Tess felt Matt’s hand on her arm, steadying her. “Don’t take it like that,” he said curtly. “She isn’t guilty. I knew it the minute I spoke with her. Greene doesn’t believe she did it, either, but her sister went to sit with a sick friend, Greene was called out to work, and Nan was alone for several hours. She has no alibi for the time Collier was killed, and her neighbors heard her threaten to kill him before she left the house earlier last night.”
“Oh, dear heaven,” Tess said. She straightened her dainty white cap and pushed back a wisp of hair. “She couldn’t kill a worm. She’s not that sort of woman. I know she didn’t do it.” She looked up. “But can we prove it?”
“I don’t know. Greene says it’s doubtful, unless she was seen somewhere. Even that might not help.” He glanced down the ward, where Miss Fish was looking at them pointedly.
“You must help her,” Tess pleaded, wide-eyed. She touched his sleeve. “Please.”
He stiffened and moved back from her until her hand fell. “You don’t have to plead with me on her behalf,” he said curtly. “Greene and his superior have already asked me to investigate the murder. I would have done it even if they hadn’t.”
She let out a relieved sigh. “I can help.”
His eyebrows rose. “You can?”
She glared. “I’m not stupid or helpless. I can ask questions or follow people around for you.”
His stiff posture relaxed as he looked down at her, and his sudden smile was indulgent. She looked belligerent and very pretty with her cheeks flushed and her big green eyes accusing as they met his. She was pretty. Too pretty. The smile faded as his eyes fell to her soft mouth and he remembered with an inconvenient ache how it felt to kiss her.
The cold glare, coming right behind the warm smile, made her uncomfortable. “I’d better get back to work. I’ll do whatever I can to help. Nan is the only friend I have.”
The wording hurt him. He knew that he’d alienated her, but he hadn’t realized that he’d done it to this extent. There was another aspect that haunted him. Tess was the only “family” that he had. His cousins were so distant and foreign to him that he wouldn’t have known them if he saw them on the street. But Tess was a part of his past…and very much a part of his present.
“We’ll talk about it later,” he said, bringing his mind to bear on the present. He glanced at Miss Fish, who was pointedly staring at her junior. “Your matron is getting a bit testy.”
“Yes, I’m sure she is. She’s quite strict.”
“I’ll leave before I get you into trouble.” He started to go and then turned back, his face solemn and stern. “Don’t visit the jail unless I’m with you. There are some extremely unpleasant criminals incarcerated near your friend. It wouldn’t be proper for you to go there alone.”
She lifted her chin and wanted to argue, but it would have been difficult at the moment. “We can talk about that later, too,” she said sweetly.
He sighed with resignation, tipped his hat and went back toward the front entrance.
Miss Fish came striding up to join her young nurse. “While you aren’t rushed, Meredith, I’d like you to make up some extra iodoform gauze.”
“Yes, Miss Fish,” she replied, forcing herself not to groan aloud. The gauze was tricky to prepare because one had to mix iodoform with glycerin, alcohol and ether. The sterile gauze in precut lengths was then dropped into the mixture and pressed uniformly to preserve the evenness of color. The preparer had to work quite rapidly with her surroundings as sterile as an operating room. The gauze was then rolled into strips and placed in sterile glass jars. The nurse who had to prepare it always groaned. It was one of the most difficult of the routine tasks.
“Meredith, have you ever considered taking formal training?” her superior asked suddenly. “As you know, we have several graduates of the Illinois Training School for Nurses here at the hospital, and they draw a larger salary than you do. You certainly have the qualifications to earn your diploma, and your prior experience working for your father would be taken into account, I’m sure.”
“I hadn’t thought about it,” Tess confided, “but it is something I think I might like to pursue. I love nursing. I cannot conceive of any other career.”
“Yes, I discerned that. Most attractive young women of your age are married. You have no wedding plans, no beau?”
Tess’s eyes grew sad. “No, Miss Fish,” she said dully. “No plans at all.” And that was true—because Matt didn’t want to marry her and she couldn’t conceive of marrying anyone else.
Miss Fish seemed to soften a little. “If you do decide to take the step, I know the administrator of the school. Come and see me, and I’ll give you an excellent letter of reference.”
