Chapter Eight #2
Lillie dashed out of the house, wearing a hastily thrown on house jacket. She gasped as the handcuffs closed around Oliver’s wrists, her hand covering her mouth.
The neighbors were starting to gather.
Lillie pleaded as they led Oliver toward the police carriages, trying to tell them, “He didn’t do this. He would never do this.”
“Well, right now it appears that he had some involvement,” Chief Harris said. “And unless other evidence comes to light, the circumstances point to him.”
Other evidence, Grace thought.
“Don’t say anything at all,” Uncle Reginald barked at Oliver, appearing on the sidewalk. “You’ll be hearing from our lawyers.”
“Surely that actress’s death was an accident, she must have taken something herself,” Aunt Clove was begging. “Chief Harris! You and your wife have dined in our home. How could you humiliate us like this?”
The chief sighed. He gestured the other officers to put Oliver in the carriage.
“I’m afraid not, Mrs. Carter,” he said quietly. “Your son lied about having a secret romantic relationship with Miss Forbes that was going south. They had an argument, witnessed by many people, just before she died. The preliminary medical examination indicates that Harriet Forbes was poisoned.”
He paused, as if pained.
“And by every account, Oliver was the one who gave her the drink.”
Grace could hear Aunt Clove screaming through the walls. Lillie had snuck Grace up to her bedroom. They lay on Lillie’s bed together. Lillie’s back was to Grace, but Grace could see the tears streaking down her cheeks like rain on glass.
“Your father is getting Oliver the best possible lawyer,” Grace said, stroking her cousin’s hair.
“But—Oliver. They think he did this,” Lillie said.
“We will find out who really did,” Grace said fiercely.
“Our family is ruined,” Lillie said.
Grace didn’t answer that. She knew it was likely true, and she knew intimately what that felt like. She could not bear to see it happen to Lillie, too.
Grace plaited Lillie’s hair the way she used to when they were children. She didn’t want to bother Lillie with the additional news that she had no place to stay. Aunt Clove would never allow her to remain in the Carter house, especially not now.
Should she call home and ask for more money?
Not that her parents had much to go around.
But—her mother. Her mother needed to know what was happening.
“Can I use your telephone?” she asked Lillie. “Somewhere private?”
“Father’s office,” she said.
Grace slipped down to Uncle Reginald’s mahogany-paneled office. The lights were dim, and an unnatural sadness hung like a hush throughout the house. As if it, too, knew someone had died.
She saw the wooden secretary desk that Oliver had once carved his initials in as a boy and then tried to blame on Lillie. Grace ran her fingers over the old etching his small fingers had once made, then dialed her father’s restaurant.
“Grace?” her mother said. “Are you all right?”
She’d seen the papers, but it wasn’t until Grace told her that the police had come for Oliver that her mother gasped.
“Come home,” Nell said immediately.
“I can’t just… leave now, Mama. Surely you know that I could never leave Lillie and Oliver, no matter what.”
“Put Clove on the phone.”
“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” Grace said.
“Then you get on that train and come back here immediately,” her mother demanded.
Grace heard the crackle of rage in her mother’s voice, and it soothed her a little. It was that fire of her mother’s that she loved and feared in equal measure, one that had dimmed to barely glowing embers after Walt’s troubles. Hearing it again made Grace come alive.
But she was no longer a girl.
“I can’t,” she said. “Not yet, Mama.”
“Grace—”
She hung up the telephone.
Grace sat down at her uncle’s desk and contemplated her options.
She knew staying at the Carter house was not one of them.
What other females did she know? Frannie certainly wouldn’t entertain the thought of having her—the idea almost made Grace laugh.
Before, she might have asked to stay with Harriet.
But what was she to do?
She heard Waters answer the door, followed by the sound of voices in the foyer.
When Grace slipped from Uncle Reginald’s office, she was surprised to see Earnest, Theodore, and Frannie standing awkwardly in the sitting room.
Frannie clutched her handbag in her gloved hands, glancing out the window, as though she already couldn’t wait to leave.
“Miss Covington,” Earnest said, greeting her solemnly. He and Theo removed their hats, holding them to their chests. “We heard that Oliver was taken into the police station and we came to offer our assistance.”
“That’s very kind of you,” Grace said. “The Carters will be so grateful.”
But what she thought was: Word travels fast.
“I apologize, but Miss Carter wishes me to convey that she needs to rest and is not feeling up to receiving visitors,” Waters said. He sent an apologetic look to Grace, as if she were to be included in that category.
