Chapter 19 #3
“So you hated your own daughter?”
Martha lifted her chin. “I loved my daughter. Until she became a harlot—until she lured Richard into sin. And then I had every right to hate her.”
Francesca could only stare, sickened.
“Mother, don’t say another word!” Lydia rushed into the room, her wide eyes going from her mother to Francesca and back again.
“She is trying to destroy our family, Lydia,” Martha said firmly.
“That isn’t what she intends. She only wants to find Daisy’s killer, Mother. She did not know that would destroy what was left of us.”
So Lydia knew her mother had murdered Daisy. “You knew, too, didn’t you? You knew what your father was doing to your sister?”
Lydia faced her, beside Martha. “Yes.” Her expression was ravaged. “I knew. In the beginning, when he left her room, I would go to her and she would cry in my arms. But it didn’t take long, Miss Cahill, for the tears to dry up.”
“Why didn’t you say something?” Francesca demanded.
“I was ten years old!” Lydia cried, her eyes shining with unshed tears.
“I hardly understood. I was thirteen when Daisy ran away, Miss Cahill, and we both pretended that nothing was wrong after it all began. It hurt too much otherwise.” She was a ghastly shade of white.
“The truth is,” she managed, shaking, “it wasn’t until I learned that Father had found Honora here in the city and that she was a prostitute that I really understood what had happened when we were children. ”
Lydia had managed to block the ugly reality out. “I’m sorry. Why did you frame Calder Hart?”
“To protect my mother. Hart’s involvement with my sister, and the fact that he was here the night she died, made it so easy to frame him.
All I had to do was come back to the city and put a bloody knife in his coach.
I did it Wednesday. Now please go away!” Lydia cried. “Go away and leave us alone.”
Francesca was shocked. “Lydia, this is a tragedy. But your father needs to pay for what he did to Daisy and your mother murdered her.”
Lydia stared at Francesca, her expression tight and strained. Then, never removing her gaze, she said, “Mother, give me that gun.”
Instantly, Martha handed it to her daughter.
As instantly, Lydia pointed it at Francesca.
“I know you won’t understand. But please, try.
I hate my father. I have hated him since he first went to Honora.
I loved my sister—I missed her every day that she was gone—but I was glad she had left.
I prayed she would find happiness, but she didn’t.
Because of my father, she is dead. Mother is all I have left.
Please try to understand. Please, don’t take her away from me, too.
” And tears began to slowly fall down Lydia’s cheeks.
Francesca ached deeply for her. “Your mother killed Honora, Lydia. You do know that?”
“I know. I discovered her in the act—and I helped her flee.”
Francesca stared. Lydia was an accessory to murder. “Where is the murder weapon?”
“I threw it in the bushes of the neighbor’s. What are you going to do, Miss Cahill?” Lydia asked.
“How can you ask me to walk away and pretend that I know nothing?” Francesca replied, aware that Lydia was no longer aiming the gun, but held it loosely at her side.
“I am not asking you, I am begging you,” Lydia whispered. Then she raised the pistol. “And if my pleas do not move you, then maybe this will.”
Lydia trained the gun at Francesca’s head. Did she know how to fire the weapon? How good was her aim? “You are not a killer.”
“I will protect Mother at all costs. We should have never come to the city!” she cried, and her hand wavered.
Francesca rushed her, tackling her at her waist. As Lydia fell backward, the gun went off, but the shot was wildly off any mark.
If the gun was fully loaded, Lydia had another shot left, but Francesca wasn’t sure that was the case or that Lydia even knew it.
Francesca seized Lydia’s hand, which held the gun and their eyes met.
“Please,” Lydia cried, and she released the gun.
Francesca took it, shifting off of Lydia and onto her knees. She pointed it at the younger woman. “There is another shot.” Or so she hoped.
Lydia looked helplessly at her.
