Carved in Stone Read online

  Her grandfather’s terms were nonnegotiable, and Gwen felt compelled to accept. It wasn’t what she’d hoped. She now had to deliver on this unsavory deal or her grandfather would never reverse Uncle Oscar’s decision to yank the college’s funding.

  But she was not without hope. In her experience, lawyers would do anything for a quick payoff, and she suspected any man who aligned himself with Mick Malone would be no different.

  3

  Patrick poured more water over the pot of wilting marigolds on his office’s window ledge. It hadn’t looked this droopy when he bought it last week, and he’d been watering it daily in hope of a resurrection. His mother swore that talking to plants could perk them up, but Patrick couldn’t bring himself to do it.

  Besides, he had a meeting with a prospective client in a few minutes. He had no idea what Mrs. Gwen Kellerman wanted, but he hoped she could pay in cash instead of eggs or laundry service. The rent on his office was due in two weeks, and he needed the money.

  It wasn’t much of an office. No telephone, no electricity, and only a single window with a view of the brick wall across the alley. He kept the window and office door open to encourage a little breeze, even though it exposed him to noise from a leather-stamping shop below. It wasn’t anyone’s idea of an ideal office, but it came with a desk and a filing cabinet, which was all he needed. A scrap of paper folded into a tight square and placed beneath the leg of his rickety desk kept it steady, so all was perfectly fine.

  Except for this miserable, wilting plant on the windowsill. “Come on, what is it you want?” he broke down and asked the plant.

  “It wants a little air for its roots,” a cool voice said behind him. “You’re drowning that poor marigold.”

  Patrick almost dropped the plant when he spotted the woman standing in the open doorway of his office. What a stunner! She had pale green eyes and a long braid of honey-blond hair draped over her shoulder. She looked serene. It was the perfect word to describe that swanlike neck and gentle humor on her face. She wore a loose, flowing gown in a soft printed silk and was probably the prettiest woman he’d ever seen.

  “Mrs. Kellerman?” he asked, holding his breath in silent prayer. She looked like someone who could pay in cash, and a client like this could pay his office rent for months.

  “Indeed,” she replied. “And you are Mr. O’Neill?”

  “That I am,” he said, stepping around the desk to tilt an office chair toward her. Too late, he noticed an ugly beetle squatting in the center of the seat and blanched, but she calmly picked it up before he could knock it away.

  “Beetles are good luck,” she said, cradling it in her palm as she carried it to the open window and set it on the ledge. “This one eats aphids, so you should count yourself fortunate.”

  He counted himself a prime idiot for making a terrible first impression, but she didn’t seem upset as she returned to sit in the same chair that had so recently housed that beetle. He was about to apologize for it when he noticed two hulking men standing in the hall outside his office.

  “Who are the toughies?” he asked, immediately on guard. The men exuded menacing suspicion despite their fine clothing.

  “They accompanied me here,” she replied. She glanced over her shoulder at the closest man. “It’s all right, Zeke. I’ll be fine if you’d like to wait downstairs.”

  “Begging your pardon, ma’am,” Zeke said, “but we’ll wait right here.”

  “Very well,” Mrs. Kellerman said. She stood to close the door, but the shadowy outlines of the men were still apparent through the frosted glass. “I hope you don’t mind,” she said to Patrick. “The Five Points has a rather alarming reputation, and I didn’t feel comfortable coming alone.”

  It was understandable. The Five Points was named after the intersection of five streets in the middle of urban squalor and ramshackle tenements. It was the most notorious slum in the city, ruled by rough Irish street gangs when Patrick arrived almost two decades earlier. In recent years, reform-minded New Yorkers had torn down some of the worst tenements, renamed the streets, and tried to give the slum a new reputation, but he could understand that a woman like Mrs. Kellerman wouldn’t feel comfortable coming to this part of the city.

  “How can I be of service, Mrs. Kellerman?”

  Instead of answering, she nodded to the plant on the windowsill. “You’ve been overwatering that marigold, which is a shame. Marigold leaves can be brewed into a wonderfully healing solution with astringent properties.”

