Strings Attached

Thirty-four



Providence, Rhode Island

November 1950

“Nate isn’t a killer,” Da said to us. “He’s out of his mind with his grief, and who could blame him for that? He didn’t mean what he said.”

Muddie nodded, her eyes wide with fear. Jamie and I said nothing.

But Da decided we would go to a friend’s anyway. The Learys lived over on Power Street, in a big square house that looked like it was squatting on its lot, holding on against any stray hurricane that might try to blow it away.

The day of Billy’s funeral was a gray day, with a sky like steel and clouds scudding across the sky. The papers said that hundreds had come to the church and people lined up outside. I could picture it: the heavy smell of flowers in the church, and the pools of water from people’s umbrellas. Billy was a Korean War hero, never mind that he had never gone to war; he had enlisted and died in uniform, and that was enough. His mother, they said, was in a state of collapse, but there was a photograph of Nate, ashen-faced in his suit, going into the church.

It all had nothing to do with Billy. Billy was somewhere else in my mind.

I remembered the day we went with Jamie to Roger Williams Park. The cherry trees were in blossom, and under the trees the light was so pink you felt you were nestled in the heart of a flower. Billy took my picture, and Jamie’s, because he kept saying how perfect the light was. After a bit the weather changed and the wind blew and suddenly the petals were flying in the air, thick as a hard rain. We ran through the trees and the petals nestled in our hair and our clothes, and we brushed each other off, laughing because we were so happy to be all together, and it was spring.

Jamie stayed on the sunporch the afternoon of Billy’s funeral, and I knew he was thinking what I was thinking, of the cold, frozen ground and the coffin, and the graveyard, and the mourners with their black umbrellas.

I thought of that night in the parking lot, how Jamie’s arms had gone around Billy and he’d rested his cheek against Billy’s back, and how I should have seen that he was managing to calm Billy with his embrace, with his words, in a way that I never could. I thought of how he’d driven all night to get to me, how he’d bathed my face and brought me a blanket and made me tea, and how I’d paid him back by ordering him to stop crying. I could hear the exact tone of contempt that had been in my voice, and I thought that out of every bad thing I’d done, that could be the worst.

Quietly, I went into my purse, and Muddie’s. In my fists I carried the coins, and I walked onto the cold porch. Jamie’s eyes were on his book but he wasn’t turning pages. I moved around the room, placing the pennies, heads up, on the windowsills and the bookshelf and the arms of the chairs. I felt him watching me. I saved one last penny and opened his hand. I put the penny heads up in his palm, then closed his fist over it.

Then, without looking at the title, I took a book from the bookshelf. I sank into the couch on the other end, nudging his stocking feet aside. I wiggled into my space, put my feet up, and opened my book.

I thought of the first day we’d spent together, of Billy kneeling in the sand with his camera, grinning at us, the wind whipping his hair. It was a good thing to know and to remember: This was joy, and he had known it.

Jamie and I stayed there together until the light faded, our books open, not reading a word, waiting until dark, when we knew Billy would be buried, and all the mourners would be gone. What could we wish for him but that? To sleep without dreaming. To rest in peace.



The house was quiet when I rose from the bed I shared with Muddie and slipped out. I tiptoed down the stairs, holding my shoes. The house seemed full of breath — the quick pants of the Leary children, dreaming in their beds, the uneasy sleep of Da, the mound of Jamie under a blanket on the couch.

I quickly pulled on my coat and Muddie’s black beret. I slipped out of the sunporch door. I hurried to the backyard, where I climbed a short fence. No shades flickered, no shadow moved as I took off to the crown of the hill.

I crossed over into the streets that ran through Brown University. I had forgotten my gloves, and I tucked my hands in my armpits to keep them warm. It was close to midnight. The Brown campus was deserted, most of the students gone for Thanksgiving weekend. I walked faster, knowing I was outside Fox Point territory now.

I don’t know where my courage was. I didn’t feel brave at all. I just felt scared. But doing nothing was worse. Da didn’t believe Nate would put a contract out on one of us and I did. So it was up to me to stop it.



I took the trolley downtown. A few people were waiting at the stop, a woman and a man I’d thought were together. But she got off, and the man stayed on. He wore a hat that shaded his face and he was thin and not too tall, a man nobody would notice unless you were alone and afraid.

When I got off, he got off, too. With every nerve screaming, I wanted to walk fast, but I didn’t. I strolled down Westminster Street, past the Chinese restaurant, turned again, and headed for Washington. He was still behind me. There were people on the street, but not many, not enough.

When I came to the Riverbank Club I ducked inside and nodded and smiled at the hostess who’d replaced me. Sammy was over at the bar, and he hurried to greet me.

