Chapter Eighteen
Seven Days After the Murder
IN THE MORNING, Grace dressed in formal black for Harriet’s funeral and stepped out to hail a carriage. But as the carriage drew near, her eye caught on something.
“Explosive new claims!” a news seller shouted from the corner. He held a paper in his hand, showing its bold headline: IS A MURDERER STILL ON THE LOOSE AT THE FAIRGROUNDS?
It was her article.
A crowd was already beginning to gather like finches to birdseed. Newspapers were flying off the stands. She felt a special jolt of pleasure, standing anonymously amid dozens of people devouring her words.
It was power. She was entering their minds, beckoning their thoughts where she wanted them to go. They didn’t have to follow, but for a moment she was a prosecutor, presenting her case, and they were the raptly listening jury.
“Is it true? There might still be a murderer on the loose?”
“A poisoner.”
“That’s it. We’re only eating sandwiches we brought from home.”
She walked through the invisible perfume of their words, folding her article beneath her arm, and climbed onto the trolley, exiting at the stop nearest the Four Courts jail building.
Her ears turned pink when she entered the prison and saw that even the guard manning the front desk was reading her article, though he was trying to pretend that he wasn’t.
Grace found herself in the same windowless room she had been in before, waiting for Oliver. Her shoes clicked against the tile. The room smelled like loneliness, sterile and gray. She drew a breath when the guard brought Oliver in handcuffed.
His eyes looked hollow, like endless mirrors.
His skin was drab, as though he’d not seen the sun in months, though it had really been only a matter of days—and she knew the prisoners were taken outside to exercise in the courtyard, even though it was in full view of the gallows.
She longed to take his face in her hands.
To tease each other and hear him laugh again.
He eyed her dark funereal clothing and the corner of his mouth twitched downward.
“They’re burying the woman I love today,” he said softly, “and I cannot be there.”
“I will go in your stead,” she said.
“I dream about her,” he said. “I dreamed of her last night. She was dancing and laughing.”
Grace had known he would be in agony today, sitting helplessly in his cell while they buried the person he had wanted to spend his life growing old with.
She unfolded her article and pushed it across the table. His face flickered with surprise.
For a moment, there was almost the hint of a smile on his lips.
He picked up the article and read it hungrily.
His face had changed by the time he looked up again. He’d shed years like layers.
“You’re fearless, Grace Covington,” he said. “I always knew you were formidable.”
She flushed, embarrassed. “Come, now, Oliver. You’ll give me a big head.”
“It’s true. I’ve seen you face things that would make others cower, including two major cities’ high societies and my own mother. But this—you’re a lionheart.”
Instead of brushing him off, she let his words go down deep into the soil of her heart, where they might take root. She brought out her notebook. “I’m still just getting started. Can you help me? I have a few more questions.”
“Anything,” he said.
“Where was Harriet living until recently? What was her last known address?”
The color came back into his face as he gave her Harriet’s address, the name of her roommate and a description of the girl. “Her roommate is Caroline,” he said. “Caroline Locke.”
“I’ll plan to speak with her today at the funeral,” Grace said. “See if I can find out anything the police might have missed.”
“Good.” Oliver rubbed the bridge of his nose, a strange look crossing his face.
“What is it?” Grace asked.
Oliver hesitated. “Just… watch carefully today at the funeral. I’ve read that guilty people tend to insert themselves into the investigation. They want to appear helpful, but really, they’re just waiting to strike next.”
Grace felt the slightest chill curl around her heart at his warning.
Who had been helping her the most in this investigation?
“I’ll be looking,” she promised.
Then she kissed his cheek and made her way to the church.
The First Lutheran church was a towering brick Gothic building flush with sprays of fresh lilies and tolling bells.
Black-clad mourners spilled down the front steps as the sun limned the stained-glass panels above two large, iron-strapped doors.
Grace slipped into the line filled with Harriet’s family, friends, and fans.
There were voyeurs, people who had come for the spectacle.
Reporters. Other actresses and people from Harriet’s theater company.
Grace spotted Ethel, draped in a black veil.
Inside the church, Grace took a seat in the pew beside Lillie, who had purposefully sat apart from her parents.
The church smelled like a mix of must and heady roses, and Harriet’s casket was draped with a white pall.
