CHAPTER TWELVE
“Do you think that’s where all Mr. Van Wyn’s money goes to?” Ruth asked, sounding perplexed.
“I think it’s strange indeed. At odds with what Geneva told us.”
“But we might have followed him on the wrong night.”
“Yes.” Leona smiled into the flames. She was that much closer to the memoir’s return. “And no. I’d learned from Mrs. Rackham Audrey accompanied Daphne to seances run by Jesper Frost. And Benedict Van Wyn goes to those same seances.”
Ruth laughed. “ Et viola !”
“For now,” Leona conceded. “And you’re correct in that he probably doesn’t spend all his money or time there. But it is the best place to start.”
“To find Audrey and get your memoir back.”
Leona swallowed hot tea laced with whiskey. “Hell, yes. It’s pure evil of her to hold my memoir hostage and threaten to reveal its contents. Though it is far from finished, and I think she’ll be sorry if she truly read any of those pages.”
“Don’t swear. Although, I don’t think you mind as much as you did,” Ruth commented.
“I don’t like being forced to do anything under duress.
” Leona leaned down and held her still-cold hands closer to the flames.
“And some scurrilous behavior is much worse than others. You and I will jump into scandal when we launch our magazine. Every time we march for the vote, for dress reform, for equality, someone is shouting how scandalous it all is. And I suppose the identity of the real John Barrington is not so bad after all of that. But the other....”
“The memoir,” Ruth said. “And the jewelry theft and the possibility of a murder accusation. It might stick harder to you if they learn about Leo. About the soldiering.”
“I’m supposed to trust Geneva Van Wyn will not reveal the identity of John Barrington or Leo Harrison. Ever.” Leona shuddered. “If I find out what happened, would she let me reveal it publicly? Or will we hold each other’s secrets over our heads until one of us dies?”
“Oh, Leona. What a terrible thought. Will you publish the memoir, then?”
“It would’ve done well for the magazine, wouldn’t it?
” Leona groaned. “Charlotte said I should write a romance and that might bring money in to help save our finances.” She set aside the pretense of the teacup and rose to fill a glass with whiskey.
In the chill room, she sat again, bathing in the close heat from the fireplace.
“I’m sorry. This is a setback, to be sure, but we do have information for Geneva now about the spiritualist. Don’t give up.”
Leona sank deeper into the chair. “I won’t give up. I just need to think about what the next step will be. And I’m not telling her anything until I know for sure what’s going on.”
Ruth yawned, then yawned again. “Goodness. I’d best get myself to bed.”
Leona took Ruth’s hand as she stood. “Thank you, my friend.”
“Try to get some sleep, my dear.” Ruth leaned down and kissed her cheek.
Leona went upstairs to get her diary. As she settled back into the armchair, she wondered if Oran and Charlotte Montgomery might like to publish a story about the adventures of two lady private detectives instead of a romance.
***
L EONA IS RUNNING. TOM Perley and Red Stone shout and holler after her, crashing through the thick forest. She hopes it’s as slow going for them as it is for her, but she also knows she is leaving a blazing trail for them to follow.
She doesn’t even care where she’s going, just so long as she’s headed north.
Leona does not want to end up hanged for a spy.
Or shot in the back in this wood where no one will ever find her body.
Union men will die, however, if she doesn’t get the papers back.
Tom and Red surely know more of their comrades will die if she returns to the Union camp.
They intend to kill her. She lived two weeks with Thomas’s Brigade of Georgians—they are killers to the man.
By the sound of it, they’ve split up. Foolish—she’ll have a better chance of fighting one than both if it came to that. Brushing her hand against the sheath where her knife lies, she pushes her way into a laurel hell. She crouches there to catch her breath and make her plans—
—and awoke with a start with a knot in her neck, the diary sliding to the floor with a thump.
***
I N THE MORNING, RUTH left when Jonah arrived to fetch her, and the house settled into its routine.
But unease rose in Leona again. Her husband hadn’t come home last night.
