Death on Beacon Hill Read online

  Samuel Watts, sworn:

  Master gunsmith with 17 years’ service as firearms expert to the Boston Police Department. Matched the spent ball “with utter certainty” to deceased’s 5-shot .31 caliber Remington pocket pistol after test firing the 2 remaining rounds into wood and cotton wool. (Gun, recovered ball, and test balls displayed to jury.)

  Orville Pratt, Esq., sworn:

  Was att’y for deceased approx. 3 yrs. Her character above suspicion; she retired from the stage some 6 or 8 years ago. Fiona Gannon employed in his (Mr. Pratt’s) home from Feb. 1863 until April now last past, when she went to work for deceased. Mr. Pratt “relieved to see her go” due to cheekiness and lack of steady habits; for same reasons dismayed his client hired her.

  Erastus W. Baldwin, Suffolk County Coroner, testified that post mortem examinations by a surgeon would yield no useful results, as cause of death in both instances “should be amply obvious even to a layman.”

  In the case of Virginia Kimball: Entry puncture wound consistent with gunshot in upper left quadrant of chest between 4th & 5th ribs, ball remaining inside deceased.

  Opinion: This is a fatal injury.

  As to Fiona Gannon: Gunshot wound to the head, the ball entering the right temple and remaining inside.

  Opinion: This is a fatal injury.

  At the conclusion of the evidence given by the last witness, and after a full and patient hearing, the Jury terminated their labors by rendering the following verdict:

  Boston, Massachusetts

  County of Suffolk, June 2, 1869

  “We, the undersigned, a Jury of Inquest summoned by the Suffolk County Coroner to inquire into the death of Mrs. Virginia Kimball, after hearing such testimony as has been submitted to us, find that said Virginia Kimball came to her death about four o’clock on the afternoon of Tuesday, June 1, 1869, from the effect of a gunshot wound to the chest at her home on Mt. Vernon Street, Boston.

  “The jury does further find that said gunshot wound was inflicted at the hands of Fiona Gannon, a maid. It is our conclusion that Mrs. Kimball arrived home to find Miss Gannon in her bedroom, engaged in an act of theft. Upon being challenged by Mrs. Kimball, Miss Gannon took Mrs. Kimball’s .31 caliber Remington pocket pistol from beneath the pillow where she knew it to be kept, shot her employer once in the chest, and thinking her dead, set the gun down and continued about her business. Having not yet expired, Mrs. Kimball gained possession of the weapon and fired twice at Miss Gannon, the first shot lodging in the window frame, the second striking Miss Gannon in the left temple, thus killing her instantly.”

  Cornelius Bingham, Phineas Ladd, Edward Ackerman, Philip Sheridan, Davis Cavanaugh, Silas Mead and Lawrence Burke

  Nell skimmed the coroner’s testimony a second time. “Autopsies weren’t performed?”

  Cook, reading over her shoulder, said, “It’s the decision of whichever coroner’s been assigned to that particular case. He can choose to call in a surgeon, or he can just examine the body—or bodies—himself, and render his own opinion. Even if he does order an autopsy, he might not agree with the findings—it’s his prerogative.”

  “But aren’t the coroners all laymen?”

  “That they are.”

  “A surgeon might have found something significant.”

  “Well...” Cook took the transcript from her and leafed through it. “Perhaps in some cases. Much as I hate to agree with a lout like Skinner, I’d have to say it’s fairly clear them two died from tradin’ bullets. And the testimony of the witnesses seems to support that.”

  “Only because they were questioned on so few points. I would have tried to find out who Mrs. Kimball’s friends and associates were, other than Mr. Thurston and Mr. Pratt. Did she have lovers, enemies...? She hadn’t acted in years, and her diamonds were imitation, so presumably she sold the originals. Did she owe someone money? Did she have expensive habits? Opium, perhaps, or cards? Was she secretly destitute?”

  “I hardly think that’s likely,” Cook said as he returned the transcript to the folder, “given that she’d gone shopping for hats and what-not the very afternoon she died.”