“Kit! Gee, you look swell. What brings you here? Tony will be glad to see you; the new girl can’t find a punch line with both hands.”

“Sammy, I’ll come back and see you, I promise, but right now, can I use your alley? I’m trying to ditch some joker who followed me.”

“You betcha, kiddo, don’t give it a thought. I’ll make sure he doesn’t go after you.” He gave me a pat on the shoulder and turned, shielding me from the door.

I walked out through the kitchen into the alley, surprising a busboy emptying trash. I hurried down the alley and turned onto Snow Street. Then I headed up Federal Hill.

I crossed the street when I got close to the Benedict house and walked on the opposite side, turning my collar up. The lights were still blazing, and cars were parked outside. Relatives and friends sitting with Nate and Angela. They would come for weeks with casseroles and fruit, they would sit in the kitchen and make coffee and soup. Life would go on, no matter if Nate or Angela wanted it to.

I slipped through the dark streets toward Atwells Avenue, grateful for the clouds that covered the moon. There was no one around, as if every family on Federal Hill was paying their respects to Nate by staying home.

Nate’s office was dark. I hurried down the side walkway to the back.

It had been five years, but I remembered every detail of that day. I counted the bricks and lifted one and there it was, the key, dull and crusted with dirt. I fitted it in the padlock and I heard the click.

Billy had wanted me to follow him that day. He’d known about Delia. Had he wanted me to know, too? I liked you because you liked my pictures. Before that… you were my enemy.

His enemy because of Delia. That photograph I saw that day — of a woman pulling off her sweater — he’d wanted me to see it. He’d wanted me to know about Delia. But something had stopped him. Maybe because I liked the pictures so much? I’d never know.

I could only guess that it hadn’t been friendliness that day that had led him to bring me inside. It had been something else. Some impulse to share a knowledge of a grown-up world that was wrong and painful. So he wouldn’t be alone.

I switched on the light, but the place was bare. Billy’s darkroom had been cleared out years ago. Later he had developed his photographs at college. But today, on the day of his burial, the bare planks of the tables felt wrong. It was as though he’d been erased. When I thought of that boy, down here alone with his trays and his solutions, tears burned my eyes. I wiped them away fiercely. I couldn’t do this if I thought about Billy. I had to save who was left. I turned off the light again in case it would shine through the cracks of the coal cellar door.

I walked slowly through the basement. The darkness was almost total, and I kept my arms outstretched. I could just make out a wooden stairway in the gloom.

I walked slowly up the stairs, testing each one before putting my weight on it. I couldn’t hear a sound from the house, and when I paused at the top and cracked the door, I could only see more darkness.

I made my way to the office. I had no way of knowing if I could find anything that would bring Nate down. I didn’t even know if I’d know it if I saw it. He was a lawyer. He knew how to cover his tracks.

But it was my only chance.

I couldn’t switch on the lights and I had no flashlight, but I could just make out the desk and filing cabinet. I opened the drawer and began to flip through the files. I took some out to read them by the window, where a small shaft of light entered from the streetlight. Financial transactions, arrest records, several wills… I had no idea what to look for.

Frustrated, I wanted to wad up the papers and throw them around the room. Trash Nate’s office, destroy everything.

Instead, I carefully returned the papers and put the files back. I opened the next drawer and flipped through.

I hadn’t heard a thing, not even the front door, so I was taken completely by surprise when Nate opened the door and switched on the light.

We stared at each other for a moment. Never have I seen grief mark a man like it marked Nate. He looked like a ruin, like his clothes should be smoking. He didn’t say a word but crossed to the phone and dialed a number.

“I found her. I’m at the office.” He paused. “Do that.” He hung up the phone but kept his hand on it, his back to me. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but you can’t change anything. And if you think I keep anything here that could incriminate me, you really are a dumb kid.”

“Da had nothing to do with Billy’s death,” I said. “Neither did I. But did you ever think that you did?”

He whipped his head around. “What are you saying?”

“That morning Billy said he just wanted truth. That he was going to stop everything. I think he meant he was going to stop you, somehow. Didn’t you ever think of why he was on that train?”

“He was lost, he got on the wrong train….”

“Billy didn’t get lost! Don’t you know where that train was going? It was going to Babylon. He was going to see Delia. Why?”

I’d succeeded in rocking him. “I don’t know.” He crossed to the window and pulled back the curtain.

From behind him, I could see a man across the street standing underneath a streetlamp. The same man who’d been on the trolley.

“It’s time for us to go,” he said. “What does any of it matter now?”

“I’m not going out there,” I said. “You’ll have to drag me out.”

“I can do that.”