Francesca backed up and rose, quickly pointing the gun at Martha. “Don’t move, Mrs. Gillespie. I do not want to shoot you, but if I have to, I will.” That was a bald lie, because she had no intention of shooting either of these women.
Martha sank down in the chair in front of Daisy’s desk. “Don’t hurt my daughter,” she whispered.
Francesca met Bragg in the front hall when he arrived with two officers and Inspector Newman.
She had left both women in the study with their hands tied behind their backs.
Lydia’s pistol had not been fully loaded, and there had not been a second shot in it.
“Thank God you are here!” she cried, seizing his arm as he rushed into the house.
“Who is it, Francesca?” he demanded. A patrolman had delivered her message that she had Daisy’s killer in custody.
“Martha Gillespie murdered Daisy,” Francesca said, restraining him.
“Bragg, this is a terrible tragedy. Apparently Martha hated Daisy for what transpired. She blamed Daisy for seducing the judge. She knew that Gillespie had found Daisy here in the city, and she realized quickly enough that Daisy was blackmailing him.”
“She confessed to all of this?”
Francesca nodded, filled with worry. “There is more.”
“I thought so,” he said, his concerned gaze on her face.
She shuddered. “Lydia witnessed the murder and helped her mother flee.”
Bragg was grim. “That makes her an accessory, Francesca.”
“She did not conspire to the crime! She loved her sister and she has been every bit as much a victim as Daisy was, Rick! She has hated her father since he first started molesting Daisy. Rick, she was trying to protect her mother.”
“What would you have me do? Are you asking me to withhold the details of Lydia’s involvement, are you asking me to tell the D.A. not to press charges against her, too?”
Francesca hadn’t realized she still gripped his sleeve and now she released him. She wrung her hands. “I guess it is unfair of me to ask you for such a favor.”
He was clearly unhappy. “I almost murdered O’Donnell today, Francesca.
I was this close to killing him with my bare hands and tossing the body in the river.
But I didn’t. And I didn’t pay him off, either—I arrested him and his aunt.
I have spent my entire life being the most honest man that I can be.
I am sorry about Lydia. We can recommend a suspension of her sentence.
It is very likely a judge would respond favorably to such a plea.
” He gave her a dark look. “Or you can ask Hart to help you. I am sure he could manage the suspended sentence easily enough.”
She stiffened. “What does that mean?”
“I think you know.” He signaled to his men and they started through the front hall.
She chased him. “Is this about his bail?”
He gave her a look over his shoulder. “As I said, ask Hart to make certain Lydia doesn’t suffer any further.”
Francesca stopped in her tracks as Bragg and his men went into the study.
Her head was aching from the blow she had sustained yesterday.
She rubbed the back of her head but it was tender and she winced.
Once, a lifetime ago, knowing right from wrong had been so easy—it had been black or white.
Now the world had suddenly become every possible shade of gray.
She did not know what to do. Her every moral fiber refused to succumb to the temptation of further bribery, yet she could not stand the thought of Lydia suffering any more than she already had.
She was also aware that there would be more charges against Lydia if she told Bragg that she had attempted to frame Hart for the murder.
The two women came out of the study with the police. They were both in handcuffs. Instantly, Lydia’s gaze met Francesca’s, and no plea for help could have been clearer.
The officers and the two women left the house. Bragg came to stand beside her and he put his arm around her. “I will hear what Lydia has to say and I will think about it,” he said softly.
Francesca threw her arms around him. “Thank you.”
He disengaged himself somewhat awkwardly. “I happen to agree with you,” he said.
Francesca smiled. Then a new thought occurred to her and her smile vanished. Consternation filled her now. “Rick! What will happen to Gillespie?”
“His sexual crimes were committed more than eight years ago.”
Francesca cried out. “Are you saying that he is going to walk away from his heinous deeds a free man?”
“Francesca, there is a statute of limitations. Besides, there is no evidence at all—it is all hearsay.”
Francesca knew he spoke the truth. “So there is no justice for Daisy after all.”