“Absolutely. Lucy will ply her with tea cake and hot chocolate until she can’t see straight.”
Uncle Fred had heard everything. He waved Allene to the front door. “Come. Our landlady has the only telephone in the building.”
Within the hour, Dawlish had driven up to the curb, and Birdie had placed Holly in Lucy’s capable arms. There was a basket with one of Allene’s old dolls, three small strawberry tarts, and a wooden peg-and-stick game. Holly went willingly to the Cutter house, after Birdie promised she’d be there by dinnertime. She thanked Lucy with a trembling lip, and Lucy smiled.
“It’s been a while since I’ve taken care of little ones this age. It will be a pleasure,” she said. She started to croon a lullaby in Italian, and Holly sagged a little in her arms. Within a moment, the doors were shut and Dawlish had driven them away.
Allene watched the retreating vehicle. “I always forget that Lucy has children. Why, I don’t even know how old they are.” Her face was a blank canvas of revelation. “Why didn’t I ever ask?”
“Because you’re a hopeless narcissist?” Jasper offered.
Allene glared at him. Birdie was too busy waving as the motorcar disappeared into traffic. When it was no longer in sight, she turned to Jasper and Allene, her tears dry. A grim focus brought gravity to her face, as if she’d been carved out of cold marble, when she’d only just been made of cloud and mist.
Jasper put his jacket around Birdie’s stiff and unmoving shoulders and went to the curb to wave down a taxi. Uncle Fred stood in the doorway of the building, refusing to step out under that yawning, open midday sky. He waved Allene closer, probably to say good-bye.
He spoke low, so Jasper would not hear him. Jasper turned his back but listened hard and heard it all anyway.
“Don’t come back here, miss,” his uncle told her. “Jasper ain’t yours to play with anymore. He was doing fine before you come back in his life. Leave him be. You and that pretty blonde friend of yours. I beg you.”
Silence met his ears. He imagined Allene frowning, confused. A Cutter unwelcome in anyone’s home? Unthinkable. A few feet away, Birdie turned her head toward Jasper, eyes large and sad. She, too, had heard his uncle’s words.
Allene put her arm around Birdie as a taxicab wheeled around the corner. Jasper hailed the cab as if he’d heard nothing. As if nothing mattered, because it was too late to step outside of the world they’d all sunk into.
It was time to find out what had killed Hazel Dreyer.
The police were still at Birdie’s apartment but in paltry numbers and with little seriousness, compared to when Florence had died. They seemed irritated when Birdie, Jasper, and Allene arrived. Birdie wrung her hands and walked up to one, who was scribbling notes.
“Do you have any more questions for me?” she asked.
“No, miss.”
“But—”
“Who are they?” He jabbed his pencil in the direction of Allene and Jasper. The three of them looked at each other, and for a moment none of them spoke. What were they, really, to each other? There wasn’t one word that could explain the truth. It was a language that Jasper was relearning, and he hadn’t yet mastered it. He’d spent so much of the last years thinking about himself and his uncle, but mostly about himself. He thought of his kiss with Allene only an hour ago, and the way he had difficulty taking his eyes off of Birdie when she entered a room. He thought of how all of this was interrupting his climb up the ladder at work. But a word must be chosen for this simpleminded officer in front of him who demanded a label. So be it.
“We’re family,” Jasper said firmly.
“Well. We think we’ve got an answer here.” The officer led them to the kitchen, where a bottle sat on the tiny table next to a small glass that had dram measurements on the side. Jasper peered at the label: “Tincture of Opium.”
“It’s laudanum,” the officer remarked. “Did you know she took it?”
“Of course,” Birdie answered. “Mother has been taking opium for almost two years now. She had a lot of pain. But she took it regularly, three times a day. It’s nothing new.”
“Were you responsible for giving her doses?”
“No. I didn’t want to touch her medicine. I stopped letting Holly pour it for her too. She could have tasted it by accident.”
“Well, we also found this. Follow me.” He walked toward Hazel’s bedroom, but Birdie froze and covered her face. Allene was still staring at the bottle of laudanum. Jasper went to Birdie’s side.
“Please don’t make me go in there,” Birdie said.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said, but walked in anyway.
Birdie was miserable and stiff as a board as Jasper led her to the adjoining apartment, where Hazel entertained her customers. He cringed at the knowledge of what took place in here. There was a bedstead draped in cheap fabric to simulate a nonexistent opulence. A chaise with snags in the cushions lay against a wall. Satin slips hung over a screen in the corner, and a tray filled to overflowing with spirit bottles and dirty whiskey tumblers lay next to the door. Some were still wet.
In the middle of everything was Hazel.
She lay on the floor, her eyes closed, with one arm folded neatly beneath her head. Her satin robe covered her body, but it was clear that she was naked beneath the thin fabric. Her blonde hair didn’t have the golden sheen that Birdie’s had. Nothing marred her skin—not a bruise or a cut—only a smudge of eye makeup that hadn’t been washed off since the previous night.
Allene stepped into the room and took Birdie’s other side, while she sobbed anew at the sight of her mother. Jasper walked toward the bathroom, wanting to escape from their despair. It wasn’t that he didn’t care, but he had no idea what to do. Even Allene looked helpless, patting Birdie’s back through the hiccups and hyperventilating breaths, all the while staring out the window as if counting the minutes until the sadness would be over and done.
The only bathroom on this floor of the apartment building was shared, but there was an enamel bucket in the corner hung with a used towel. There wasn’t a drop of blood anywhere or suspicious smudges. A large, cylindrical syringe and tubing—a woman’s douche—were coiled inside the bucket along with a worn cake of soap, a bottle of Palmolive shampoo, and a brush. Nothing looked amiss.
Back in Hazel’s bedroom, Birdie had composed herself enough to watch the officer peruse the contents of Hazel’s medicine cabinet. It held bottles and pills for all manner of female ailments and to prevent her from being in the family way. Nothing, to Jasper’s eye, looked deadly.
“We found lots of empty bottles of medicine. We’ll take some for evidence. No foul play in the apartment that’s obvious. This was an accidental overdose, no question,” the officer announced, before leaving the room. Another officer had to ask Birdie more questions, so Allene and Jasper retreated to the corner.