Tess smiled. “That’s very kind. Thank you.”
“You are intelligent and skilled, despite your lack of formal training. You work harder than most of my juniors do and you never shirk tasks,” the older woman said. “Such dedication does not go unnoticed here.” She nodded dismissively. “Tend to your duties, nurse. When you finish the gauze strips, you might prepare a mustard plaster for the Watkins child.”
Everyone in the hospital was fond of the ten-year-old boy in the children’s ward. He had a stubborn pneumonia that nothing seemed to help. Tess had been afraid at first that he had tuberculosis, but the doctors had found nothing to indicate it.
Billy was a frail and sickly child whose parents never came to visit him. They had five other children, of which he was the youngest, and both parents worked in a cloth mill. Tess had met them only once, and found them cold and unemotional. A bright and funny child, Billy was so unlike his family that he seemed not even to belong in it. The nurses petted him, to the doctors’ disapproval. Even the dour and strict Miss Fish had once been seen sneaking him a peppermint stick.
“Is his chest no better?” Tess asked.
“It’s no worse, at least,” Miss Fish said noncommittally. “Go back on duty now.”
“Yes, Miss Fish.”
THE NEXT DAY, SATURDAY, was Tess’s day off. It was early and she waited in the parlor for Matt to come down. She wanted to be sure she intercepted him in case he was planning to skip breakfast so he could rush straight to his office.
Sure enough, she’d been sitting on the rosewood sofa only a few minutes when she heard his footsteps on the staircase.
He was checking his pocket watch when she came to the doorway of the parlor to meet him.
He gave her a quick, wary glance.
“Are you going out?” he asked, taking in the fact that she was obviously dressed for a day out in a black suit with a white blouse and a wide-brimmed hat with jet-beaded trim.
She nodded.
“Where?”
She looked up at him and smiled. “I thought I might talk you into taking me to jail to see Nan. You said you didn’t want me to go there alone. But if you won’t go with me, that’s exactly what I’ll do.”
He glared at her. “You’ve become something of a thorn in my side just lately.”
“When haven’t I been?” she retorted. She clutched her small bag tightly in her hands. “Do you have anything pressing on your schedule?”
“Not that pressing, I suppose. Jail is no place for a lady.”
“That’s why I want to see Nan.”
“Very well,” he said in a resigned tone. “Let’s go. But not without breakfast.”
NAN WAS IN A SMALL CELL all by herself, but near enough to some of the male prisoners to make her uncomfortable. Tess saw at once why Matt had insisted that she not go to the jail alone. She was grateful for his company, especially in the face of the cold-eyed jailer who looked at her in a way that chilled her blood.
When he opened the cell door to admit Tess and Matt, Nan was sitting on her narrow bunk with her hair disheveled and wearing the same skirt and blouse she’d had on two nights before.
“Good heavens!” Tess exclaimed, rushing over to Nan and kneeling in front of her. “You poor dear. Hasn’t anyone thought to bring you a change of clothing?”
“My sister did, but I daren’t…” She leaned forward, flushing. “They watch me all the time,” she whispered.
Matt’s dark eyes narrowed. “I’ll speak to your brother-in-law. He should be able to do something about that!”
“That’s very kind of you, Mr. Davis. I’m in his bad books, even though he knows I didn’t kill Dennis.” She lowered her eyes. “He knows I’m going to have a baby—that it’s not my husband’s. I am a terrible woman!”
“Stop that,” Tess chided gently. “You’re not terrible.”
“Certainly not,” Matt agreed. “We’ll do all we can for you. Have you any idea who the murderer could be, Mrs. Collier? Was there someone who hated your husband enough to kill him?”
“I did,” she said miserably, folding her hands in her lap. She shook her head wearily. “I do realize that I’m the best suspect they’re likely to find. I had reason to hate Dennis.” She picked at a fingernail. “He didn’t know about the baby. If he had, I fear what he might have done. I believe he would have killed me. He had criminal friends…or at least I think they were criminals. They probably taught him a lot of ways to do dreadful things…like kill me.”
Matt leaned back against the bars, frowning. “I thought your husband was a telegrapher?”
