Read Online Death at Pullman by Frances McNamara - Free Book Online Page A

saw Gracie finally remove her gaze from him and my eyes followed to where a gleaming horse and buggy were trotting up the dirt road. She nodded towards it and looked me in the eye.
    â€œBut I no longer care for the church or anyone else. Mr. Mooney is not Catholic but he has asked me to marry him and I will. Mr. Mooney is not a union man and Mr. Mooney is not a creature of Pullman.” With that she left me to step towards the buggy that drew to a halt. It was a short, fussy man who carefully set the reins and whip and climbed down to greet Gracie Foley. He wore a bowler hat and a slick black suit with stripes and shiny patent leather boots. From where I stood, I thought he looked at least as old as Mr. MacGregor and his height was such that his eyes barely reached Gracie’s shoulder. But he took her hand and bowed over it and reached up into the carriage for a large bunch of lilies that he placed in her arms. When he followed her as she headed back to the shack I saw him nod to the men with the wagon bearing the wooden coffin and I thought perhaps it would be with his assistance that Brian O’Malley was decently buried that day.
    I was relieved to see Detective Whitbread and the doctor exiting the house before Gracie returned. And I was impressed to see Mr. Mooney introduce himself and listen with deliberation as they explained their errand. It seemed to me it was only with his express dismissal that they turned away and joined me.
    â€œMr. MacGregor has already walked to the shed,” I told the doctor as he joined me. Whitbread was instructing the driver of our carriage where to meet us. I looked around for Alden and saw him standing with a group of men near the back by the lean-to. I made a move towards him, but Dr. Chapman put a hand on my arm.
    â€œI should leave him.”
    â€œBut, the way he’s behaving, I’m afraid he’ll give offense.” It seemed to me that he and the other men were standing around talking and laughing. I was afraid of what Gracie Foley would say if she caught them at it. “What will Mrs. Foley think?”
    â€œIt’s a custom,” Dr. Chapman told me, taking my arm and leading me after the detective, who had begun his long-legged trek across the mud to the shed. “The men gather and tell stories about the dead man. They even pass around a jug.” He hung on to me as I squirmed around to look. “It’s a rite of passing. The women ignore it, as they ignore much they don’t approve of in their men.”
    With a sigh I gave up on my brother and concentrated on getting to the shed. Gracie Foley’s bitter history was on my mind as I trudged along beside the man I had chosen not to marry. For Gracie, like so many women, marrying Mr. Mooney was a feat and she paraded him as an accomplishment she was proud of. My own younger sister, Rose, had done no less when she announced her engagement to the son of an important banking family in Boston. My move to Chicago to study at the university had allowed me to avoid such an accomplishment. But it had not been achieved easily and my own actions had exiled me. Faced with an opportunity to return to those studies on my own terms, or to accept the protection of the doctor, I had refused to be sheltered. It was not an accomplishment in my eyes, it was a defeat—or it would have been for me.
    I took a final look back at the decrepit shack, and the impeccable livery of Mr. Mooney that would take Gracie Foley away from it all, then turned firmly forward to enter the building where her brother had been killed. Earlier, Mr. MacGregor explained to me that the shed was used to dry the bricks that were made from the mud of the surrounding area.
    We found Detective Whitbread in consultation with Mr. MacGregor, hearing his version of the scene the day before. He climbed around examining the ropes and pulleys, then took me through my own description of what I had seen, stopping me again and again to