Chapter Twenty-Two
Ten Days After the Murder
IN THE MORNING, Grace stared up at the face of the St. Louis Sisters Hospital. It was an impressive building with white columns that stretched three stories tall and was flanked by mature oak trees.
“I don’t know if they’ll let you see him,” Lillie had warned that morning as they parted for the day.
“I wouldn’t get your hopes up.” But Grace had come anyway.
She strode through the doors and approached the front desk, explaining that her brother had been brought in for treatment and she needed to see him.
The nurse looked him up in the files.
“He’s in detoxification,” she said curtly. “Visitors are not typically permitted at this time.”
“Could you please ask?” Grace said.
The nurse didn’t glance up. “It might be a while,” she said.
“That’s fine,” Grace said, staring at the top of the woman’s small white hat. “I’ll wait.”
She took a seat in the waiting room. She would wait as long as it took. And once she had seen Walt, she would find a way to call her mother and tell her what happened.
She played nervously with her handbag and glanced around the waiting room, taking in the wallpapered walls and tile floor. There were newspapers on the coffee table. A man was smoking a cigarette.
Eventually he extinguished it in a crystal ashtray and was called back to visit someone. For awhile, Grace was alone, and she sat for roughly half an hour before someone else joined her.
It was two visitors, actually. Two women who appeared to be around thirty years old and looked suspiciously like they could be twins.
They spoke to the nurse and then took a seat near Grace. One of them had a hole in her stocking that she kept touching subconsciously. Grace stole glances at them and then went to check in with the nurse again.
“The doctor is very busy today,” the nurse said. “Perhaps you should come back tomorrow.”
“No,” Grace said firmly. “I’ll wait.”
When she returned to her seat, the two women were twittering on about something to do with the upholstery and then mushroom stew and she was ignoring them quite successfully until she heard the word strychnine.
Her ears pricked. She instantly looked up.
They were talking between themselves, though not particularly quietly. “Strychnine is for rat poison,” one of them was saying. “Not people. And he took it voluntarily.”
Grace’s interest piqued. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t mean to pry. It’s just—did you say something about strychnine?”
“Our idiot brother.”
“Victoria!”
The one named Victoria continued. “He’s a runner. Training for the Olympic marathon. They give them strychnine to run faster. I’m glad he’s alive. Idiot.”
“They give the athletes strychnine?” Grace asked. “Why on earth?”
“It’s a cocktail of raw eggs and brandy. And strychnine.”
“Don’t they know that could kill them?” Grace asked.
The one not named Victoria shrugged. “The price of glory.”
“Paid for by idiots,” Victoria added.
Interesting. That was yet another use for strychnine that she hadn’t heard of before.
So presumably, someone could get strychnine in the athletic department.
She was about to write it down in the list in her notebook when she glanced up and saw a familiar face.
“Dr. May!” she called.
She hurriedly put away her notebook and caught up with the doctor.
“I remember you,” Dr. May said. “Lillie’s friend.”
“Her cousin. I’m Grace. I wanted to thank you so much for helping my brother Walt. It means a great deal to me.”
“It was clear from our first meeting how much he means to you,” Dr. May said. “How is he doing?”
Grace swallowed. “They haven’t let me see him yet.”
Dr. May glanced toward the front desk and sighed.
“Bertha. She’s a real piece of work.”
“Is there anything you could do? I just… need to see him.”
Dr. May narrowed her eyes.
“Follow me,” she said.
She led Grace through the winding, white corridors and up two flights of stairs, where she spoke with another doctor. They conversed quietly and then the other doctor walked away.
Dr. May gave Grace a brief nod.
“You can have five minutes,” she said.
“Thank you,” Grace breathed. “For your great kindness.”
She braced herself and stepped through the door.
Walt was lying in a bed, his eyes closed.
Lillie had warned her, but Grace was still taken aback by the state of his face. Mottled and purpled, with a few stitches around his mouth.
“Do you see?” he had once said, holding her up when she was about six. “The birds made a nest in the house I built. I wanted their babies to be safe.”
She stood watching him for a moment. And she could have cried.
Why did Grace carry wounds around like bruises and Walt like gashes, gashes that grew untended and infected, spreading throughout him like poison?
She had known her parents loved her and each other. And she had known that Walt loved her. Had Walt’s love as her older brother been the extra cover of protection for her? Had it acted as just enough of an added buffer for her to make up the difference between them?
Or maybe they were just different people who made different choices. Either way, she wanted to help him.
