The last two physicians to treat Mrs. Campbell, Dr. Anna Savard and Dr. Sophie Savard, will be present at the inquest with their attorney, Conrad Belmont, Esq., and must be prepared to give testimony to a jury of six more experienced experts, as well as an officer of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice.
In an unusual twist, Mr. Belmont, attorney for the two lady doctors, approached the coroner to request that the jury include at least two female physicians, who by their sex, experience, and training would be best able to understand and judge the evidence. This request was denied for reasons of law, custom, and propriety, but the coroner will allow female physicians to be present in Judge Benedict’s courtroom, where the inquest will begin at 1 p.m. tomorrow. As is customary, anyone admitted to the gallery may question witnesses.
Whether the disappearance of the four Campbell sons will be addressed in the inquest is unclear, though insiders believe that it will be necessary to take the facts of the case into account.
• • •
THEY GOT TO the Tottenville train station and onto the train at the very last second. Jack jumped onboard with both valises and then hauled Anna and her Gladstone bag up behind him, just as they jerked into motion.
The train was crowded, overheated, and awash in tobacco smoke. Anna fell into a seat with a great heaving sigh, lifting her hair off her damp neck. By the time Jack had stowed away the bags and joined her, she was coughing into her handkerchief.
They escaped to the covered vestibule between the two cars, where the window had been left open. It meant standing for the entire hour and swaying hard with every jolt, but it was worth any amount of jostling to stand in the cool rush of air.
“We’re not the only ones with a bright idea.” Jack inclined his head to the two women who had appeared at the vestibule door in search of clean air. They squeezed together to make room.
They were mother and daughter; nothing could be more obvious unless it was the fact that the younger woman was close to giving birth. Mrs. Stillwater and Mrs. Reynolds, as they introduced themselves, on their way to visit friends. Mrs. Reynolds rubbed her great belly with the palm of one hand and could not hide her curiosity.
She said, “I think you must be the newlyweds.”
Her mother’s face lit up with interest.
“My husband is Joe Reynolds; he’s a law clerk. He was one of your witnesses?”
Anna had no real memory of the witnesses whom the justice of the peace had called into his office, but she nodded.
Mrs. Reynolds was saying, “Joe described you. You don’t have any way to know this, but Judge Baugh refuses to marry almost everybody. He says he won’t be a party to a disaster.”
“You impressed him,” added her mother. “It bodes well for your future. Are you really a doctor?”
Anna agreed that she was. She knew where the conversation would go, and so she started it on her own.
“You are very close to your time, I think.”
The younger woman shrugged. “Everybody says so, but I don’t feel so uncomfortable the way most women talk about. Except maybe at night when the kicking and thumping keeps me from getting to sleep.”
“It’s a good time of year to have a baby,” Anna offered, because it was true. “Will you stay here on the island?”
She felt Jack’s attention focus as he realized what she was up to. Anna elbowed him gently to let him know he was not to jump in or offer any comments and heard him huff his resignation all too clear. In her experience mothers and daughters had a set way of telling their maternal histories, and she must let it run its course.
The mother, born and raised herself on Staten Island, had had all of her children right at home with the help of Meg Quinn, the midwife who had delivered almost everybody on the south end of Staten Island.
“She’s only ever lost two children and one mother,” the daughter said. “In thirty years of catching babies.”
“That’s an excellent record,” Anna said, and saw them both relax a little. “We’ve seen quite a few babies this weekend,” Anna went on. “Twins, about three months old—”
“The Dorsey girls,” the mother suggested.
“I wouldn’t care for twins,” her daughter said, but her nervous smile said she wasn’t so sure. Most young women her age did like the idea of twins but found the reality more than they had imagined or wanted to deal with.
“I heard a very young baby crying when we passed a house on the main street this morning—”
“Mrs. Caruthers’s first, poor thing’s got the colic something terrible.”
“—and, then yesterday—” She paused to look at Jack.
“Yes?” the mother prompted, also turning to Jack and smiling in a way that made her look more her daughter’s age.
“We were on the beach very near Mount Loretto,” he said. “We met a family with a friendly little girl who introduced us to her parents and grandmother and her new baby brother.”
“That would be Eamon and Helen Mullen, don’t you think, Allie? Helen is a good friend of both my daughters. She married the same week as my older girl, my Jess.”
“They looked very happy,” Anna said.
“Oh, yes,” said Allie Reynolds, her hand returning to rub her belly in gentle circles. “But they have had some heartache.” She lowered her voice. “Helen lost her own little boy to a fever when he was just three months old. He was gone so quick, they couldn’t even send for the doctor.”
The story went on for a while, mother and daughter reconstructing the death of the Mullens’ son.
“Then she couldn’t catch again,” said the daughter. “Three years, they tried. It was hard to see her so unhappy.”
“She seems very satisfied now,” Anna said.
“That little boy was a blessing, it’s true. They adopted him, you know. There’s no lack of little Irish orphans in the city, is what we hear. So the new priest arranged for them to get one and it’s made all the difference to the Mullens. Brought them all back to life, you might even say.”