  “Destitution never kept a female from buying hats,” Nell said. “Not that kind of female.” Pointing to the crossed-out bit from Maximilian Thurston’s testimony—Mrs. Kimball was visited the day before the murder by—Nell asked, “Why do you suppose this was stricken?”

  “Couldn’t really say, seein’ as how I wasn’t there.” Cook lifted the top off the V. Kimball box, peered inside, and withdrew a lady’s ivory kid glove, which he sniffed. “Mrs. Kimball fired that gun, all right.”

  Nell approached him and took the glove, the palm of which was bloodstained. She sniffed, inhaling, along with leather and blood, the smoky tang of burnt gunpowder. Even in the watery moonlight, she could detect a faint, grayish smudge on the back of the glove, emanating from between the thumb and index finger. She handed the glove back to Cook, who returned it to the box.

  “That doesn’t prove anything,” she said. “If you ask me, that transcript is evidence of an appallingly slapdash inquest. I wouldn’t be surprised if the coroner—what’s his name, Baldwin?—if he’d been bribed to steer the jury toward the conclusion they reached. They’re probably all in on the take—Baldwin, Detective Skinner, that firearms expert—”

  “Sam Watts?” Cook shook his head resolutely. “I know Sam. He’s a good sort, and honest to a fault. And there’s not a soul on God’s green earth who knows more about guns. If he says that slug was from Mrs. Kimball’s Remington, it was from Mrs. Kimball’s Remington.”

  “That’s good enough for me,” Nell said. “But as for Baldwin and Skinner, my guess is they orchestrated the whole thing together, in exchange for God knows how much money. Someone—or several someones—don’t want this case investigated.”

  “It’s not impossible,” Cook conceded with a sigh as he rooted around in the box, “but I wouldn’t jump to any conclusions. Could just be the inquest was slapdash ‘cause that’s how most of ‘em are around here. Could be this case wouldn’t have been properly investigated even if no one got paid off ‘cause there’s not a single detective on the Boston Police Force who really knows his way around a murder, and that includes yours truly.”

  Nell gaped at him, astounded that a police detective—especially one whom she respected so thoroughly—would confess to any measure of professional incompetence.

  He reached into the box and lifted out a smart little blue bandeau hat trimmed with feathers, bows, silk orchids, and a dotted veil. “I bought something like this for Mrs. Cook for her birthday last year, but she said it was too fancy. Made me take it back and get a plainer one. I told her pretty ladies should wear pretty bonnets. She said it wasn’t so much pretty as flashy.”

  “It sounds as if she’s afflicted with good taste.” Five years ago, when Nell had first started working for the Hewitts, she’d been both thrilled and disappointed by the wardrobe of custom-made frocks that Viola had provided her with, at her own expense—thrilled because until then Nell had worn nothing but threadbare cast-offs, disappointed because the dresses were so plain. Over the years, she’d come to appreciate their sleek elegance, but it had been an acquired appreciation.

  “I do my best, Miss Sweeney,” said Cook as he nestled the hat back in the carton, “I surely do. But the truth is us detectives all earned this job on account of how well we deal with thefts. When I was young, you heard about maybe one homicide a year in Boston, sometimes none. I came on the force in January of eighteen-sixty. You know how many people have been murdered in this city since then?”

  Nell thought about it, but she couldn’t’ begin to guess.

  “Seventy.” He pushed the lid back onto the carton and turned to face her, hands on hips. “Seventy homicides in the past nine years.”

  “My God!”

  “Seventy-one counting Mrs. Kimball. When somebody gets killed in this city, it better be plain as day who done it, or it’s probably gonna go unsolved.
Investigating homicides is a complicated business, and there’s nobody I know of who’s got any real experience in it. What we do—what most big city cops do—is we offer rewards to the citizenry for providing information or turning in the guilty parties.”

  “Does that work?”

  “Not often enough to suit me. I’ve been trying to convince Chief Kurtz that we need to get out there and dig and scratch, not just rely on snitches, most of whom are no better than the slamtrash they’re ratting on. We need to figure out how to catch these murderin’ scum, and then we need to hang ‘em by the neck and let the good Lord worry about what to do with ‘em after that.”

  “Do you think the Chief will take your advice?” she asked.