“Why do you hate us so much?” I whispered. We heard a noise and turned to see Delia and Da in the doorway.

“He doesn’t hate you. He hates me,” Delia said.

“Dee,” Nate said. “What are you doing here?” His face flushed red, but whether from anger or emotion, I didn’t know.

“I called Mac last night,” Delia said. “He told me what you said. Is it true, Nate? You want to kill one of my family? A child?”

“They aren’t children,” Nate said. “Do you understand? My heart was cut out! He has to pay!”

“It’s Jimmy’s fault? Is that how you see it?” Delia glided into the room, stripping off her gloves and tossing them on the desk in a gesture that rang with such ease I knew she’d done it countless times before.

Da moved into the room and stood beside me. “Why did you come here?” he said in an anguished whisper to me. I could see his problem. He couldn’t send me out there, out into the streets of Federal Hill, where a killer might be waiting. But he didn’t want me here, either.

Nate was still staring at Delia. “How did you get in?”

“Through the kitchen door,” Delia said. “The key you gave me so long ago. Did you forget? You should have changed the locks.”

“I don’t want to see you again. Haven’t I endured enough on this day?”

“I want to make a deal,” Delia said.

“I thought we were done with deals.” Delia crossed in front of me. She stood, blocking me slightly, facing Nate. “I’m sorry about Billy.” Nate said nothing.

“There is nothing else on earth worse than what you’re feeling,” Delia said. “What I don’t know is why you would get pleasure out of giving that pain to someone else.”

“Not pleasure,” Nate said. “Satisfaction.”

“You take satisfaction in killing? Is that what you’ve become?”

“What does it matter what I’ve become —”

“It’s what I was always afraid of in you, this… hardness. Billy was coming to see me that day. Why don’t you blame me?”

“Maybe I do,” Nate said. “Maybe you’re not safe anymore, either.”

“Did you tell him where I lived?”

“Of course not. But he worked in the office in the summers. He must have seen a check, an address.”

“So he knew you paid off your mistress. The three of us were locked in a lie, weren’t we?” Delia took another step toward Nate. “You buried him today. Hundreds of mourners were there to bury William Benedict, soldier, scholar, hero. Not the killer of his cousin who lived with that lie—”

Nate took a step toward her and stopped.

“Do you want to bury him a hero or a killer?”

“He is a hero!”

“He was a poor boy who lost his head one night and crashed a car. A boy was thrown from the car into a tree. Was it Billy’s fault? Yes. You told him that night that it wasn’t. That was one lie he couldn’t live with. You told him it was your fault. You told him you’d never see me again.

You told him that you could make it all go away. That was the second lie. Was that the right thing to do, Nate?”

“He couldn’t have lived with it.”

“He did!” Delia shouted. “He lived with it every day!”

Nate sat down, as though his legs couldn’t support him.

“I know you’re afraid I’ll be getting a subpoena from Kefauver,” Delia said. “That’s why you sent someone out to check up on me a few weeks ago, isn’t it?”

He didn’t answer.

“I figure I owe you this — telling you to your face that I’ll testify. I’ll spill every detail if you don’t call this off.”

“You’ve got nothing to say that would hurt me.”

“You’d like to believe that, but it’s not true,” she said quietly. “Let’s start with obstruction of justice when it came to the death of your nephew. I don’t blame Billy — he was just a kid. But you should’ve known better.”

Nate laughed, a mirthless bark. “You’ve got to be kidding me. You think you can threaten me? You think I’m going to back down? You don’t have one shred of evidence that Billy was driving that car.”

“I have a police report.”

Nate was silent, and I looked at Delia. She didn’t look triumphant, she just looked sad.

“Remember, you took Billy home and you said, ‘I’ll be back.’ You left me here. And I waited for you. A bottle of wine was delivered from the police commissioner. Wrapped around it was the original police report. The one the patrolman wrote that said Billy was at the wheel. You must have paid him well. It was a very nice bottle of wine. I drank all of it.”

The air in the room seemed to compress and flatten, making it hard to breathe. Nate stood up. He was very still, but I knew from dance how stillness could explode into movement.

“So what do you say, Nate?” Da asked. “Why don’t you let us walk out of here, free and clear? Why don’t we just end things here?”

“Sure,” Nate said. “But we’ll end them my way.”

Delia casually took off her coat and draped it over the couch. She pushed up the sleeves of her sweater. “That night you told me to wait? I was used to waiting for you, so I waited a long time. I was wearing a gold jacket you’d given me. I tried to get the blood out. There was no soap up here in the bathroom, so do you know what I did?” Nate stared at Delia, a puzzled look on his face. She had his attention now. “I went downstairs to Billy’s darkroom. I found the soap. I couldn’t resist looking at his photographs. Maybe a little bit of torture — to look at Christmas pictures of you and Angela and Billy, that sort of thing. Clues to see if you loved her. I found something else.” Delia reached into the pocket of her pants and handed a small snapshot over to Nate. “Do you know what you’re looking at?”