Of course, Lillie didn’t know that Grace had nowhere else to go.
“Please let her know that we asked for her and we send our condolences,” Earnest said.
“Good heavens, we did what we came for. Now let’s go before we’re seen by anyone,” Frannie said curtly.
Earnest stepped toward Grace. He whispered gently in her ear: “We will find out who did this.”
She nodded, eyelashes fluttering, and smelled a whiff of his cologne.
She wanted to close her eyes and fall into his arms and have him assure her that everything would be all right.
That this week wouldn’t irrevocably ruin their lives forever.
That someone who had more power than her would step in to fix it all and make it right.
“Please let us know if we can be of assistance to you, Miss Covington,” Theo said formally. He gave her a small bow and exited the house, with Frannie hurrying on his heels.
Earnest glanced up the stairs. “Are you doing all right yourself, Miss Covington?” he asked.
She nodded, her throat narrowing at his concern. She didn’t trust herself to speak.
He nodded. “I’ll call again tomorrow,” he said as she walked him to the door.
She fetched her carpetbag from where she had stashed it behind a plant and glanced up the stairs at Lillie’s closed door. Did Lillie partly blame her for what had happened?
Grace chewed on her nail, flooded with guilt.
As Earnest’s carriage drove away, she let herself out onto the Carters’ front stoop.
She barely had the money for one more night at a cheap hotel, and then she wouldn’t have enough for the train fare home.
She clutched her carpetbag, debating.
“Looking for a cab?” Theodore Parker called.
She whirled around, flushing.
She hadn’t realized that he was still there, waiting in his own carriage.
“I can give you a ride,” he offered.
“No, that’s all right,” she said hurriedly.
“I insist,” he said. “No need to pay for a cab when you can suffer through my company for free.”
He climbed out of the carriage and took her bag. “Where to?” he asked with unusual gentleness. “The hotel?”
She hesitated. Her face burned with embarrassment. And then he seemed to put it together, realizing what it meant that she had her bag with her and no clear direction.
He was delicate. And that made her want to die.
“My aunt has an artist’s studio…” he began. “It’s vacant. She didn’t want to rent it out during the fair, but she hates crowds and didn’t want to be here.”
“Mr. Parker, I couldn’t possibly—”
“It’s nothing special. Small and rather quaint. She could use a house sitter. You would be doing her a favor.”
Her pride flared up, threatening to consume her.
“Oliver didn’t do this,” she insisted. Tears pricked at her eyes.
“I agree with you,” he said with conviction.
And so she accepted his hand and climbed into the carriage.
The painter’s studio was a short walking distance from the fairgrounds, barely two blocks from the entrance to Forest Park. She could see the Ferris wheel looming in the distance.
Theo unlocked the door and then waited outside of it.
She set down her carpetbag amid the palettes and canvases.
The studio smelled of varnish, and it had a bed, small bathroom, and a fireplace.
She couldn’t imagine what kind of wealth could afford an unused space like this.
It was a bit chilly, but the blankets looked warm and cozy.
She smiled with secret pleasure.
She hadn’t eaten all day and her stomach betrayed her with a loud grumble.
“Time for a meal, perhaps?” Theo asked wryly.
She dug through her bag for a notebook. “Only so we can talk about what to do next,” she said.
They ended up at a restaurant down the street.
Grace purposefully picked something outside the fairgrounds so she wouldn’t have to pay the fifty-cent entrance fee or depend on him to buy dinner.
Even so, her money was growing alarmingly low.
The tomato soup and ham and cheese sandwich that was placed in front of her was warm and she was suddenly ravenous.
She ate it without delicacy or care for what Theo thought.
He watched her with that look of detached bemusement.
“Puppy no more,” he said. “More like a mastiff.”
“Your condescension is always so attractive,” she said with her mouth full. “And may I suggest you refrain from comparing a lady—even one so below you in status—to any form of dog.”
He flushed beet red. “I’m sorry, you’re right. That hadn’t occurred to me. I will refrain from such thoughtless comparisons in the future.”
She arched an eyebrow.
“It’s fine,” she said, wiping mustard from her mouth. “I’m generally more bark than bite.”
She winked and took another large mouthful, and he snorted.
She opened her small notebook, careful not to spill soup on it as she turned to a fresh page. She wrote LIST OF SUSPECTS across the top and underlined it twice.
“Am I dining with a detective?” Theo said.