The usual note delivered later in the day stated he hoped to be home tonight.
When had the distrust begun between Geneva and Benedict Van Wyn?
The very thought of distrusting Gil brought a lump in her throat.
The mail arrived with its usual mix of letters, bills, and periodicals. Leona sorted these before going for a walk for the morning newspapers. Mrs. McCarthy kept coins in a jar by the sink, and she filched some nickels from this.
Despite taking deep bracing breaths of the frosty air, the sense of unease returned.
She quickened her pace, anxiety forcing her into a mental corner again.
A whiff of gun smoke made her whip around, but no one was there.
In the early days after the war, ordnance blew up the streets of Brooklyn before her eyes.
On Halcyon Farm, she could not walk the old woods paths without a glimpse of butternut sleeve holding a rifle aimed at her heart.
She would have heard the shot before the smoke, she reasoned with herself. The scent came from the past. Little wonder, tromping about in men’s clothes the night before. Any manner of awful things might have happened.
“Hey, Mrs. Gladney!” the blond newsie called out. His voice cracked into a higher register on the last syllable, and the younger boy beside him laughed.
“Hello, Joe.” Trying to stay out of the way of the jostling crowd, Leona handed him the nickels.
He began to bundle up three newspapers with twine but stopped. He pointed a blackened finger at one of the headlines below the fold. “Isn’t this your friend? The rich lady on Remsen?”
She took the newspaper from him and read the first line. The coroner had ruled an accidental death due to age and a weak heart.
“Indeed, it is.”
“Poor old thing. My grandad sailed with Captain Van Wyn years ago, he told me.”
“Thanks, Joe.” She tipped the shivering boy with her last nickel for his kind heart.
Leona brought the papers home to her study, but it appeared only one newspaper carried the story.
Leona searched frantically for any mention of her name, relieved when she didn’t find it.
In a second story, a reporter wrote about the missing jewelry and the absent staff, hinting at scandalous behavior and foul play according to an anonymous source. Winifred, thank goodness.
Leona wouldn’t find anything more sitting at home on Cranberry Street, would she?
Or get her memoir back. After a prolonged consideration, she went into her bedroom and changed her clothes into what she’d worn to Daphne’s funeral.
Black bombazine with dark purple velvet trim under a coat of black lambs’ wool.
A black hat with a few feathers, dyed black kid gloves, and a silk scarf.
Over her head, covering her face, a thick black veil.
Dark green spectacles from her laudanum days, when the light seared her eyes.
From deep within a closet, she found a cane and practiced leaning on it for support as she limped back and forth.
Unable to find her reticule, she went downstairs again where she found it in the foyer, fallen behind a small half-moon shaped table where she’d tossed it coming in with her newspapers.
On the table sat a bowl, and in the bowl lay a calling card and a note.
Leona opened the note. Geneva had written, in French, that her husband intended to go out of town for a few days so they could postpone their vigil.
Perfect. Leona glanced at the calling card with a feeling of dread, leaving it in the bowl for later.
Detective Day would catch up with her eventually.
She put the note in a book for safekeeping and checked for the cards Eliza Rackham had given her. The halved page of hearts and Jesper Frost’s calling card. Daphne hadn’t ever told her about their excursions into the spirit parlors, though little wonder.
Leona pulled on her wool mittens and the heavy shawl.
She left the house and walked past Henry and Pineapple Street.
The thoroughfare seethed with traffic, laborers to the Naval Yard and commuters to the ferry.
Young women sashayed together to the shops or the factories.
Water carts lumbered through the streets while fish sellers shouted and knocked on doors up and down the rows of fancy houses.
Grit crackled beneath her shoes, her lungs filled with damp river air and the effluvia of factory smokestacks.
She felt as if she could walk for miles this morning, but she put out a hand for a hackney.
“Flatbush Avenue, through the park,” she told the driver. “Then to—” She consulted the card. “Wyndham Street.”