“She’s all right, but I’d like to throw this one out the window,” Gwen said with a glare at Mick Malone.
“And I’d like to rub that snotty look off your face,” Mick taunted.
Once again, Patrick stepped between them. “Mick, I’m canceling our meeting today, and it would be best for you to leave now.” He grabbed the sack of fried catfish. “Mrs. Kellerman, I’m sorry this happened. You didn’t deserve to be on the receiving end of that, but you’re welcome to join us for dinner.”
Patrick wouldn’t have been able to swallow even a bite of the greasy catfish, so he retreated to his mother’s bedroom while the others ate. Anything to escape the accusation on Gwen’s face. She deserved more than what he’d been able to do for her.
In hindsight, he wished he hadn’t interrupted when he overheard Mick boasting. If Gwen learned the truth about her brother’s kidnapping from Mick, it would save Patrick from the moral dilemma of betraying a client’s confidence.
After helping his mother drink some warmed milk, he headed out to the front room, where Gwen and the others sat at the table, the remainders of dinner scattered before them. They had the relaxed look of the well-fed, all except Gwen, whose face was as cold as sculpted marble.
“Can I speak with you?” he asked with caution.
To his relief, she gave a stiff nod and stood. The fire escape was the only place they could have privacy, and Gwen navigated through the window with more grace this time, hiking her skirt, lowering her head, and moving through the opening easily. He followed using the same ducking posture.
“You’re getting better at this,” he said, closing the window with a lighthearted smile.
She didn’t return it. He couldn’t expect her to, really.
“Gwen, I’m sorry,” he said. “To the bottom of my soul, I’m sorry.”
“He was just getting ready to spill something important when you came out.”
The pain on her face made him look away. “Mick Malone is a world-class liar,” he said. “I once saw him keep an entire pub fascinated by his tale of smuggling a piece of the true cross out of the Vatican while the Swiss guards chased him across Christendom for a solid year. You can’t believe anything he says.”
“Then why didn’t you let him talk?”
It was a fair question, and Patrick struggled with how to respond. When did his obligation to the client end and his duty to be a decent man begin?
“I can usually tell when Mick is lying,” he said. “He brags and struts and waves his arms, commanding attention like an actor on the stage, but once he blabbed a story to me when he was sloppy drunk. We were alone in his boardinghouse. He sat slumped in the corner with his head lowered in shame.”
God help him, he was going to tell her. She deserved to know. The law could never punish Mick, and Gwen deserved peace of mind for the foul crime Mick had perpetrated against her family.
It was the night after they submitted the manuscript of Mick’s book to the publisher. Mick had insisted on buying a bottle of cognac to share with Ruby, but when they arrived at his home, Ruby had gone to visit her mother in Brooklyn. Mick wanted to share a dram, and Patrick saw no harm in it, even though Mick’s room was a hovel with only a single kerosene lamp to illuminate the grubby interior. The stink of dirty laundry was strong, and Patrick took only a few sips of the cognac, but Mick bolted it down, one dram after another, until half the bottle was gone.
And that was when the true story came out. Patrick remembered every detail as though it were yesterday.
“He was a cute little kid,” Mick had said, the light of the kerosene lamp carving deep hollows into his sorrowful face. “I’d been watching him play in the backyard of that mansion for weeks, learning his schedule and biding my time. Every day he took his dog outside to run around on the lawn and do its business. His nanny usually came out with him, but sometimes she stayed inside because it was cold that winter.”
The cognac soured in Patrick’s belly, but he dared not interrupt, and Mick kept talking.
“There was a big old pear tree in the yard next door, and I hid in its branches to watch the boy bring his dog out after lunch each day. It was an English bulldog, which is a completely useless animal. No good as a guard dog, no good for hunting, and lazy as the day is long.”
Patrick didn’t want to hear this. It seemed too real, too tragic, but he kept listening, revolted and entranced.
Mick took another swig of cognac, then continued. “All kids like puppies, and I started bringing one with me when I staked out the house. One day after the nanny went back inside, I slipped into the yard. The boy didn’t seem to mind, but his dog sensed the puppy I had hidden in my coat, and it came lumbering over. I showed the puppy to the boy, and he asked if he could play with it. I put a finger over my lips to shush him and said we would need to go into the yard next door if he wanted to play with the puppy. He was happy to agree. After I had him in the neighboring yard, I conked him over the head. And that was that.”
Mick’s story came to a halt, but Patrick needed to keep pushing. “How did the Italians get him?”
Mick shrugged and refused to answer.
“How did the Italians get him, Mick?” Patrick demanded.
Mick started weeping, moaning that he was surely going to hell because of how that child suffered, and it was all his fault. He sobbed until he got sick in the chamber pot.
When Patrick pressed again for more details, Mick unleashed a string of curses and threw the bottle of cognac at Patrick’s head. Patrick ducked, and the bottle smashed against the wall.
“I didn’t mean for anything bad to happen to the kid, I swear it!” Mick whimpered. “I should have taken better care of him. I should have gotten him a doctor.”
“So he died, right?”
Mick nodded, weeping. “That sweet little kid is gone forever. He never had a chance.”
That was the last that Mick revealed. Patrick risked a look at Gwen. Her face was stark with anguish, and he covered her hand with his.
“I’m breaking every rule in the book by telling you this, but Mick can’t be prosecuted for it anymore, and you deserve to know what happened. He told the truth about how he snatched your brother.”
Gwen squeezed his hand. “The man in the courtroom, the one who had my wedding ring—he claimed to be related to Mick, but he looks like my father, not Mick Malone.”
Patrick’s gaze flew to hers. Apparently, Gwen had the same suspicion he did, but the possibility that Willy Blackstone had survived was minuscule.
“There was a $100,000 reward for information about your brother,” he said. “There’s no way someone wouldn’t have come forward to claim it. I think William died from pneumonia, but I don’t know the circumstances. The only thing I know for sure is that Mick can’t be tried a second time. He got away with it, and the government can never come back for a second bite at the apple.”
With each word he spoke, Gwen’s shoulders slumped a little more. “Is he at least sorry?” she asked, her voice tissue-paper thin.
“I believe so. It’s been thirty years, and it’s tormenting him still. If he were a practicing Catholic, I’d tell him to go to confession and make a clean breast of it. He never will, but I think he regrets what he did.”