.”
O’Donnell chuckled and reached into the case. He removed one bound stack. “That won’t be needed, Commissioner. Hey, you know what? With relations like you, we might never have to worry about anything again.”
Bragg stepped away from the table. He could no longer control the forceful pounding of his heart. It would be so easy to seize his revolver and get rid of these two. If he didn’t, they were coming back, he knew it the way he knew the sun would rise tomorrow.
“Guess I got the little lady to thank for that.” Grinning, O’Donnell put the stack back inside the attaché case. “A wife like that would make a man do anything.”
Bragg was never aware of moving, but suddenly his hands were around O’Donnell’s throat, squeezing as hard as he could. O’Donnell was against the kitchen wall, his eyes bulging and his face turning red. “You fucking bastard! Never speak of my wife again.”
O’Donnell’s face changed from red to purple. It would be so easy now.
“You’re killing him!” Beth screamed, seizing him from behind.
He was killing this lowlife, and no one would ever know. They would be free.
O’Donnell began to wheeze, panic in his bulging eyes.
He would know.
Bragg released him, stepping back. “Never mention my wife again,” he snarled. “Do you understand me?”
O’Donnell fell to his knees, clutching his throat, now blotched red.
O’Brien cried, “Get out. Just get out. We have the cash—get out!”
He turned to look at her. Her eyes were filled with hatred and her face was no longer benign or grandmotherly at all. He couldn’t kill O’Donnell—and he could not do this, either.
“You are both under arrest,” he said, and he reached into his jacket. Then he snapped one manacle on O’Brien’s wrist, the other on the leg of the table, his actions forcing her to sit down. She gaped in shock.
He hauled O’Donnell to his feet. The thug was coughing now. Bragg cuffed him, as well.
“You will regret this!” O’Donnell managed hoarsely.
“I almost did,” Bragg said.
Martha Gillespie aimed a double-barreled derringer directly at Francesca’s head. Francesca’s heart plummeted. She was almost certain that she had found Daisy’s killer.
“What are you doing, Mrs. Gillespie?” she asked very carefully. She still clutched her purse, where she had her own pistol, but she did not dare move.
“My family was destroyed a long time ago,” Martha said harshly. A tear tracked down her face. “Now you will destroy what is left of us.”
“I don’t want to destroy anyone,” Francesca said softly. “I was Daisy’s friend. I only want justice.”
“If only you had left us alone!” Martha cried, her hand shaking, the gun wavering.
“You knew, didn’t you? You knew that your husband was taking advantage of Daisy.”
“Not at first,” Martha whispered. “Of course I didn’t know, not at first! But then Daisy began to act strangely. She stopped smiling. She never laughed. She would not speak to Richard. She had adored him, but then she flinched when he touched her. I was glad when she ran away!”
Francesca was stunned. “Maybe Richard was the one who should have left.”
“It was not his fault! She was always too beautiful, even as a little child. Then, when she became a young woman, the way she walked, the way she carried herself…everyone noticed. She was temptation, Miss Cahill, evil, carnal temptation. I have no doubt that she lured Richard into her bed.”
Francesca felt ill. “She was twelve years old.”
“Was that when it began? I didn’t realize what was happening until just before she left. Richard had said he was coming up to bed, but he never did. I wasn’t well. I needed a doctor, so I went looking for him. You can imagine where I found him.” She trembled even more and more tears fell.
Richard had been sexually abusing Daisy for three years and her mother had never known it. “Surely, surely, you made certain that it never happened after that night.”
“I left them alone—I had to leave them. Richard doesn’t know that I ever discovered his secret.”
“You had a duty and a responsibility to protect your child, Mrs. Gillespie. You never confronted your husband?” Francesca was aghast.
“I never confronted him,” Martha cried. “How could I? Could you? I am sorry, I did not have the courage!”
Francesca’s grief for Daisy grew. “When did you decide to kill her?”
“I am not an evil woman—like she was. There is a reason she became a prostitute. She was blackmailing us! Richard told me that he had found her and that she refused to come home. I was glad—I would have never let her back in the house. One night I found him crying. He told me he was sending her money, that he wanted to help her, but I knew instantly that she was blackmailing him with her dirty secret.”