Lillie was rigid, staring straight ahead as the pastor performed the service.
Late-morning sunshine shone through the stained glass, its colors melting in jewel tones along the walls and floor.
It was jarringly cheerful amid the congregation’s stark black.
“Everyone is looking at us,” Lillie whispered.
Grace clasped her cousin’s arm. She was painfully aware of the people whispering behind cupped hands, their eyes wandering toward Lillie, or toward Aunt Clove and Uncle Reginald.
As the mourners sang the hymn “Abide with Me,” Grace saw Earnest and Theodore sitting together.
Theodore gave her a short nod when their eyes met, and warmth instantly pooled through her.
She realized in that moment that she had never formally thanked him for the typewriter.
She continued to scan the crowd, her eyes falling on a woman in the second pew who matched the description of Harriet’s roommate.
Caroline Locke was scant and pale and had white-blonde hair that looked like fairy floss.
She kept a pinched look on her face throughout the service, her eyes fixed on the hymnal in her lap, while Harriet’s father and her older sister Penelope wiped tears from their faces with handkerchiefs.
At the service’s conclusion, Grace followed the procession of the closed casket to the graveyard. She gave her condolences to Harriet’s family.
“I’m Grace,” she said. “I was a friend of Harriet’s.”
Penelope, Harriet’s sister, looked strikingly like Harriet. Her hair was darker, her eyes slightly closer to the bridge of her nose, but the physical similarities were enough to make Grace dizzy.
“Thank you for coming,” Penelope said. Her brown eyes were swollen and rimmed with red. She looked past Grace, as though she were not fully there.
Grace didn’t want to imagine what it would feel like to bury a sibling.
She moved from the line and again spied the roommate Oliver had described. Grace parted through the solemn crowd, wanting to ask permission to possibly examine some of Harriet’s mementos before they were all collected or given away.
But the grounds were thick with people milling around the old trees, sharing condolences and smoking cigarettes, and she didn’t reach Caroline in time.
She watched the girl climb into a carriage and drive away.
Grace made her way toward where Theodore Parker was leaning against a tree, looking dapper in his black suit. The scruff was starting to fill in over his birthmark, and part of her was sad that it was disappearing.
She hesitated. “Would you like to go somewhere with me?” she asked.
He said yes before she even told him where.
The carriage wove through the narrow streets as Theodore and Grace navigated to Harriet’s former address.
The route ended in front of a small, brick apartment building beside a general store.
There were pots of cheerful flowers peeking out beside the cracked steps, but the building looked like it had seen better days.
Grace climbed the stairs resolutely and knocked on the door.
There was a long beat before Caroline Locke answered. She slid open the door slowly, still in her mourning clothes.
“Caroline?” Grace asked.
Caroline’s eyes narrowed as she looked between Grace and Theo. “Yes?” she asked warily.
“I’m Grace Covington, and this is Theodore Parker. We were friends of Harriet’s. We saw you at the funeral earlier today.”
“Grace Covington.” Her eyes narrowed further as she thought. “The Grace Covington who wrote that article in the paper this morning?”
Grace nodded. “Yes.”
“What do you want?” Caroline’s affect grew noticeably flatter.
“I was hoping we might be able to take a look at Harriet’s things,” Grace said quickly. “Before they are all boxed and taken away.”
“I don’t think so,” Caroline said.
She began to shut the door in Grace’s face, but Grace stopped it.
“Please,” she said. “It might help my cousin. Don’t you want the person who killed Harriet to face justice? The true murderer—not the person who loved her?”
“Listen,” Caroline said. “All you’re doing is stirring things up.
I don’t want to end up in the paper, or have any attention drawn to me at all.
Especially if the murderer is still out there.
Harriet and I weren’t that close. I definitely don’t feel like putting myself in any danger for her. Just let this be buried with Harriet.”
This time, Caroline shut the door resolutely before Grace could stop her.
Grace sighed heavily.
“Now what?” Theodore asked. He leaned against the door and looked at her with something that bordered on amusement.
“Now it’s your turn. You didn’t think I brought you along merely to look at, did you?”
“I’m beginning to think you had something more calculating in mind.”
“In fact, I do,” she said. “I need you to distract Miss Caroline Locke for me.”
“And how, pray tell, are you expecting me to do that?”
“By using your considerable charm.”