Murder in the City of Liberty Read online

  Dedication

  To Sonja Spaetzel

  Who not only always listens, but also always knows what to say

  Epigraph

  Through all our history, to the last,

  In the hour of darkness and peril and need,

  The people will waken and listen to hear

  The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,

  And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

  —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “Paul Revere’s Ride”

  He therefore turned to mankind only with regret. His cathedral was enough for him. It was peopled with marble figures of kings, saints and bishops who at least did not laugh in his face and looked at him with only tranquillity and benevolence. The other statues, those of monsters and demons, had no hatred for him—he resembled them too closely for that. It was rather the rest of mankind that they jeered at.

  —Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  A Note from the Author

  Discussion Questions

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Acclaim for Rachel McMillan

  Also by Rachel McMillan

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chicago

  March 1940

  When Luca Valari was in a room, you had two choices: leave or step aside to await acknowledgment. When Arthur Kent’s scuffed shoes clacked the floor of the lakeside-facing warehouse, they took him directly to the left of Luca, leaving the latter with ample room in the middle of the cavernous space, broad doors open to the pre-spring day beyond.

  From Luca’s vantage, beyond the headline he held up to the light, the Windy City was blue on blue: horizon meeting rippling waters, intersected by men in high-end demi-yachts and sailboats, enjoying the first thaw as the remnants of ice glistened under glaring sun. He folded the page of newspaper back into its neat square and tucked it into his pocket.

  Luca smoothed an invisible crease from the double breast of his bespoke jacket. Then turned, obsidian eyes flashing in Kent’s direction. “What are you doing here?” Luca was waiting for a man called Phin Murphy.

  “I’m in the market—”

  “For my shoving you into Lake Michigan?” Luca rarely let anything break his composure, but he hated this man and the lake was cold and spread before him, wind whistling over the wood slats of the floor and rippling the tarps and sails hung haphazardly on the wall. He could usually coax followers into play, mold them into what he wanted, but he had little respect for men who couldn’t keep their loyalties rooted. Sure, Arthur Kent had followed the now-dead Suave around for years, but his next step shouldn’t have led him to the man on the opposite side of Suave.

  “For business.”

  “Last I saw you, you were weaseling up to Suave at my Flamingo Club.”

  “Almost three years is a long time.”

  “I don’t trust you.”

  “People change.”

  Luca knew he had a reputation for leniency. A soft touch. Didn’t get his hands dirty. He shot a look at Kent and wondered if it was time to break his own rule.

  Phin Murphy arrived before Luca gave in to his inclination.

  “Well. You two have met?” Phin asked.

  Luca tapped his shoe impatiently. Had Salvatore Ferragamo leather ever crossed these ratty boards?

  “Heard you had dropped off the face of the earth, Valari.” Phin looked him over.

  Luca hadn’t seen him in years, and the smartly slicked brown hair showed the slightest trace of gray. He kept his voice light. “I don’t know if I would refer to Canada as such . . .”

  “But they’re at war . . .”

  Luca raised a shoulder and said lightly, “Doing my bit for the war effort. I am just not sure I want to invest in that war effort.” He took a nonchalant step in the direction of the open slat that offered a clear view of the sun dimpling Lake Michigan. He dug his hands in his pockets.

  “Well, I heard you were sniffing for Beantown again. But finished with nightclubs, perhaps.”

  Luca kept his face blank. He loved Boston. Had been looking for a way to get back. There were good times there. Good times and pretty girls to be sought in the rhythm of Roy Holliday’s band. Good times that smelled like popcorn and beer from the stadium stand at Fenway, that echoed in the laugh of his cousin.

  Luca cleared his throat. “I like Boston. There are several smart people there who don’t mind looking to creative ways to turn a buck.”

  Phin grinned. “Munitions.”

  “Well? People need them, don’t they? There are factories, an easy shipping route.” Luca didn’t fancy smelling fish and gasoline all day, but he wouldn’t have to be there.

  “It’s a well-known fact you never get your hands dirty,” Phin said. “That you are never responsible. I figured perhaps since the accident happened . . .” Phin turned his head over his shoulder at Kent, perhaps the first notice the man had warranted since the two other men entered the scene.

  “Accident?”

  Everybody had a breaking point. Or, as Luca called it, a weakness. Something that turned their head and drove them beyond themselves. Some might think of it as a path to redemption. Luca knew it to be a thorn in his side. One of the few analogies that stuck from church services he had long abandoned attending. He swallowed, taking the words in stride, then inhaled a deep breath and swerved to dagger Phin with his eyes.

  “What are you saying?” Luca stole a look to Arthur Kent, who stared at his shoes.

  “The surest way to kill a weed is to hack at the source. But there is also virtue in choosing to aim where the bullet will harm the most . . .” Phin paused. “Seems that cousin of yours is still ripe for the picking. Set up a little consultation business in the North End of Boston. Same address as your old office.”