  “Nah, the rest of ‘em keep tellin’ him I’m daft. Skinner, especially. He just thinks all we need to do is offer bigger rewards. Lazy muttonhead just doesn’t want to have to do his job.” Cook gestured her toward his office. “Looks like we’re all done here.”

  Nell hesitated, eyeing the two cartons on the floor. “Those contain the clothes Mrs. Kimball and Miss Gannon were wearing when they died?”

  “And whatever other personal effects they had on ‘em.” The detective crossed his arms and gave her a look that said he knew precisely what she was getting at. “And how do you suppose Skinner would take it if I let some little miss—some little Irish miss—root about in his evidence?”

  “Who’s to say he’ll ever find out? Besides, it seems to me it’s only ‘evidence’ if it’s going to be used in prosecuting a case, which it clearly isn’t, since this case is considered solved and will never go to trial. And doesn’t Skinner himself think the police should rely on citizens to solve the city’s murders?” She spread her arms. “I’m a citizen, and I’m more than happy to help.”

  Cook carried the cartons into his own well-lit office, setting them on the only section of floor not heaped with books, folders, and old newspapers. She knelt and uncovered the box marked V. Kimball, set aside the gloves and hat, and withdrew a small mesh reticule. It contained a folded handkerchief, a silver powder compact, a tiny enameled one for rouge, a mother of pearl card case with several calling cards in it, and an embossed leather change purse, which was empty.

  “Looks as if Skinner helped himself to whatever money was in here,” she said.

  “Maybe she’d spent it all on her shopping trip,” suggested Cook as he sat perched on the edge of his desk, watching her. “Or maybe she didn’t have any, and she’d been running up bills.”

  “Detective Skinner has her house key, I assume.”

  Cook nodded. “It’s on this fancy silver key ring. I seen it sticking out of his vest pocket.”

  Next came two white lisle stockings, a pair of garters, lace-edged drawers, two petticoats, and a crumpled-up spring-steel crinoline. Nell drew in a steadying breath when she came upon the rest of Mrs. Kimball’s wadded-up underpinnings—chemise, stays and corset cover—all stiff with dried blood and punctured with one neat hole on the left side of the chest. The bodice of the fashionable blue-striped silk walking dress was in the same condition. At the bottom of the box Nell found a fringed silk parasol, a pair of black satin boots with silver heels and appliquéd stars, and a tangle of diamond necklaces.

  She lifted the necklaces, squinting at the glittering little stones. “These are paste?”

  “Must be,” Cook said. “I wouldn’t know the difference, myself.”

  “Neither would I.”

  “Neither, I imagine, would Fiona Gannon.”

  Ignoring that observation, Nell opened the box labeled F. Gannon, which held a plain dress of black worsted, a white cotton apron speckled with blood, a rather shabby assortment of underpinnings, scuffed black lace-up boots, and, at the very bottom, the shredded and bloodied remains of a maid’s ruffled mobcap. Nell lifted it gingerly by the bit that was still white and undamaged, the greater part of it being black with soot.

  “Powder burns,” Nell murmured as she studied it. “Very heavy powder burns. And it’s been blown to ribbons.”

  Cook reached out to take it from her.

  “You know what this means,” she said.

  He sighed as he inspected the ravaged cap.

  “It means,” Nell said, “that the muzzle of the gun that killed Fiona Gannon must have been—”

  “Pressed right up against her head,” Cook finished. “And where would a nice young lady like yourself have learned a thing like that?”

  “From books,” she lied, not wanting him to guess how familiar she’d once been with guns and knives—and the damage they could do. “Tell me I’m wrong,” she challenged. “Tell me this shot could have been fired from a distance.”

  Cook glowered as he examined the cap.

  “Baldwin didn’t mention these powder burns in his statement at the inquest,” Nell said. “If he had, it would have called the official theory into question.”

  Cook looked as if he was going to say something, but changed his mind. He crouched down next to Nell, returned the cap to the box, and started gathering up the other items. “Let’s get this stuff packed back up just like it was, so Skinner won’t know we were rummaging through it.”

  “You agree with me, don’t you?” she persisted. “The inquest’s conclusion is flawed.”