“A bad photograph of a car.”

“Bad because of the angle? Do you notice the license plate? Because I think that’s the point of the photo. There were others like this. They’re all dated. Photographs of cars, of men meeting in a secluded house… taken by a boy who was supposed to wait in the car. That’s what I’m betting anyway. That meeting that the Kefauver Committee is so interested in — the one in 1945? The merging of the Boston mob and the Providence mob — these are the photographs.”

“Why would Billy —”

“He followed you, Nate. He followed you around and took photographs. And I took them all that night, to protect you. Poor scared Billy knew it, of course, but he wasn’t about to ask for them back. Until a few nights ago, when he got fed up with the lies. I think I know what he was going to do with them. Don’t you?”

I took a sharp breath. “He was going to testify against you,” I said to Nate.

“That’s impossible.”

“Is it?” Delia asked. “I think back then, when he took them, he had some sort of crazy scheme in his head — he was going to blackmail you with them — but only so you’d go straight. Blackmail with an innocent heart. He just wanted you to stop. Then one day, while he was following you, he found me.”

Nate suddenly put his hands over his face.

“Why was he here that night with Michael? They were close, like brothers. I guess he just wanted to show off. And here we were… together, and they saw it. I don’t know what all the pictures prove. Maybe nothing. Maybe you’ll skate away on taking the Fifth. But the fact that these photographs exist… friends of yours aren’t going to like that.”

“And the commission might not like knowing you were involved in a certain murder at a certain nightclub,” I added. “I may not have been your moll, but I was your spy. It’s not enough to convict you, I’m sure, but it will sure make you uncomfortable. And Mr. Costello won’t be happy, either.”

Delia waited for Nate to speak, but he didn’t. She pointed to the phone.

“So. Call off the hit man. Leave my family alone. The photographs are in a safe-deposit box. I’ll mail one a year to you if you stay away from Mac. And Kit. And Jamie. And Muddie.”

“And Hank Greeley, too,” I said. “Stay away from him and his family.”

“Do it, Nate,” Da said. “Or by God I’ll kill you myself if you harm my children.”

But Nate ignored him and just looked at Delia. “Dee. Is this what’s become of us, threatening each other like this? The day of my son’s burial?”

“I’m doing this for Billy, too,” Delia said. “I’m just carrying on what he planned.”

For a moment I thought Nate was going to hit her. The heavy threat of violence had been in the room with us but now the air was alive with it.

“You don’t know anything about my son.” The words were forced through his teeth. I could feel my father tense next to me, ready to spring at Nate if he had to. “It makes me sick to hear you even say his name.”

Delia didn’t flinch. “I know you, though. I know you, Nate. And I have nothing to lose.”

She picked up the receiver and held it out.

Nobody moved or breathed. It seemed to take a lifetime before Nate took the receiver from her hand. He dialed a number. “Call it off. Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. Not just for tonight, for good. Yeah. Tell him to get lost fast.”

As soon as he hung up, Delia said, “You were never a killer, Nate. I think I just did you a favor.”

He didn’t answer. He gave her a look of such hate that this time she turned away.

We waited, not speaking, until the soft sound of a car came from the street. Nate went to the window and looked out behind the curtain. We heard a car door slam.

“He’s gone,” he said.

Delia went to the window and looked out. Then she picked up her coat and brought it to me. “It’s cold,” she murmured. “Take this — your jacket isn’t warm enough.” She felt me shaking and so she did the buttons herself, like she used to when I was a kid. Then she put on my jacket.

“Ready, Jimmy?”

“Ready.”

“We’re going home now,” she said. “Good-bye, Nate.”

Nate sat at the desk, looking down at his hands.

Delia led the way to the door. She shoved her hands in my jacket pocket and took out Muddie’s beret. She pulled it on. She turned slightly and smiled at me, a smile I didn’t understand.

She opened the door and went out first.

I heard a sound like a branch snapping, and then another, and at the same time Delia must have missed a step on the stairs to the walkway, because she stumbled. She went down on one knee. One arm outstretched back toward me, as if for help.

A man in a dark overcoat hurried by, his hat pulled low, his collar up.

I caught the outstretched hand. I dropped to the ground in time to catch Delia, to cradle her head in my lap.

Da cried her name and fell to his knees. “No!” he said. “No.”

Delia looked up at me, her eyes green and clear.

“I figured I could trust him,” she said. “I just wasn’t sure.”