  A chill tickled over Luca’s spine and settled at the back of his neck. It ended in a reflex that grabbed Phin’s collar and squeezed tight. “You’re right.” Luca’s teeth were clenched. “I don’t get my hands dirty. At least I haven’t”—Luca drew a breath—“yet.” He enunciated each consonant.

  Phin cocked his head to the side. “Interesting.” He pulled out a map and returned to their earlier conversation. “Fiske’s Wharf.” He pointed to an edge on a curve of blue. “You know Boston. It’s prime real estate for . . . for what you want to do. But remember what we spoke of on the phone; I am only showing you this because I want in on the cut.”

  “Show me.”

  “There are two ways in here. There’s an architectural firm: Hyatt and Price. In it for slum housing developments. Highly politicized views.”

  Luca raised a shoulder. “I don’t go in for politics.”

  “There’s also this fellow named Kelly. Rough around the edges. But owns it. Has quite a few men under his thumb too. Including some involved in baseball.”

  “Baseball?”

  Phin lifted a shoulder. “Apparently. The right cops turn an eye. My source says there’s one who is a little green. Doesn’t get his hands dirty. But he ha
sn’t met anyone with your charm yet.”

  “You’re still here?” Luca flicked a look at Kent.

  “I was thinking I might also go to Beantown. I miss it.” Kent took a step toward them.

  Luca didn’t hide the disgust from his face. “I don’t trust you.”

  “Give old Art a chance.”

  “Art?” Luca had never bothered learning the man’s first name. He was just Mark Suave’s leech.

  “I didn’t do anything to you, Mr. Valari.”

  “Exactly. You didn’t do anything. You were a shadow.”

  “Mr. Valari.”

  Luca jangled the keys in his pocket. “Fine. Go see this Kelly fellow. You can put up with the fish and gasoline. Find out what is happening there. But don’t tell him who sent you.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Stupid? Foolish?” Luca stabbed him with a look. “Then go find a Nathaniel Reis in the North End. Housing Development.”

  “And do what with him?”

  “Do nothing with him.” Luca let annoyance slip into his voice. “Just listen around. Find out what he’s doing. What new properties are going up. What he thinks of this new wharf development. If something is happening in the North End, Reis will know about it.”

  “One of yours?” Phin asked.

  “Not yet.”

  “How will I contact you in Boston?” Phin watched Kent retreat.

  “You won’t. I’ll be in touch.” Luca turned to the water ruefully, studied the sun streaming over the little licks of waves. “I lived here as a boy for a few years. I remember it clearly as a man, but there are moments when the light hits the water and it takes me back.”

  “Luca Valari the sentimentalist.”

  “I am turning sentimental, aren’t I?” He smoothed his face into a look that on some men would have been indifference but on Luca Valari was just guarded charm. “Just means it is time to leave.”

  Chapter 2

  Boston

  April 1940

  There really never was a good time to drown. But this particular April had been unseasonably cold and promised spring long in coming. The slosh of the Charles River warmed by ribbons of June sun would have been preferable to the crusted sludge of leftover ice rimming the harbor, or so thought Reggie Van Buren as she bobbed up and down like a buoy.

  A New Haven Van Buren ought to have perished an old, wealthy woman, tendrils of snow-white hair falling around a satin pillow, comforted in the knowledge that she would be interred in the family plot, her soul destined for paradise—not with water up to her nose, choking as it lapped in and out like a tide over her chattering teeth. But a New Haven Van Buren also might have had the propriety to insist upon the use of her given name and not the “Reggie” she so preferred. The Reggie she was just hearing now in a rather frantic yet familiar voice.

  “Reggie!” Hamish DeLuca’s panicked voice reached into the hollow dome of her cement cave. “Reggie!”

  “I was st-stupid. I s-slipped.” She treaded poorly, her arms feeling like gelatin, her form rather lacking the swimming skills she had learned informally alongside her family’s schooner on Regatta Day.

  Reggie strained to rise above the lapping water. She took turns treading and raising herself as high up on her toes as she could. Rotating and wondering why she failed to complete the ballet classes her parents enrolled her in as a child. Standing on tiptoe might have added inches to her height and allowed her to clear her mouth of the water. As it was, her calf muscles strained. She said something that came out in a series of bubbles before glugging, rising upward, and noticing for the first time how the fog from her icy breath rippled over the water. If she couldn’t understand herself, how would he?

  “S-slipped,” she said again, trying to make him out in shadow. “H-Hamish.” She tried again. Funny, usually he was the one with the stutter. Hamish DeLuca with the stutter and the bit of a handshake and that one pesky dimple and those big blue eyes. Her own eyes fluttered. Maybe she would never see him again. She would just slip under the water and rest her heavy eyelids. She blinked until a stream of torchlight buttered the dark walls, crystallizing the percolating water drips around her, and then the figure of her rescuer, whose blue eyes looked even more brilliant than usual in the eerie glow of the flashlight.

  Hamish dropped to his knees. “Take my hand.”

  “This didn’t turn out as I expected,” she chattered.