• • •
THE PASSENGERS WERE coming off the ferry just as Jack and Anna left the train station, a small crowd of people on their way to Tottenville. The last person they passed was a priest in a Roman collar, a man in his fifties or more, rotund, with blazing red cheeks and sharp blue eyes. This would be the evasive Father McKinnawae, Jack was fairly sure. But there was no time to stop and introduce themselves. It was a conversation that would need careful planning.
“Maybe I should write to him again,” Anna said when the ferry had begun its trip north on Raritan Bay.
“It would be better if I approached him,” Jack said. “If you can leave that to me once the inquest is over. At least we know the baby is healthy and in good hands.”
“Yes,” Anna said. “That’s one less thing to worry about. I don’t mind admitting, my head is spinning.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Jack said, slipping an arm around her shoulders.
She gave him a half smile. “It will be a very strange honeymoon. I have surgery all tomorrow morning and then in the afternoon—”
Her expression was almost blank when she was thinking about the inquest. Out of self-preservation, Jack thought. Distancing herself in any way she could in order to better see and understand and analyze.
“We’ll have to be inventive,” he whispered against her ear, and she smiled and shivered a little.
Then he saw her attention shift to the empty seat beside her where an abandoned newspaper fluttered in the breeze. She leaned over to pick it up, and Jack saw the headline, each word like a slash:
FOUR CAMPBELL SONS MISSING
INQUEST INTO MOTHER’S DEATH STARTS TOMORROW
• • •
CAP SAID, “YOU must have that telegram by heart now. How many times have you read it?”
“I’ll keep reading it until they show up at the door and I know it’s really true.”
In fact Sophie didn’t doubt the news at all, but studying the telegram gave her a few moments to think of other things without being observed too closely. A necessary deception, she told herself. Cap was still recovering from Friday, and she had gone to some lengths to see that nothing new was laid before him for as long as humanly possible. If their places were reversed she would not thank him for such interference, but she was his physician as well as his wife, and as such it was her responsibility. And more than that, she could not bring herself to open up the discussion of the Campbell boys; she could barely stand to think about them at all.
And still the image of Janine Campbell as she had last seen her would not be banished. All over the city people were convincing themselves that she had killed her sons, but Sophie hadn’t seen any evidence of psychosis when she saw her, just weeks ago. Depression, yes. Anger, too, and despair. But to deliberately set out with the boys to kill them and return home alone, that required a coldhearted forethought or a complete break with reality, neither of which she could see.
When the door chime came to them Cap said, “Go on, I know you can’t wait.”
She flew across the room and smiled at him from the door as she took off her protective mask. “I’ll bring them straight up.”
• • •
ANNA LOOKED ALMOST burnished, as if she had been buffeted by hard winds off a cold sea and then polished by sunlight. And she was smiling, a sincere smile without artifice. Sophie folded her cousin into her arms and hugged her as hard as she could.
“Ouch.” Anna laughed, pulling away. “You never will learn your own strength.”
Sophie turned to Jack and hugged him, too, and got no complaints.
“You two,” Sophie said. “Always up to tricks.” She had tears in her eyes, but she didn’t care and for once Anna didn’t seem to mind at all. Her calm, resolute, generally impenetrable expression was gone. For today, at least.
“How’s Cap?” Jack wanted to know.
“Fairly calm. Recovering.” It was close enough to the truth. “He met with Conrad for two hours this afternoon and then I put an end to it. But we can talk about that later.”
They started up the stairs and Sophie noticed the paper tucked under Jack’s arm.
He caught her gaze and nodded.
Sophie said, “Let’s leave that sorry business aside for now too, can we do that? He hasn’t seen the paper yet.”
Anna raised a brow in surprise. “Cap without the Sunday newspapers—”
“It took some finagling,” Sophie admitted. “And now I’m going to insist that we leave everything else aside, to celebrate—”
“Anna’s capitulation,” Jack supplied.
Anna paused on the stair to look over her shoulder and raise her brow at him. “I’ll argue with you about that word later.”
“And I’ll look forward to the argument.”
It was good to see them bantering and at ease with each other. Sophie wished she could say the same of herself and Cap. He was distant and worried and in pain, and she wanted very badly to get him on the next ship that left New York harbor. Anna would know all this without being told in explicit terms. No doubt she had spoken to Jack about it. For the moment, though, Anna’s attention was focused in a different direction.
“Have you had word from Roses today?” she asked.
From his room Cap called out, “An avalanche of words. One note after the other.”
Anna stopped in the doorway to look at him. “Not about a party, I hope.”
Sophie nudged her into the room and took Jack’s arm to get him moving, too. Then she closed the door behind them.
“Of course,” Cap said. “You didn’t really think you could talk them out of one, I hope.”
Jack said, “Cap, you look a sight better than the last time I saw you. Marriage agrees with you.”
Cap’s lopsided grin came and went. “You have dark circles under your eyes, so I’ll assume the same for you.”
Sophie let out a squawk of surprised laughter, but Anna just frowned at Cap. “Marriage hasn’t done anything for your manners. But I am glad to see you, nonetheless.”
