Chapter 15
Phillip woke the next morning to find a message from Isabella Gordon with Bess Turner’s address.
He dressed quickly, planning on heading to see Timothy’s captain, Jasper Murphy, first and tell him everything Moulder had told him the night before.
He dreaded talking to Frankie Moulder. Absolutely dreaded it.
He went down to the kitchen and found Eliza turning over eggs onto toasted bread.
Uncle Patrick and Frankie were sitting side by side, Frankie drinking milk and Patrick sipping coffee.
Phillip took a deep breath. “Frankie. There’s something I’ve got to talk to you about. Maybe we can sit in the parlor when you’re finished eating your breakfast.”
The boy shook his head. “I know already. My pa is dead. They killed him.”
Phillip glanced at Patrick. “That’s right. I’m very sorry, Frankie. He told me to tell you how much he loved you and that he was going to go see your mother in heaven.”
The room was quiet for several moments, only the sizzle of ham in a hot skillet breaking the silence.
Patrick wiped the yolk from his plate with a heel of bread.
“If you don’t have no objection, Frank is going to come live with me and Miriam.
She’s going to give up a few of the days she cleans houses to stay home with him.
On the days she works, he can come with me to the dock after school.
There’s work for young boys in the carpentry shop, sweeping and whatnot.
Talked to the missus about it last night, and she agreed this boy needs a home. ”
“You’re sure? Miriam’s good with this?”
“It was her idea,” he said. “She’ll take him to that little school down by Minehew’s that’s run by the Friends and help him with his studies. I’ll try and teach him a trade.”
Phillip went out the back door and Patrick followed.
“Nobody can know where he is until this thing with Timothy is resolved,” Phillip said.
“Figured that. We’ll keep him in the house until then,” Patrick said and rubbed his chin. “You don’t think we’re too old to do this, do you?”
Phillip shook his head. “No, I don’t. I think this is the best thing that could happen to a boy who’s just lost his father. As long as you both are happy about it.”
Patrick slapped Phillip on the back. “This is what Miriam wants, so that’s what we’re going to do. I’ll talk to the boy more about it and make sure he’s good with it.”
He stood on the back stoop and watched Patrick take off the napkin from around Frank’s neck, wipe his chin, and prompt him to thank Eliza.
Phillip went directly to Station Five and told Hendricks and Murphy what Hiram Moulder had told him before he died.
Both men had suspected as much, and Murphy said he’d have the undertaker recover the body for burial and speak to Captain Bender.
Phillip then caught the streetcar to the address for Bessie Turner given to him by Gordon.
He rapped on the door and waited until it swung open, only to be slammed as soon as the woman on the other side of the door got a look at his face.
Phillip wedged open the door with his shoulder before Turner could throw the slide lock. “Miss Turner?” he said when he stepped inside. She was backing up down a hallway.
“Get out of here!” she screamed and glanced behind her to the doorway to what looked like a kitchen. Phillip had no intentions of allowing her to pick up a knife.
He lurched forward and grabbed her by the arms. “Miss Turner. You and I are going to talk. There’s no use fighting it.”
“You fool! They’ll kill me if they know you were here!”
“Then you’d best tell me everything you know so the police can arrest the true killer of Josephine Button. She was your friend, wasn’t she? But you gave her up,” Phillip said and shook his head. “Quite a friend you turned out to be.”
“Just worked at the same place. She weren’t my friend. All high and mighty, she was. Miss Gordon was always singing her praises. She’d never go to a dance or anything. I quit asking,” Turner said with a smirk. “Always thought she was better than me.”
“Who? Who wanted her dead?”
Turner shrugged. “Some people.”
“What people?”
“Don’t know. Why don’t you get out of here?”
Phillip smiled. “I’ll be happy to. Then I’ll go directly to Red’s Tavern and let some of the fellows there know that I found out all about who wanted Button dead from Miss Bessie Turner.”
Her face drained of color. “They’ll kill me,” she whispered.
“I know,” he said. “They’ve already killed several loose ends. Youngman. Moulder.”
“Hiram’s dead?”
He nodded. “As of last night. They beat him to death and threatened to sell his boy to a brothel.”
“Oh my God,” she said and slumped in his arms.
Phillip led her through the open door on his left and sat her down in a chair. “Who came to you about getting Button killed, or were you the one who sought out her killers?”