  “Reggie, we don’t have much time.” His voice rippled as he looked frantically at her and then over to the grille she had stared at since she got into the mess, watching the water level rise and fall and rise and fall until it made her dizzy. She clung to his hand a moment.

  “We should have gone with plan B.”

  Hamish growled. “We didn’t even have a plan A.”

  “You’re my hero, Hamish.” She patted his hand with her icy one. “It was so nice of you to come.”

  “Reggie, just take my hand.”

  “I’m stuck!”

  “What?”

  “M-my shoe.”

  Hamish said something she was altogether certain she had imagined in her half-frozen and very soggy state. And then, of course, he recklessly jumped in to get her.

  * * *

  For the past two years, nine months, and four days, from the moment Hamish DeLuca awoke, brushed his teeth, and combed his tumbly black hair from his forehead into some semblance of order, he thought of holding Reggie Van Buren. From the moment he bolted back a cup of espresso, passing his roommate in the kitchen, holding her more tightly. Then over a quick stride a few blocks to the Van Buren and DeLuca office on the second floor of a building wedged directly adjacent to the Paul Revere House, the feel of her lips, the eagerness of her touch. He thought of holding Reggie as she hung her coat and hat in the corner before scooting down a flight for her morning bout as a stenographer at Mildred Rue’s temporary employment agency. He thought of holding her at lunch when she unwrapped the waxed paper from an egg sandwich. He thought of holding her as she sang along to the song that Jean Arthur and Gary Cooper performed in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town in her off-key voice. Something about the Swanee River. He thought of holding her even as he stepped out dancing with pretty Bernice Wong, twirling his dance partner so her skirts lapped up over her knees and brushed his pant leg.

  Holding her while they conferred on everything from petty crime to missing siblings to loopholes in employment and housing contracts. Holding her forever. But he hadn’t anticipated holding her as she slipped unconsciously into the water, a result of a rather confusing client call leading them down to the harbor.

  It was the time of year still somewhat etched in nature’s charcoal: smudges of shade and light ruminating over rippled water moody with the eclipse of the dwindling sun behind a hanging cloud. The crocuses in the Common were a tease of spring that disappeared as quickly as the next unexpected bout of sleet and snow.

  It all started when Reggie had received an anonymous phone call asking for their expertise on a matter of boat licensing and property law. Hamish, though tired and not usually eager to set off under such vague circumstances, figured Reggie was sick of her stenography work and playing with the radio dial. The bulk of their most recent consultations had been for Hamish’s legal expertise alone. Hamish didn’t mind. He wasn’t necessarily chomping at the bit to set out after a murderer or find himself entangled in the type of enterprise involving people like his cousin, Luca Valari—the reason he had come to Boston in the first place.

  Every time they were called out on a vague mystery, he couldn’t help but wonder if it was part of Luca’s web, a world he still kept on his mental back burner, determined to solve every last unanswered question that his cousin had left behind after a corpse was found at Valari’s glittering nightclub.

  It had been a routine day. Reggie scribbling something in her journal of independence. Hamish nudging his glasses up his nose as he attempted to unravel a rather convoluted passage of property law. Reggie loved fresh air regardles
s of season, so the window was open a smidge to usher in the breeze and the symphony of children’s laughter and the chatter of tourists from the historic square below, even as Hamish shivered and unrolled the sleeves customarily rolled to his elbows.

  “Reg, do you think we should meet someone who won’t even give us his name?” he said in response to her enthusiasm to head down to the wharf. It had taken a moment for him to get the sentence out, not because his voice rippled with anxiety, but rather because she was wearing a yellow blouse that perfectly complemented the brown tendrils at the back of her neck.

  “Stop thinking of everything that could go wrong.” Reggie played with the dial on the wireless. It was almost three o’clock and therefore almost time for Winchester Molloy: New York Gumshoe to statically ripple over the airwaves. “Start thinking about everything that could go right! But it’s money, Hamish, and an adventure. Did you have plans tonight?” Hamish translated Reggie’s exaggerated lift of an eyebrow to mean “with Bernice?” Bernice was his sometime dancing partner. Just as Vaughan Vanderlaan and his shiny car and cologne was her sometime evening companion. Hamish was getting sick of the sometimes.

  “It’s cold and I don’t want anyone yanking our chain.”

  Reggie shook her head. “Something this fellow said about having a business that the city council won’t take seriously, and now other people want to use his plot of ocean . . . It was all very hard to understand and punctuated with words that would make Winchester Molloy go to confession. Come! Money is money, Hamish DeLuca.” What he read in her tone was Adventure is adventure. “Besides, he’s our ideal client. A little mystery, lots of injustice. No guaranteed money or actual case.” Her laugh wrinkled her nose and its smattering of freckles disappeared. Hamish felt his heart constrict for the eighth time that hour. He moved his forefingers underneath his brace and kept a synchronized rhythm. His panic episodes were fewer in Boston, but the familiar habit made him calmer.

  “Money, you say?”