6

FRANK SHOULDN’T HAVE BEEN SURPRISED TO DISCOVER that the stables at the VanDamm estate were as neatly kept as the house. He found Harvey mucking out one of the stalls, but the groom wasn’t exactly what Frank had been expecting.

The instant Lizzie had mentioned Harvey, Frank had been fairly certain he’d learned the identity of the father of Alicia’s child. Up until now, he’d been unable to determine how she could ever have been alone with any man long enough to have conceived that child, and then Lizzie had described the perfect opportunity. Alicia wouldn’t have been the first young woman to be seduced by a handsome and charming underling with an eye toward bettering himself, and long horseback rides would have provided the perfect opportunity for such a seduction.

But while he was tall and well built, Harvey wasn’t young, and he certainly wasn’t handsome or charming, not by anyone’s standards. In the dim light of the stable, he appeared to be near forty, and his weathered face showed the effects of a lifetime spent out of doors.

He looked up when he heard Frank outside the door of the stall. Squinting into the shadows, he asked, “What can I do for you, sir?”

“I’m Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy from New York, and if you’re Harvey, I’d like to talk to you about Alicia VanDamm.”

A spasm of pain twisted his face. Plainly, he felt the girl’s loss, although he was too manly to give way to tears as Lizzie had.

“I don’t know what I can tell you,” he said, leaning his pitchfork against the wall and taking his time making his way out of the stall. He seemed to need that time to gather himself. “I ain’t seen her for over a month now, not since she left here.”

Frank stepped back to allow him room to come out. Harvey’s black hair was damp and curled where it clung to his forehead and neck, and his workshirt showed rings of sweat. His body was sinewy and strong, and Frank tried to see him as a young girl might. No matter how he tried, though, he couldn’t picture Harvey as the scheming seducer. Then the groom stepped into a shaft of light that illuminated his face. Frank felt the shock of recognition at the sight of the scar running along his jawline.

Harvey was the man who had pawned Alicia’s jewelry.

Now Frank knew that whatever Harvey told him would probably be a lie, a lie designed to protect him and no one else. Armed with that knowledge, Frank grasped his lapels and rocked back on his heels as if every nerve in his body weren’t tingling with the awareness that he might very well be confronting Alicia’s killer.

“I hear you spent a lot of time with Miss Alicia,” Frank ventured.

Harvey nodded. “Yes, sir. She liked to ride more than anything. Loved that little mare of hers. Buttercup’s her name. Miss Alicia named her when she was ten. The mare was a birthday present that year.”

“She rode every day?”

“Except Sunday. It wasn’t proper for her to ride on Sunday.”

Frank pretended to consider this. “I see. And was it proper for her to go out alone with you?”

Harvey frowned. “I’m the groom. Somebody had to keep an eye on her, in case anything happened.”

“And did something happen?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Frank had a feeling he knew very well. “Weren’t you afraid for her to be riding in her condition?”

“What condition was that?” He seemed genuinely puzzled.

Frank studied him for a long moment, waiting for some break that would reveal he was lying. But either he was the best liar Frank had ever encountered, or else he was truly ignorant.

“Alicia was with child.”

Harvey’s eyes widened with shock for a second before his face flooded with outrage. “You should burn in hell for telling such an ugly lie about that poor, sweet child! Maybe you are the police, but that don’t give you the right to speak ill of the dead nor to speak such filth about a girl you didn’t even know!”

“You don’t think it’s possible, then?” Frank asked, as if he really valued Harvey’s opinion.

“She weren’t no more’n a child herself!”

“She was sixteen,” Frank reminded him.

“Just turned! She wasn’t even in society yet! A girl like her didn’t even know any men!”

“She knew you.”

It took Harvey a moment to comprehend, and when he did, his face flushed scarlet.

“God damn you to hell!” He drew back his fist, but Frank had already thrown up his arms in defense before Harvey caught himself. As angry as he was, he hadn’t forgotten that Frank was a policeman. Even out here, that meant something.

Harvey dropped his hand, the fury still roiling in his eyes. “She was like a daughter to me! I taught her to ride her first pony, when she was so small her feet wouldn’t even reach the stirrups no matter how short I made them. I loved that child, and you think I could hurt her? You better take your filthy mouth and your filthy lies back to New York City with you.”

But Frank still had one ace left to play, one that should dampen Harvey’s indignation. “Don’t act so innocent with me, Harvey. I know you stole Alicia’s jewelry, and I know where you pawned it. The pawnbroker will identify you.”

The color left his face as rapidly as it had come, and the fury faded from his eyes, leaving only despair. “How’d you know?” he asked hoarsely.

“The scar on your jaw. The pawnbroker described you. It isn’t often he gets such quality merchandise, so he remembered you very well.”

“I never stole anything,” he said, trying for belligerence but falling somewhat short. “She give them to me. Asked could I sell them for her. She needed the money because she was running away. I had to help her, didn’t I? I couldn’t let her go off alone with no money. What would happen to her?”

Frank glared at him in contempt. “You say you loved her, and you still helped her run away from her family? What did you think would become of her, a girl alone like that? The money from her jewelry would be gone soon enough, and then how would she live?”

“I thought she’d come to her senses before the money ran out. Or her father would anyway.”

“Her father?”

“He was going to marry her off to some nob. Somebody she hated. She said she’d throw herself in the Sound before she’d do it. She meant it, too. She was young and a girl, but she could be just as bullheaded as her father. I couldn’t let her harm herself, could I? So I helped her run away. And I had to make sure she was safe, so I found her a place to live, and I sold the jewelry for her so she’d have money to live. I figured she wouldn’t stay long. She’d get scared before too long, and she’d want to come home, but maybe her father would back down first. Maybe he’d be willing to do anything to get her back. That’s what I figured, except…”

“Except what?” Frank prodded when he hesitated.

Harvey rubbed his work-roughened hands on his pant legs and studied the toes of his worn and muddy boots. When he looked up again, his eyes were full of pain again. “Except we didn’t figure out how she was going to get word to him or how she’d know if he’d really changed his mind. She couldn’t get in touch with him because he’d find her, and I couldn’t tell him I’d helped her get away or that I knew where she was.”

“Because you’d lose your job,” Frank guessed.

“I’d lose more than that. Mr. VanDamm, he’s a hard man. He has no pity in him, and he wouldn’t be kind to anybody who crossed him.”

Remembering VanDamm, Frank could believe this. Harvey would probably be right to fear for his very life if his employer found out he’d stolen his daughter. At least that’s how VanDamm would likely see it.

“You ain’t gonna tell him are you?” Harvey asked in sudden alarm, obviously having just realized what he had revealed to a perfect stranger.

“I don’t have any reason to. Yet. And unless you killed Alicia-”

“I’d never harm a hair on her head!” Harvey insisted. “And I was here when it happened. You can ask anybody.”