“No. No,” she whispered. “I didn’t like her, maybe I hated her, even, but I didn’t try to get her killed. You have to believe me.”
“Who approached you, then?”
“John Norris. I know him from going to Wetherby’s”
“The gaming hall?”
She nodded. “Got myself into some money trouble a few years ago. Norris straightened it out for me.”
“And in return, you’d do a favor for him now and again.”
She shrugged. “Something like that.”
“What did he say?”
“Just to give him the key to the rooms at Moulder’s.”
“Why do you have rooms there when you live in this house?”
“Wasn’t really mine. The rooms, I mean. I set it up with some stuff that Norris had me buy at the secondhand store. But never stayed there, except, well . . . the one time.”
“The rooms were a place Norris and probably others could take women, am I right?”
She nodded and a tear rolled down, leaving a streak where the rouge had been on her cheek.
“Why did you take Josephine Button there a month or so ago?”
“Josephine and me had to go to the courthouse for Miss Gordon and I’d left something there the night before. We stopped there on our way to pick it up,” she said.
“Frankie Moulder said Miss Button gave him a doll when you stopped by.”
“She did. Think she had it with her to give to her youngest sister, but she felt bad for Frankie. He smiled like the dickens when she handed it to him and then hurried to hide it before his pa saw it.”
“How did she end up back at those rooms? Did you lure her there?”
“Didn’t know nothing about it. Norris came by for the key, and I gave it to him.”
“And that’s all? He didn’t ask anything else?”
“I might have told him she visits her aunt’s where her sisters live every Monday and Saturday, regular-like.”
Phillip nodded, the scene coming together in his head. They would catch Button in that section of town, where few people would interfere with somebody manhandling a woman. They’d drag her between two storefronts or an alley and put a rag soaked in chloroform over her nose.
“Do you know why Norris and his boss, Thomas Bruner, wanted to silence Josephine and frame my friend Timothy Sweitzinger for her murder?”
Turner shook her head.
“Because Bruner had stolen Button’s thirteen-year-old sister and put her in a brothel. She hired Timothy to find her sister, and I think he was getting close. Now Josephine’s dead, Timothy is in a jail cell, Nora Button is in a whorehouse, and her youngest sister, Fanny, is missing.”
Phillip stood and stared down at Turner. “I hope you’re proud of yourself, having a hand in causing so many people so much pain,” Phillip turned to the door. “You better get yourself out of here and on a train somewhere. They’re going to kill you, even if they never know I spoke to you.”
Turner jumped up and grabbed his arm. “Will you get me to the train station, Brown? Please?”
Phillip waited in the hallway while Turner closed up her house, pulled on a coat and a hat with a veil, and packed a bag.
He took her out her back door and through a neighbor’s yard and waited for the streetcar.
He made her wait until the last possible minute to board and climbed in behind her.
They got off at the Mount Clare station, and he followed her to the ticket booth.
She bought passage on the next train leaving.
It wasn’t more than five minutes until the conductor called the train’s number and she hurried up the two metal steps, without a word spoken.
Mr. Oliver was busy helping Cook tend to one of her helpers who had burned herself, lifting a pot that was too heavy for her to handle.
Virginia had just hurried up the stairs from the kitchen when she heard the knock at the front door.
She pushed the hair from her face, as the pins in her chignon had begun to fall out in the heat of the kitchen, and opened the door wide.
Bernard Alcott walked inside, taking in her home in a glance and smiling down at her. “I was hoping I’d find you home, Virginia. But you really should have someone other than yourself answer the door. It could be just anyone you know.”
“I don’t have time for this right now, Mr. Alcott. One of my staff has been injured. Good day,” she said and reached for the door he had already closed.
He caught her arm. “Now, Virginia. That’s no way to speak to a friend, and might I say an admirer.”
“I’m Miss Wiest to you, Mr. Alcott. Please go.”
He spied the open door to her sitting room. “I’ll just wait in there until you’re done playing nursemaid.”
“I don’t have time for this,” Virginia said and turned to the stairs.
She’d been on her way to fetch clean towels when she answered the door.
She did not stop on the way back to the kitchen and stayed there until she thought for certain that he would have given up and gone home. Unfortunately, she was wrong.
Virginia opened the door of the sitting room and strode in, leaving the door wide open. “What can I help you with, Mr. Alcott?” He pulled his feet from her hassock and stood.