Vivian felt a wave of phantom nausea, and she swallowed rapidly. It was every girl’s nightmare, of course, and the reason she never let herself get so friendly with any man she met when she was dancing or working. It was bad enough that once women had babies, they never seemed to stop having them. But being unmarried and with a kid on the way was a steep drop into a ditch that could be impossible to climb free of. Especially if you had the sort of family that would kick you out when that happened.
“What did she say?” Bea asked softly.
“That she can’t keep such a sinful girl under her roof. But I think she just doesn’t want another mouth to feed. Especially since it’ll be hard for me to work right after the baby comes.” There were tears in Alba’s eyes again, but she brushed them away and tossed her head, her pretty mouth trembling before she pressed it into a tight line. “I’ll manage. I don’t care.”
“Well, I care,” Bea said. “Fine model of Christian charity she is, stupid cow. You’re coming home with me.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“Like hell I don’t,” Bea snapped.
Alba glared at her. “Don’t suddenly start pretending you like me now, Beatrice.”
“I’m not pretending. I still don’t like you. But that doesn’t meanI’ll let someone throw you to the wolves like that. We’re not letting anything happen to you or that baby, and you know my mother will say the same. So go pack whatever you’ve got that matters to you. Are those Pearlie’s letters?” Bea added, almost like it was an afterthought, as she pointed to a stack of papers on the table. Alba nodded. “I’ll gather those up.”
Alba lifted her chin, proud and angry, looking like she wanted to argue, but Bea cut her off impatiently. “Don’t be all high and mighty and stupid about it. Just say yes and get your things.”
They stared at each other. At last Alba nodded and, without another word, disappeared into the back room. Vivian watched her go, remembering Dr. Harris’s instructions not to upset her. The last thing they needed was Alba overhearing whatever they might say while going through Pearlie’s papers. Luckily, Alba didn’t seem to be at all suspicious of what they were doing, and she yanked the door shut behind her.
Vivian turned back to the table. Beside her, Bea took a deep breath and pulled the stack of papers toward them.
There wasn’t much to them—jotted notes, a few letters from friends in different states all dated more than a year ago. Bea put those aside for her mother, who had wanted to write to those folks and let them know about Pearlie’s death. There was a handful of receipts from what might have been a pawnshop.
Bea stared at those for a long time. “He only had one suitcase when he arrived in the city,” she said quietly. “And he always insisted on paying for his room and board before he got a place of his own.” Sniffing a little, she pushed the receipts aside with a jerky motion.
They fluttered to the floor, and Vivian bent to gather them up, her chest feeling tight. Pearlie had always been outgoing, friendly and playful and proud. She wondered how many of his things he’d had to pawn to feel like he was pulling his weight before he got that job at the Nightingale. And she wondered if he had been able to buy them back before his death.
Vivian was just shuffling the receipts into a pile when she heard Bea suck in a breath. She looked over and found her friend staring at a single sheet of paper.
Without a word, Bea slid the paper across the table, only her fingertips touching it, as though it would burn her or poison her if she held it too tightly. Just as gingerly, Vivian picked it up.
The letter was written in blocky, ugly capital letters. Unlike the tidy little note that had come with the brandy bottle, this one looked as though the person writing it had been barely literate. Or, maybe, they’d been trying to disguise their handwriting. It was just as Mr. Guzman had described: a demand so simple it almost seemed like a joke, telling Pearlie to put the one thousand dollars he had into a bag and leave it in a certain spot at exactly one in the morning. The date it gave for the drop-off was two weeks before.Don’t stick around or try to see who’s coming to get it,the letter finished.You won’t like the consequences if you do.
Someone trying to disguise their writing, then, Vivian thought. Her mind latched onto the details of the note to avoid thinking what they really meant. No one who was barely literate wrote out words likeconsequences.
“One thousand dollars?” Bea breathed. Her hands were trembling, but Vivian couldn’t tell whether it was from shock or sorrow or anger. A mess of all that and more, most likely. “How the hell did he get that? And what the hell are we supposed to do with this? And why did they just rob everyone else, but my uncle was the one who they killed? Why’d they have to decide to change everything then? Whyhim?”
Her voice was rising as she spoke. Vivian tried to gesture for her to be quieter, but it was too late.
“What are you talking about?” Alba demanded. She was standing in the doorway when they turned guiltily around, wearing a cheap, fashionable dress, her hair pinned more tidily, a bag in one hand and a notebook under her arm. But she somehow looked even wilder than before, her eyes darting between them with more angry, jittery energythan her small frame looked like it could contain. “Who was robbed? Who was murdered? What—”
“It’s okay,” Vivian said, trying to sound soothing, her hands held out as if she were trying to placate a feral cat in an alley. “Really, it’s nothing you need to worry about. You just finish packing and—”
“You shut your mouth,” Alba snapped. “You ain’t part of this family, so it’s got nothing to do with you.” She rounded on Bea. “What were you saying about Pearlie? Tell me. I deserve to know. Tell me right now, or I swear I will throw open that window and—”
“God almighty, Alba, leave her alone. And shut your own mouth for half a second so I can answer you,” Bea finally yelled. The two of them stared at each other, both of them breathing as heavily as if they had just run up the building’s five rickety flights of stairs. So much for keeping calm. Vivian didn’t even want to think about how Alba might have been planning to finish her threat.
Bea took a deep breath. Her voice was steady when she answered, but Vivian could see her hands shaking. “We found out some things about Pearlie,” she began slowly.
“Some of them I’m guessing you already know?” Vivian broke in. “The money, maybe?”
Alba stared at her for a moment. “What makes you think I know about any money?”
“Because you saw us at his place, even though you hightailed it out of there pretty damn quick. And as far as I know, you haven’t asked what we were doing there.” Vivian glanced at Bea as she spoke; her friend, looking surprised, nodded slowly. “So you know Pearlie was working for someone and got a hell of a payout from it, don’t you?” A sudden thought occurred to her. “Is that why you were there? Were you coming to look for the money?”
The silence stretched through the room, answering the question even before Alba spoke. “Yes,” she said at last. “Of course I knew about it. Pearlie and me, we told each other everything. He knew about thebaby,” she said, a defensive note creeping into her voice. Her free hand pressed instinctively against her lower belly, her fingers splayed wide as she took a deep breath that didn’t seem to do much to steady her. “He was going to take care of us. But then…” She shuddered. “The doctor said he killed himself, and the money wasn’t where he’d hidden it. I thought maybe he spent it, or lost it, and couldn’t bear to tell me. And I was so…” Her words came out in a sudden rush. “I was soangryat him for leaving us like that.”
“He didn’t leave you,” Bea said. She was angry too, an icy anger that made Vivian feel chilled herself. “Someone sent him a bottle of brandy, with a note thanking him for a job well done. Vivian has a friend who knows a fella in the coroner’s office. They tested it, and it was full of arsenic.”