Jack said, “So you’re saying we need to be prepared for a surprise party when we get to Roses?”
Sophie shot Cap an irritated frown, but she should have known he couldn’t keep the news to himself.
“You might as well tell us,” Anna said. “What is Auntie up to?”
“Never mind about Auntie for the moment,” Sophie said. “Let’s sit down. I want to hear about this sudden launch into marriage. Every detail. Right from the beginning.”
The conversation stretched from one side of the room to the other, where Cap sat in strict isolation. Sophie thought she might someday get used to this, this being close and far at once. If fate was kind she would have the chance.
Cap said, “If you wanted to get married in a hurry you didn’t need to go off to Staten Island. You could have done it at City Hall with less fuss.”
“We didn’t go to Staten Island thinking we’d get married,” Jack said. “That was just fortunate timing and my good luck.”
“They went to talk to the priest about the littlest Russo boy,” Sophie reminded Cap. She turned to Anna. “No success?”
“We didn’t find Father McKinnawae,” Anna said, and then hesitated, her face turned toward the closed door. “What are those voices I’m hearing downstairs?”
Sophie shrugged at her apologetically. “You knew Auntie couldn’t help herself.”
“Everybody? The whole household is here?”
“Your people too,” Cap said to Jack. “You never said your father was a giant.”
Jack’s expression had been calm, almost sleepy, Sophie thought, but his head came around with a jerk.
“My people?”
“Your sisters, and your parents,” Sophie said. “Aunts, uncles, a couple brothers. I didn’t catch all the names.”
Anna gave a small shake of the head, and then she laughed.
“We thought we were so clever,” she said. “That will show us.”
Jack put a hand on her neck and kissed the top of her head. “Between my sisters and your aunt it was inevitable. None of them has any self-control when it comes to a party.”
“They love you,” Sophie said. “We love you. And we’re all happy for you.”
Cap said, “You’d better go down before they storm the castle, but tell us first about what happened on Staten Island. You didn’t find your Father McKinnawae, but something happened, I can tell from Anna’s expression.”
Anna said, “We can’t talk about this with the Russo girls in the house. Not a word about Father McKinnawae or Staten Island. Not today. Maybe not ever.”
“You found him,” Sophie said. “You found Vittorio?”
Anna nodded and Jack studied his shoes. Another set of complications, something Sophie hadn’t anticipated.
“You’re right,” Cap said. “This is a discussion for another day. Go on now, there’s a party waiting to get started in the garden. Come back up here when you can,” he added. “That will be time enough to talk about the inquest and the Campbell boys.”
Sophie froze where she stood.
From the door Anna looked back at her. “Of course he’s read the papers. You know how he is.”
“She did her best to keep them from me,” Cap said. “But all she had was Mrs. Harrison helping her, while I had Mr. Vine on my side, and Mr. Vine has a checkered but quite useful past when it comes to smuggling.”
• • •
IN THE HALL outside Cap’s room Sophie said, “I did try to hide the news from him. Or I suppose I was trying to hide it from myself. I can’t bear to think about those boys.”
Anna put an arm
around her shoulder and kissed her cheek. “Sophie, I don’t mean to be unfeeling, really. I am terribly worried about the Campbell boys, but I’m asking you to put all that aside for just a little while. I’m about to meet my parents-in-law and I can’t think of much else.”
“Come on then,” Jack said with a resigned smile. “Let’s put you out of your misery.”
“I don’t even have time to change into better clothes,” Anna mumbled, but she let herself be led downstairs.
“We’ve been outmaneuvered,” Jack said, squeezing her hand. “Let’s surrender with our dignity intact.”
• • •
THE FIRST THING Anna noticed as they walked into the garden was Rosa and Lia, each of them hopping in excitement, their arms full of flowers. They hurtled themselves toward her, and she crouched down, arms spread, to catch them up. She thought, Your brother is healthy and well and I’m sorry I can’t say even that much to you. Instead she hugged them and kissed their cheeks and took the bouquets they thrust at her, fat pink and white peonies so full of scent that she sneezed, and set the whole party to laughing.
When she looked up Aunt Quinlan was there, leaning on her cane. Anna went to her, this small woman as fragile as an iron rod, unflinching and absolute in her love and devotion. She pressed her face to her aunt’s and drew in a deep breath. There was nothing to say, because she couldn’t put what she was feeling into words.
“Come now,” her aunt said. “Let me have a look at this husband of yours, and then we’ll sit down with your new family.”
• • •
FROM THE HALL windows Sophie and Cap watched as Anna was drawn into the circle of Jack’s family, with his mother at the center and his father as tall and solid as a tree trunk beside her. Jack was very tall, but his father was a half head taller still. Mrs. Mezzanotte was straight and strong too, a woman sure of herself, with a gaze that was not stern, exactly, but missed nothing. Very much like Anna herself. Her two daughters were with her, the quiet and gentle Celestina and Bambina, younger and harder of heart, and two aunts. All of the women stepped forward to draw Anna in while the men of the family looked on.