  He leaned back in his seat, wishing she would keep talking. Her voice was so gentle. It was calming and joyful at the same time. Soothing. “How do you know so much about marigolds?”

  “In my deepest heart, I once wished to become a specialist in botanical medicine,” she said, a gorgeous shade of pink staining her high cheekbones. “I wanted to become the next Hildegard of Bingen, growing a monastic garden brimming with herbs and plants to cure the people who came to her hospital for hope.”

  Patrick knew all about the medieval Benedictine nun. After all, he had a Saint Hildegard medal around his neck at this very moment. He always wore it beneath his shirt because he didn’t want people thinking he was a superstitious clodhopper, but he couldn’t help himself. He tugged the medal out from his shirt to show her.

  “Hildegard is my patron saint,” he said. “I was born on her feast day, and I always liked the idea of a nun who could stand up to kings and popes.” Mrs. Kellerman didn’t seem the least put out by his saint’s medal, but it was probably time to get down to business. He tucked the medal back under his shirt. “Now, what can I do for you, Mrs. Kellerman?”

  The warmth in her face cooled. “I’ve come to ask why a respectable lawyer would lower himself to represent a murderer like Mick Malone.”

  It felt like a kick in the gut. Mick Malone was the seediest character he’d represented in his eight years as a lawyer, and he didn’t like that she threw it in his face.

  “The jury found him not guilty,” he said simply.

  “We both know that many factors went into that verdict, and none of them had anything to do with Mr. Malone’s innocence. No reputable man would have anything to do with him.”

  Probably, but he wouldn’t betray a client by gossiping about him with a complete stranger. “And what makes you think I’m a reputable man?”

  “Because you were educated by the Franciscans at Saint Boniface College. I know that you were a hairsbreadth away from taking vows into the priesthood and have performed free legal services for the church ever since. I know you volunteer at a Salvation Army soup kitchen every Saturday and are universally trusted by the people of the Five Points.”

  “You’ve done your homework,” he said, his discomfort growing. She’d obviously sought him out over the Malone affair, and he saw no point in wasting time beating around the bush. “But I’d much rather discuss what brings you here today than my sad and stifled history with the Franciscans.”

  “I’m disappointed you are representing Mr. Malone,” she said. “I was hoping you might reconsider the situation.”

  “No.”

  “I wonder what Father Doyle would think of your affiliation with Mr. Malone.”

  “You know Father Doyle?” he asked in surprise. Father Doyle was his mentor at Saint Boniface and possibly the best man Patrick had ever known. The hardest thing about turning away from the priesthood was disappointing Father Doyle.

  “Father Doyle showed me how to cultivate white willow bark and taught me its anti-inflammatory properties,” she said. “He is a saintly man, and I can’t imagine he would approve of his former pupil taking on such a disagreeable client.”

  “It was Father Doyle who asked me to do it.”

  That got her attention. “No!” she exclaimed in an appalled voice.

  He held his hand up in a helpless gesture. “Ask him if you don’t believe me. I know the entire world thinks Mick Malone is guilty, but that trial happened long before you or I were old enough to know anything about it. He is entitled to tell his story, even if it wakes up the Blackstone sleeping dragon.”

  “It’s already woken the sleeping dragon, which is why I am here to offer your client a thousand dollars to stop publication of his memoir and avoid a long and costly lawsuit.”

  He shook his head. “I doubt he’ll take it.”

  “The Blackstones will pay Mr. Malone’s attorney the same amount if his client accepts the offer.”

  Patrick leaned back in his chair, rubbing his jaw. This was a tactic he hadn’t seen coming, but he couldn’t even think about accepting the deal. Could he? A thousand dollars was more than he’d ever earned on a single case. It would mean his mother could quit working extra shifts at the bakery.

  But it would be a betrayal of a client. It was suddenly warm in the office and perspiration prickled beneath his suit jacket. He couldn’t do it.

  “That seems like double-crossing my client, and I’m an upright man.” Which was sometimes a shame. Mrs. Kellerman was a stunning woman, tall and willowy and fit. He wasn’t free to pursue a married woman, but admiring her seemed fair game.