He opened his eyes and saw her there.
“Grace,” he said. He sat up a little straighter in the bed and a smile came to his face, slowed by the pain in his stitches. “You came.”
She took a step toward him. “I wanted to see you.”
“Did you get my letter?” he asked.
“I haven’t read it yet.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t remember a lot. I think I hurt you.”
She hesitated. There was no point in shielding him from his actions. Not if she wanted him to change. “You did,” she said. “But I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad Lillie found you and brought you in.”
He shook, his thin hands tremoring, and sweat was pouring down his face. He grimaced.
“Does it hurt terribly?’ she asked.
“The withdrawal is agony,” he said. “I apologize if I throw up on you.”
“It’s worth it if it makes you better,” she said.
He was quiet. He looked out the window, his mouth twitching. “For the first time in a long time, I actually want to.”
“What happened?” she asked. “Why were you fighting?”
“I got into it with someone,” Walt said. “About money. About the drugs. It’s all blurry. I don’t remember much after I started throwing punches. Until I saw your friend Theodore.”
Grace’s heart flipped. “Theodore?” she asked.
“Oh.” Walt grimaced and let out a low curse. “You weren’t supposed to know. My memory is trashed right now. You can’t let on that I told you.”
“Wait. Theodore was the one who brought you here?” Grace asked.
“Yes. He talked to the police. Made a deal to bring me here. He said he’d take care of everything.”
“Theodore Parker? Are you sure?”
“Isn’t he the one with the birthmark on his face?”
She nodded slowly, dazed. It was Theo.
She sat down abruptly on the chair. Her face flushed. Her heart flooded with something that felt like light and song were sweeping through her.
Theodore Parker must have paid a huge sum to help her brother.
“I’m going to make this right, Grace,” Walt said. He held out his hand to her. “You don’t have to believe me until I show you,” he said. His lips were pale, his teeth almost chattering.
She laced his fingers through his as he whispered, “I don’t want to make you promises I can’t keep. But I can tell you, from the depths of me, I don’t want to be that person anymore.”
Grace’s heart couldn’t stop beating furiously. She picked up her skirts, walking briskly through the streets.
Where did Theodore live?
She had to find him.
She burst into the artist’s studio.
The studio where Theodore had found her somewhere to live.
Paid for many of her meals.
Held her while she cried about Walt.
Bought her a typewriter.
Saved her brother.
Lillie might know where Theodore Parker lived, but she wasn’t there. So Grace began to tear through the studio, looking for any scrap that might tell her his address.
There were letters in the desk, and she riffled through them with great haste.
Finally, she found a return address from Theodore’s father scrawled at the top of one of the envelopes.
7120 Meadow Place.
She dressed in her favorite gown—the one she had worn the first night of the fair. She pulled it tight around her waist, admiring the way the skirt fell.
Then she hailed a cab.
“7120 Meadow Place,” she said.
The carriage wound through the cobblestone streets as the lots grew larger and the houses grander.
This was a neighborhood even Aunt Clove would aspire to.
The cabbie let out a low whistle as they pulled to a stop.
“That’s a pretty pile of bricks right there,” the cabbie said. “Is it yours?”
“No,” Grace said, faintly touching her collarbone. “I’ve never seen it before in my life.”
The house was made of a stunning pink-hued granite and fronted by carved arches.
Chimneys rose from the slate roof and sprays of alyssum spilled over from the balcony’s banisters.
The grounds were lush with grass, manicured tulip beds, and towering elm trees lined in columns.
Grace composed herself and took a breath before she walked up the front stairs.
“Good afternoon,” the butler said when she rang the bell.
“Hello. Is Mr. Parker home?” she asked.
The butler let her inside, where a chandelier glittered from the vaulted marble foyer. There was a massive fireplace in the entryway set below intricate plaster rosettes that looked like they had been sculpted from cream.
Theodore came down the staircase.
“Grace?” he asked, astonished. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to talk,” she said. “There’s something I must know.”
His jaw twitched.
“Tea, please, Doyle,” he said to the butler. “We’ll have it on the veranda.”
He led her through the brightly lit hallways to the back gardens. There were shocks of pink tulips and irises hedged by dwarf boxwoods and an elegant fountain. He gestured to a wrought iron table, where they sat.
“Meet Sesame,” he said as an energetic black pup bounded toward them to lick Grace’s wrist. She pulled him into her lap, despite her gown.
He licked her face.