“I looked into that. Don’t seem likely, not for somebody watching her pennies.”
They were quiet while Oscar finished his plate. He had a dainty way of going about it for a big man with an appetite, something Jack hadn’t figured out until he had known the man a good six months: Maroney was vain about his mustache and lived in fear of getting food caught up in it.
He ate the last of his bacon, crossed his knife and fork over the plate, and leaned back in the booth, trying to look casual as he ran one knuckle over the brush on his upper lip.
Jack hid his face in his coffee cup for as long as it took to get rid of a smile.
“What are you thinking?” he asked, finally.
“Well, I don’t think she drowned them. That’s the rumor, you know. She went to the shore to toss those boys in the drink.”
Jack hadn’t been around long enough to catch up on the gossip, but it made sense that people would be anticipating the worst. A rumor was like an army on the march, no stopping it.
“But the timing just doesn’t work out,” Oscar went on. “She was home when Campbell came in from work on Wednesday. Don’t see how you could drown four boys and come away looking like nothing fails you. And then there’s what the Stone woman had to say, that business about her husband finding her when he got home.”
“Hawthorn didn’t seem to take any note of that,” Jack said.
“That’s because he owns a string of lumber mills and doesn’t know what he’s doing, questioning somebody on the stand. Boston went ahead and got rid of the coroner system, you’d think we could do the same.”
Jack had had the exact same thought, listening to Hawthorn question Mrs. Stone. He might be well-meaning and thoughtful, but he was also uninformed and untrained. If Janine Campbell had said Archer will find me when he gets home, then that was as good as a confession: she knew she was dying, and she wanted her husband to find her dead. A lawyer would have homed in on that and asked Mrs. Stone a dozen more questions, trying to get her to clarify the deceased’s state of mind.
Oscar said, “She figured it was less trouble killing herself than it would have been to kill him. So I’m wondering, if she was that angry, maybe she did find a way to kill the boys.”
“I don’t think so,” Jack said. “She knew she was dying, sure. What she wanted was not to leave the boys to their father’s tender mercies. He looks like a hard case to me.”
Oscar nodded. “Worse, he looks like a closet hard case. One who uses his fists behind closed doors. They didn’t say anything about bruises on the autopsy, though.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time a body turned up dead with no marks to show how it got that way.”
Oscar swallowed the rest of his coffee. “So she stowed the boys away somewhere, is that what you’re thinking?”
Jack lifted a shoulder. “They could be anywhere, by now. Canada comes to mind.”
“She was from Maine.”
Jack nodded. “I suppose we could get in touch with the Bangor coppers, but it’s a big state.”
“Well.” Oscar reached for his hat. “Tomorrow’s another day, as they say so clever and all. And there’s other things to be thinking about. First and most important, you’ve got to be back here at six thirty to start your shift and you’ve left your new bride all alone, just three days married.”
“Two days,” Jack said. “And five hours.” He rarely flushed, but now color ran up his throat to his face.
Oscar laughed, and slapped him on the back.
? ? ?
HE SLIPPED INTO bed quietly, drawn into the nest of often-washed linen sheets that smelled of sunshine and lavender and Anna. His Anna, her cheeks flushed with sleep, on her side so that he could study her face in the vague soft light of the lamp before he put it out.
One part of him wanted to wake her, but she had earned her rest. There would be more nights and mornings and middays, too, when they’d have privacy and time enough. He’d made sure of it.
27
TUESDAY MORNING NEAR the end of May might have been July, by the weather. Later in the summer Anna would keep an extra set of clothes in her office, but today she was faced with a choice. She could take the noon hour to try to catch up with her paperwork—in which case she’d show up at the inquest wilted and damp with sweat, or she could go home and change.
She went home and found Aunt Quinlan alone in the parlor, smiling as if Anna’s arrival were the only thing in the world she had ever wished for. In return Anna might have started to cry. Things had happened so quickly, and she had let herself be drawn along without taking time for her aunt.
“Get changed quickly,” Auntie said. “And I’ll arrange things down here.”