  Her voice was cool as she kept up the pressure. “Frederick Blackstone will file a blizzard of lawsuits to stop publication of Malone’s book,” she said. “You can help your client avoid all that, and each of you can pocket a tidy sum. We can conclude this business by the close of business today.”

  “Who sent you here?” he asked her. “The Blackstones?”

  She nodded.

  He stood. “Let me tell you what I think of the Blackstones and their mercenary techniques for extracting every drop of blood from the working classes. They slap their name on charities and toss around a few dollars, hoping to disguise decades of ruthless exploitation, and assume all is forg
iven.”

  “They toss around millions of dollars, and it must not have worked if you still have such a poor opinion of them.”

  Patrick had known from the day he accepted this case that the Blackstones would come after him. This morning he’d learned that they filed for a preliminary injunction to stop the memoir, but he hadn’t expected a second salvo to come in the beguiling form of Mrs. Kellerman.

  “Why did they send you?” he asked. “Why not a few of their high-powered lawyers?”

  She laughed a little. “That was my grandfather’s first impulse, but we decided to try honey before vinegar.”

  He froze. “We? You’re related to them?”

  “My maiden name is Blackstone,” she said. “William Blackstone was my brother.” She waved a hand toward the shadowy figures of the men outside his door. “I’ve always had bodyguards. My father lived in terror that history might repeat itself, and he kept me sheltered until the day he died. Losing my brother was a wound that never fully healed for either of us.”

  A deluge of embarrassment threatened to drown Patrick. “My pardon. I didn’t realize your connection to the case. Of course you have every reason to resent Mick Malone. I hope you can understand. . . .”

  He hoped she could understand that lawyers sometimes had to hold their noses and take unpopular clients. The justice system could never be fair unless everyone had access to a lawyer. Everyone. Even unsavory people like Mick Malone.

  “I understand that money can do strange things to people who lack it,” she said. “We can avoid the legal assault my family is prepared to throw against Mr. Malone and settle this quickly. All your client needs to do is sign an agreement never to publish a memoir.”

  She set the proposed contract on his desk. He snatched it up and quickly skimmed four pages of text that would effectively hogtie Malone from ever profiting off the 1870 crime.

  It was probably a trap. The Blackstones wouldn’t let Malone get away this easily.

  He tossed the papers down on his desk. “I don’t trust it.”

  She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter what you think of our offer. You have a legal obligation to present it to your client, and if he takes the deal, you will be well compensated for your services.”

  She left the office in a swirl of silk and the scent of rose water. His mouth went dry, and his heart sped up. Gwen Kellerman was temptation personified, and it had nothing to do with the money she dangled before him. It was the alluring and unsettling effect she had on him as a man, and that alarmed him more than anything.

  4

  Patrick needed to convey Mrs. Kellerman’s surprising offer to Mick Malone. The sale of the book would earn more in the long run, but Mick might take the quick payoff to avoid the legal hassles. Either way, Patrick wouldn’t take her bribe. He liked his integrity too much to sacrifice it for a little quick cash.

  Mick lived in a seedy rooming house just off Mulberry Street. The late-afternoon sun warmed the pavement and mingled with the stink from chimney stacks, salted cod, and rubbish collecting in the alleys. The air rumbled as an elevated train passed overhead. Peddlers hawked their wares, and children played in the alleys. It was a rough neighborhood without a blade of grass, just buckled concrete and hard-packed dirt.

  The Five Points had horrified Patrick when he arrived as a fourteen-year-old immigrant. Ireland was poor, but it was a rural poverty that didn’t feel so desperately bleak. The raucous squalor of the Five Points was alien to him. All he could see from the roof of his boardinghouse were endless streets of concrete, laundry lines, and chimney stacks. Women shouted from windows to their children below, roving gangs intimidated shopkeepers, and he’d been forced to grow up fast.