“That’s what he did to pretend that he was a decent citizen,” Nan said coldly. “But he was caught up in something dishonest, with a group of men who all dressed nice and had plenty of money to flash around. I don’t know exactly what they did to get the money.”
“Did you hear them say anything that might give a clue about it?”
Nan pushed back her hair. “They didn’t talk much around me,” she said. “I heard bits and pieces now and again. Little of it made any sense to me.”
“What about recent days, Mrs. Collier?” Matt asked. “Can you remember the last of these conversations you overheard?”
Nan looked agitated. “Well, just last week there were a number of men sitting in our parlor… I was working in the kitchen.” She looked forlornly up at Tess, then back at Matt. “Dennis told me to make sandwiches and…and salads for them to eat with their beer… He bought beer by the keg, you know, as if he were a barkeep….” She looked around distractedly, running her fingers through her hair.
“It must have been hard on you, Nan,” Tess said sympathetically. She had risen some time before and was standing next to Matt, at whom she shot a glance. Upon his nod, she prompted gently, “You were working around the kitchen, and you heard something.”
“Yes, yes. Dennis said a man named Marley…that he knew how to get around locks. He said ‘I’ll get him to help.’”
“Marley?” Matt echoed.
“Yes, but I don’t know if it was his first name or his last name. I don’t even know if he was here in Chicago.” She put her face in her hands. “I’m so sick. My sister fainted when they came to arrest me. She doesn’t think I did it, but she’s scared, too.” She lifted her red-rimmed eyes. “Mr. Davis, they’ll hang me if I can’t prove I didn’t do it, won’t they?”
“No court is going to hang a woman who’s in the family way,” he said tersely.
“But they might not care.” She moaned. “They’ll make me out to be as bad as those girls who work in bordellos. The jury will all be men, and they’ll convict me as sure as there’s a sun.”
“Now, now,” Tess said gently, crossing to Nan and holding her hands tightly. “You mustn’t think that way. Remember the baby and try to stay optimistic. Matt’s doing all he can to save you, and so am I.” She brightened. “Nan, I’ll get the girls together and that will give us strength. You’re well liked, and none of them will believe you capable of murder. But you’ll be tried by an all-male court, and that won’t sit well with our group at all.” She was thinking out loud. “We might be able to help in some way.”
“They won’t want to help me when they hear about the baby,” Nan said miserably.
“Nan, some of our members advocate having all children out of wedlock and out from under the control of men.”
“Oh, of a certainty, keep men for breeding stock and then kill them…” Matt muttered.
“Matt!” Tess cried, scandalized.
Nan brightened a little. “Well, Tess, I did hear one girl say something along those lines. I’m sure she was joking,” she added hastily, with an apologetic glance at Matt.
“Don’t worry about offending me,” he said. “I’ve had years of listening to Tess’s thoughts on women’s emancipation.”
“Some of our fellow marchers have rather radical ideas,” Tess had to admit. “There was a group once that advocated living like Amazons.” Her face colored. “Of course, they thought men should be kept on leashes and in cages.”
He chuckled. “No doubt. And I suppose you find that concept rational.”
She glanced at him. “They’d have to make a very large cage to hold you.”
Nan looked around her. “This one seems to hold me very well.” She twisted her skirt in her hands. “What shall I do?”
“Try not to worry,” Matt said solemnly. “Remember, you have us on your side. Meanwhile, there’s no real alternative to leaving you here. I’m sure if there had been a way to accomplish it, your sister and her husband would have found it already.”
Nan nodded. “They did appeal to the judge, but it’s a capital crime, and they won’t discuss bail.” She turned her gaze to Tess. “Do you think you might find a book or two for me to read? It’s frightening in here, and I have too much free time. Or could you bring me some wool and some knitting needles?”
“I’ll do what I can,” Tess said.
“Mr. Davis, please ask my brother-in-law to stop by and see me,” she added. “I’m a bit scared being here alone, and that jailer…well, he’s rather offensive and getting bolder with his remarks by the hour.”
Matt’s eyes darkened. “Don’t worry about it. That can be handled. Tess, we should go.”