  “Even if it is, that doesn’t mean Fiona Gannon was some innocent scapegoat. You want to think that because she was Irish and you’re fond of her uncle, but in my experience, them that meet with bloody ends usually had it comin’.”

  “Her being Irish made it easier for Skinner and Baldwin to sell their version of events to the inquest jury,” Nell said as she arranged the clothes in the carton the way she’d found them. “Fiona Gannon was just another thieving little Mulligan. A murderess, too, but at least Virginia Kimball saved the Commonwealth of Massachusetts the trouble of hanging her.”

  “If you’re wantin’ me to investigate this case,” Cook said, “you can just drop that idea right now. It was Charlie Skinner’s homicide, and as far as he and everybody else in this bureau is concerned, it’s been solved. Never in a million years would Chief Kurtz let me conduct some sort of after-the-fact investigation, knowing how it would set Skinner off. And if you knew what my caseload was like right now, you’d know I don’t have the time for the kind of work it’d take to set this business straight.”

  “If you did have the time,” she asked as she replaced the lid on the carton, “what would you do?”

  Cook stood, joints popping, and handed Nell to her feet. “I’d start off by goin’ to Mrs. Kimball’s funeral tomorrow. Murderers sometimes like to see their victim bein’ sent off—not always, by any means. Not even most of the time. But it’s a place to start.”

  “But it’s a private funeral,” she said. “Doesn’t that mean only family and friends are welcome?”

  “No one will question you if you just walk in like you belong there.”

  “Oh, wait,” she said. “I can’t. Tomorrow’s Thursday. I’ll need to take care of Gracie.”

  “Didn’t you once tell me they have a nanny to share the load?”

  “Nurse Parrish is a million years old. She sleeps most of the afternoon.”

  “The funeral is in the morning.”

  “Will Detective Skinner be there?” she asked.

  “He wasn’t plannin’ to go, but Kurtz is making him, just for show, on account of Mrs. Kimball being so famous and all.”

  Nell chuckled through a sigh. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Interrogate the mourners, see if anything tickles your whiskers.”

  “Interrogate? At a funeral?”

  “They won’t know they’re being interrogated if you do it right. Let them think they’re making small talk. Ask a leading question, then keep your mouth shut. You’d be surprised what folks’ll tell you just to fill in the gaps in a conversation.”

  Chapter 4

  Nell’s first thought when she entered the Arlington Street Church shortly before ten the following
morning was that she must have gotten the time of Virginia Kimball’s funeral wrong. There weren’t enough people here. No more than two dozen heads rose from the sea of pews stretching before her—hardly what one would expect at the funeral of such a notable person.

  Then she noticed the sarcophagus in front of the altar. That was what it looked like from Nell’s vantage point at the rear of the huge sanctuary—a big, elaborately decorated burial chest such as she’d only ever seen in books about ancient Egypt. Adding to its peculiarity was the fact that it was painted white, a color normally reserved for the coffins of children.

  A group of five, a gentleman and four ladies, brushed past her and proceeded up the long center aisle toward the front of the church. They all wore mourning black, as did Nell, whose simple dress with its modish, crinoline-inflated princess skirt was similar to those of three of the ladies. The fourth had on a garment that, viewed from behind, looked for all the world like the kind of loose, sash-tied wrapper that a lady might wear in the privacy of her bedroom. Nell had never seen anything like it in a public situation.

  The group paused before the bizarre coffin and, one by one, stood with heads bowed. Nell recognized them when they turned to seat themselves in the very first pew: Orville Pratt with his stout little wife, his two pretty, fair-haired daughters, and an older lady Nell couldn’t place. The oddly dressed one was Emily, recently home from her extended European tour. It stood to reason such a prominent attorney would attend the funeral of his late client, family in tow, if only for appearances. How would it look if he didn’t, after extolling her character during yesterday’s inquest, praise that had made its way into that morning’s Daily Advertiser?

  The front page article had summarized the inquest in terms that left no doubt as to the guilt of the “cunning and shiftless” Fiona Gannon, who had “schemed with an inborn craftiness” to gain possession of Virginia Kimball’s celebrated diamond necklaces.