  The Irish gangs were tough, but Patrick rubbed along okay with them. By the time he was sixteen, he’d learned to fight and was soon earning a pretty penny in the bare-knuckle boxing pens. It was a brutal way to earn a living, but he was big, fast, and tough. Were it not for Father Doyle, Patrick would have eventually become one of those Irish gangsters, but God had other plans for him.

  The stairway in Mick’s tenement was so cramped that Patrick had to duck as he climbed to the third-floor hallway. Water stains marred the plaster, and a single lightbulb provided dim illumination for the entire hall.

  He knocked on Mick’s door and waited. It cracked open to reveal the suspicious eyes of Mick’s wife. Ruby Malone’s face immediately brightened when she recognized him.

  “Patrick, love!” Ruby exclaimed, reaching a hand through the narrow opening to cuff him on the shoulder. She had been named for her fiery-red hair, although it was now faded with age. Rumor had it she was the best pickpocket in the neighborhood and had only been imprisoned for it twice.

  “Mrs. Malone,” he said respectfully. “Can I come inside?”

  The narrow gap closed an inch more. “I’m afraid I can’t invite you in. What do you need, love?”

  “To talk with Mick. Is he here?”

  She rolled her eyes. “He’s at the pub already. The one on Anthony Street.”

  “Can I come in? I’d like to speak to you as well.”

  The opening in the doorway narrowed even farther. “Oh, this isn’t a sight for your saintly eyes. Good day to you, Patrick.”

  The door slammed in his face.

  Was it possible Ruby had a man inside? Mick and Ruby were famous for their long, loud, and boisterous marriage of thirty years, but Mick had a roving eye, and maybe Ruby was balancing the scales. Or fencing stolen property. Whatever was going on in that room, he wasn’t welcome inside, so he headed to Anthony Street in search of Mick.

  He wasn’t hard to find. A crowd had already gathered at the pub, and Mick was holding court in the middle of it. He was a gangly man with a swath of long, yellowy-white hair. He held a crowd spellbound, gesturing with his hands as he gazed into space, his Irish brogue thick as he spun his tales.

  “Ireland is home of the proud, but it doesn’t have the freedom that I’ve found in America,” he said. “The Irishmen of the Five Points are grumbling, growling, strong, and loyal. We’ve grabbed our plot of this godforsaken city and made it our own. We may be poor, but we are free men!” he roared. “The days of crawling on our bellies are over. We bow to no one. We fear no one.”

  Some good-natured foot stomping and growls of approval rose from the crowd, but a voice from the back challenged him. “Not even the Blackstones?”

  “Especially not the Blackstones,” Mick said, warming to the topic. “Oh, they had me once,” he conceded. “They locked me in a dungeon and tried to send me to the gallows, but they couldn’t break me. No, sir! And my loyal Ruby visited me every day in that dank cell. She was a font of female compassion, a balm for any man’s abused soul.”

  A few catcalls rang out, but Mick caught Patrick’s gaze through the smoky interior.

  “Well then, not-quite-Father Patrick,” Mick called out. “What brings you into this den of iniquity?”

  “We’ve got business to discuss.”

  Mick straightened a little. “You hear that, lads? I’ve got important business with the neighborhood’s best lawyer. Let me have a beer first.”

  Patrick shook his head. “Sorry, Mick. I promised my mother I’d bring home dinner, and she’s waiting. Let’s go outside now.”

  Mick didn’t look happy about it, but he followed Patrick out the pub’s back door. Talking about Mrs. Kellerman’s surprising offer on a public street wasn’t ideal. There were people in this neighborhood who’d kill for a thousand dollars, but Ruby had made it plain Patrick wasn’t welcome at their place.

  “Well?” Mick asked as they shuffled into the grubby alley behind the pub. “How many copies of my book are they going to print? And when can I get paid for them?” His hand trembled as he lit a cigarette.

  Mick would get fifteen percent of the book’s profit, and Patrick would get two percent if he won the lawsuits the Blackstones were sure to launch. The money would be welcome, but the bigger prize would be publicity for Patrick’s legal services. Winning a case against the Blackstones’ intimidating phalanx of lawyers would catapult him to fame in the city, but first he was legally obligated to pass along Mrs. Kellerman’s offer.