Tess patted her friend’s thin shoulder. “If you think of anything else that can help, please send word to Matt or to me.”
“To me,” Matt corrected. “I won’t permit Tess to come here alone.” He held up a big hand when Tess started to speak. “I won’t argue the point.”
She sighed angrily. “Brute.”
“No, he isn’t a brute,” Nan said. “Thank you both for helping me. It’s more than I deserve, especially after what happened to you, Tess. I wouldn’t have had you hurt on my behalf for all the world. Please believe that.”
“I do believe it. You’re my friend,” Tess responded. “I’ll do everything I can to help save you.”
“There is just one more thing,” Nan said suddenly, standing. “I haven’t wanted to involve him…but the baby’s father may be able to help you find out who killed Dennis. He got me out of the apartment after Dennis hit me. I know he didn’t kill him, but he might be able to help find who did.”
Matt, noting her unease, looked around to make sure they weren’t being watched. “Who is he?” he asked.
She grimaced. “You’ve probably heard of him. Most people in Chicago have.” She moved closer to him so that her voice wouldn’t carry. “His name is Jim Kilgallen, but he’s called Diamond Jim.”
Matt’s eyes widened. “Good God!”
“Do you know of him?” Tess asked.
“Who doesn’t?” he muttered. “He’s the kingpin of most illegal operations in Chicago, although he usually stops short of white slavery. He owns several saloons around town, two distilleries and the biggest slaughterhouse in the city.” He stared at Nan, who flushed. “Did your husband have any dealings with him?”
She hesitated, and then nodded. “That’s how we met. He came to the apartment several times. Once while he was there, Dennis hit me.” She sat back down. “He told Dennis that if he ever raised his hand to me again, he’d be found floating in the river. But Dennis was so strange the night he was killed that no threat would have held him back. He was out of his mind.”
Matt’s face went taut. Nan saw it and shook her head. “No, Jim Kilgallen wouldn’t have soiled his hands with Dennis. If he’d really wanted him out of the way, he’d have given him money and sent him to New York or Miami and had him divorce me. He doesn’t kill people.”
“You’re sure of that? Sure enough to risk your life on it?” Matt persisted.
She sighed. “Yes, I am. And he doesn’t know about the baby, either. Not yet.” She shuddered. “I hadn’t thought very far ahead. First I was going to get away from Dennis. Then I was going to get a divorce. After that I was going to tell Jim about the baby and let him decide if he wanted to marry me. He hasn’t ever been married, but he’s had lots of girls, prettier ones than me. Oh, it’s all so sordid! My mother didn’t raise me to be a bad girl! I don’t know how I went so far off the beaten path as this!”
Matt, who’d seen plenty of decent girls die in brothels, didn’t reply.
Tess was on the verge of tears. “You keep your chin up. We’ll do something.”
“I wish I was strong like you, Tess,” Nan mumbled through her tears. “I was never really smart. I married Dennis because he seemed so sweet. We hadn’t been married two weeks when he slugged me for burning the breakfast bread!”
“You should have laid his head open with an iron skillet right then,” Tess said.
“I was just seventeen. My father often beat me for not minding him. I guess I got used to being hit by men.” She looked at Tess curiously. “Don’t all girls get hit that way?”
“I never was,” Tess replied. “My father was a kind and gentle man. Like Matt,” she added without looking at him.
“Oh, I wouldn’t think of Mr. Davis as particularly gentle,” Nan murmured, wiping her eyes. “Else why would he carry that great knife on his belt?”
“I only use it on scoundrels,” Matt assured her. “And now we really must go. I have work waiting.”
“Thank you both for coming,” Nan said again. Fear was in her eyes, along with resignation. Her expression said what her voice didn’t, that she never expected to be out of jail unless it was up on a scaffold waiting for the hangman.
MATT SENT TESS OUTSIDE the jail while he had a word with the jailer. He came out looking stern, with traces of lingering violence in his eyes.
“They should have put her in a more secure place, and with a woman matron,” he said curtly. “I’ll speak to Greene later and see what he can do. That damned jailer is scum.”
“What did he say to you?” she asked.
“Never mind.” He looked down at her as they walked. “Don’t go in there alone.”
