Murder in a mill town by P.B. RYAN Read Free Book Online Page A

was serving a thirty year prison sentence—but not for what he’d done to her. His conviction was for the crimes of armed robbery and aggravated assault, committed the day before his attack on her.
    His first letter, dated May 15 th , had left her stunned and shaken. Why, after all these years, had he decided to reestablish contact with her? And how on earth had he found out that she had moved to Boston and was living at 148 Tremont Street? How did he know she was a governess, and that she worked for the Hewitts?
    The tone of the letter—so sincere, so penitent—did little to comfort her. Hadn’t he always known how to act and what to say to make her forget, or overlook, what he really was? Uneducated he might be. Unintelligent? Hardly. Oh, he could play dumb when it suited him, but a stupid man could never have taken such effortless command of Nell’s heart and soul, could never have talked her into the things he’d talked her into, could never have made her—pragmatic creature that she was, and no fool herself, even in her adolescence—love him beyond all reason.
    As contrite and affectionate as his first letter was, Nell had felt not the slightest temptation to answer it. He’d gotten his claws around her once; she wasn’t about to step into his cage and let him try it again. The second letter, which had arrived three weeks later, unnerved her even more than the first.
If you coud find it in your heart to come visit me, I could say these things out loud like a man instead of just scraching them onto this paper like a coward. Please, Nell...
    Please, Nell...Please, Nell...Please...
    That had been his tormented refrain over the past four months. Come see me once, just once, and then you’ll never have to hear from me again.
    She’d gotten into the habit of listening for the postman so that she could be the first to sort through the newly arrived mail stacked on the Hewitts’ monumental, mirrored hallstand. God forbid one of the family—or Mrs. Mott!—were to notice a letter addressed to her with
Massachusetts State Prison
on the back.
    She thought she’d have a reprieve when she left Boston in mid-July to spend six weeks with the Hewitts at Falconwood, their Cape Cod summer home, as she did every year. A week after arriving there, she was appalled to receive a letter from Duncan bearing the address of Falconwood. It was as if he was an all-seeing, all-knowing god...or wanted her to think of him that way.
    The carriage rattled to a halt outside a tall iron gate manned by two uniformed guards. Nell showed them Viola’s letter and explained that she was here to see the warden. They waved the coach through the gate, directing Brady to a courtyard anchored by a fort-like building that bore an uncanny resemblance to the Hewitt wool factory. It was the prison’s administrative building where, according to the guards, the warden’s office would be located. To the left was another large building, even more forbidding in appearance, with iron bars on the windows; to the right, two big barnlike structures from which came a cacophony of hammering and clanging.
    “You want me to go in with you?” Brady asked as he helped her down from the coach.
    She shook her head. “No, I’m fine.”
    “You sure, miss?”
    No.
“Yes, I’m sure.”
     
     

Chapter 5
     
     
    “Virgil Hines?” The warden, a florid, jowly fellow named Clarence Whitcomb, leaned back heavily in his chair, which groaned under his weight. “He hadn’t been what you’d call a model prisoner, certainly, but not as irredeemable as some. Of rather...limited intellect, I should say, but not altogether dim. Likeable, in his way. Rather, er, glib in temperament—more talkative than most. You’d hear him laughing when he ought not to have. Silence is highly prized here.”
    “Is it?” asked Nell from across what seemed like an acre of polished walnut. With the heavy curtains drawn and only a single desk lamp to dispel the gloom in the oak-paneled