Her heart skipped. “Nan isn’t safe there, is she?”
“She is now,” he said curtly. His black eyes met hers. “The jailer won’t risk getting fresh with her again. The police commissioner is a friend of mine. I can have him behind bars if he persists, and Greene is going to let him know that in no uncertain terms.”
“Good for you,” she said fervently.
“But she is in a great deal of trouble,” he continued. “And it’s going to take some quick work to keep her from hanging. She’s got a good motive for murder, nobody can give her an alibi for late on the evening her husband was killed, and she’s a woman. All that is enough to convict her in the eyes of a male jury.”
“It’s not fair!”
“Is anything?”
She paused with him at the corner as they were about to cross the street. “What about Diamond Jim Kilgallen?”
“He may kill people, but he wouldn’t do it with a pair of scissors,” he replied, his dark eyes meeting her soft green ones. “The very manner of the thing points to a woman. That’s another strike against her.”
“Perhaps her husband had a girlfriend.”
“Possibly.”
“Or someone wanted to make it look as if Nan did it.”
“Unlikely.”
“Why?”
He took her arm, making her tingle to her toes, and drew her across the wide avenue with him. “Because in order to frame someone, you have to hate them. Nan doesn’t strike me as the sort of person who generates hatred in anyone, man or woman.” He gave her a wry glance and saw her puzzled expression. “You don’t understand? Think. You don’t like most women yourself, but you like Nan.”
She smiled ruefully. “I see what you mean.” They moved down the sidewalk, both lost in their own thoughts.
“Couldn’t Diamond Jim have ordered someone to kill him?” she persisted.
“Certainly, but he would have sent a man, and it would have been done with a revolver or a knife or even fists and cudgels—not with a pair of scissors. Kilgallen would be the last person who’d want to implicate Nan in the murder by using a murder weapon that pointed toward a female assailant.”
She couldn’t disagree with that. “If Collier had a girlfriend and he’d broken off with her, that could be a motive.”
“We have no evidence yet to make conclusions. Circumstantial evidence won’t hold up in court. We have to have a clear motive and a suspect, and be able to prove it.”
She grimaced. “This isn’t as easy as it looks. Detective work, I mean.” She swung her purse absently in her hands. “Are you ever going to take me to see your office?”
“Do you really want to see it?”
“Yes. If you don’t mind.”
“I don’t. There won’t be many agents in today. Most of them are working on cases around the city.”
“Do you have a secretary?”
“Yes. His name is Garner. He came with me from the Pinkerton Agency. He’s very efficient, and his handwriting is perfect. Anyone can read it.”
“If that’s a slur against my own handwriting, I’ll have you remember that I never had time to do perfect script. I was too busy writing down my father’s instructions, and he dictated very rapidly.”
He smiled, remembering her father’s idiosyncrasies. “He was a good man. I miss him.”
“Oh, so do I,” she said fervently. “It was so lonely in Montana that sometimes I thought I couldn’t bear it without him.” She paused and lifted her eyes to his. “But I should have asked you before I pushed my way into your life. I know you’d love to send me back to Montana on a rail. I’m sorry that I’ve upset things.”
He looked astounded. “What have you upset?”
“Your life, Matt,” she said heavily. “I’ve made you uncomfortable with my behavior, embarrassed you…”
“Nothing embarrasses me,” he pointed out. “As for being uncomfortable, I’m not. You were never the sort of woman to sit at home for an evening and knit. It would have been out of character for you not to get involved in some cause.”
“Your landlady doesn’t like me.”
“She doesn’t like me, either,” he said, “but as long as I pay the rent, she can please herself. If I lose my rooms there, I’ll find others. Chicago is a big city.”
“So I’ve noticed. What are we going to do about Nan?”
“We’re going to find the killer.”
She smiled. “Both of us?”
He cocked his head and stared down at her. “Will you leave it alone if I ask you to?”
“Certainly not.”
“Then, if you’re inviting yourself into my case, you’ll follow orders, just as my operatives do.”
Her face became radiant. Her sense of adventure was kindled, and she felt more alive and happy than she had in weeks. “Okay, boss,” she drawled. “Just tell me what to do!”