From This Moment (11 page)

She drew closer. Ernest had been using a lump of charcoal to make a rubbing of the nameplate beneath a bust of Crispus Attucks, a black man killed during the Boston Massacre. Stella read the commemorative passage beneath his bust, which indicated that Attucks was regarded as the first casualty of the American Revolution. The typeface on the plaque looked like ordinary text to her, but Ernest was unusually fascinated.

“None of the other commemorative plaques use this particular font. I must do more research into where it came from.”

Stella didn’t quite know what to say, but it certainly appeared Ernest was flummoxed by his inability to identify the typeface. “Do tell me what you learn,” she said, for she had no doubt the archivist would obsess over this until the mystery was solved.

But she had her own mystery to solve. Beyond the Hall of Heroes were dozens of framed photographs of important events from the recent past. The photographs memorialized presidential visits, the swearing-in of governors, and groundbreaking events. Nameplates beneath the photographs listed the dignitaries in the picture. Might A.G. be in one of the photographs? She headed toward the photographs at the far end of the gallery to begin scrutinizing the prominent men of Boston, searching for Gwendolyn’s man.

One of the photographs was of the groundbreaking for the Boston subway only two years ago, the men wearing heavy coats and bowler hats and lined up around a small stone, a shovel propped in the mayor’s hand. Alongside him were other elected officials, engineers, and some of Boston’s financiers. She smiled when she glimpsed Romulus White in the line, looking chilly and serious as he stared at the camera. She skimmed the brass nameplate beneath the photograph, looking for someone with the initials A.G. Twelve men were listed on the nameplate, but none matched A.G.

“Miss West!” a voice barked behind her.

She startled and whirled around to see Mr. Grimes, the man in charge of hiring all clerical positions in City Hall. She wrinkled her brow as three police officers trailed after him.

“What precisely are your credentials for being a government stenographer?”

It was a strange question for him to ask, for it was Mr. Grimes himself who had interviewed her for the position. Why was he
asking about her credentials now? And why were those three police officers here?

“I learned stenography in college,” she said truthfully.

“Which college?”

It was the question she’d dreaded. When she’d interviewed for the position, she had shed both her last name and the name of Cornell from her record. She wanted nothing that might draw a connection between her and Gwendolyn, but she didn’t want to be trapped in a lie.

“Why do you ask?” At her interview, she had been required to demonstrate her skills, not produce college transcripts.

“I have reason to believe you may not be adequate to the job for which you have been hired,” Mr. Grimes said, and Stella silently groaned as Nellie’s smirking face rose in her mind. It seemed her scornful colleague had tattled on her.

She lifted her chin a notch. “This is the first complaint I’ve heard.”

“Not only are you a poor stenographer, it appears you falsified your application when you claimed to learn stenography through personal study rather than classes at Cornell University. That qualifies as a lie on a government application.”

This couldn’t be happening. It was no crime to omit a piece of information on an application, but it seemed Mr. Grimes had gone through an unusual degree of diligence in researching her background.

He glanced at the officers crowding the hallway behind him. “Naturally I consulted the Boston Police about my concerns, and imagine my surprise when they were already well acquainted with Miss Stella West. Or should I say Stella Westergaard? Surely it is no coincidence that you have schemed your way into your sister’s old position. What have you to say for yourself?”

She clamped her mouth shut. Of course she’d been honest
with the police department about her relation to Gwendolyn, for it was her best shot of convincing them she had useful information to share about Gwendolyn’s character and ability to swim.

Ernest Palmer watched silently from down the hallway, confusion and concern on his face. It was embarrassing to be badgered like this in front of him, but she had bigger concerns to worry about.

“Search her bag for misappropriated government property,” Mr. Grimes said. One of the police officers grabbed her bag.

“You can’t do this!” she cried. “That bag is my personal property!”

The officer ignored her as he upended her bag, spilling her coin purse, an engraved silver pen, and some hair pins across the floor. She clenched her teeth as one of the officers squatted down to paw through her belongings.

“Your employment here is terminated. The officers shall escort you from the premises.”

She still couldn’t believe this was happening, but even as she stepped back from the approaching officer, a terrible thought struck. “I need to get things from my desk upstairs.” The note with the names of men who might be A.G. was taped to her desk drawer, and she
needed
that note. She moved to step around Mr. Grimes and head to the elevator.

Mr. Grimes was one step ahead of her, blocking her passage. “You may make a list of any personal property and it will be retrieved for you, but you may not return to your desk.”

Her mouth went dry. She couldn’t tell him about that list. How could she explain why she had it taped to the underside of her desk drawer? To do so would be shining a spotlight on each of the men on that list, and it might put A.G. in danger. He was the only person who truly knew what Gwendolyn had been up against, and Stella felt an instinctive urge to protect him.

“Well? What shall I have the officer retrieve?”

Every muscle in her body wanted to sprint upstairs and snatch that note from its hiding place, but there were three police officers watching her every move. Her only hope of getting the list back was to remain silent until she had a better strategy.

“There’s nothing,” she said stiffly, and three minutes later, she had been escorted outside, down the steps of City Hall, and told not to come back.

She stood on the cobblestone walkway, heedless of the pedestrians jostling around her. She’d just lost six weeks’ worth of work, all because she had been too nervous to bring that list of names home where her landlord was known to poke through her room.

She didn’t know what to do. She had no friends at City Hall and no alternate plan for figuring out what had happened to her sister. Her only hope for finding Gwendolyn’s ally was taped to her desk drawer, and for all she knew, that desk was being cleaned out as she stood here on the sidewalk.

She had to put a stop to it. She had to know her rights and, if humanly possible, she had to get that list back.

Romulus White knew everybody and everything about Boston. Before she even had a coherent idea of what to ask him, she’d turned around, lifted her skirts, and begun running toward the offices of
Scientific World.

She was breathless by the time she arrived at the top floor of
Scientific World
. Her feet hurt from the blisters rubbing into her heels and she was thirsty, but none of that mattered. She just needed someone to help her, and Romulus was the closest thing to a friend she had in Boston.

It seemed the office was half empty, which wasn’t surprising since many people probably had left for lunch. Romulus’s
cousin Evelyn was at her desk at the front of the office. She was keying a stream of numbers into an adding machine and looked up when Stella barreled in the door.

“Can I help you?” Evelyn asked coolly.

“Romulus,” Stella said on a ragged breath. “Is he here?” With every moment, the likelihood of her desk contents being cleared out and tossed in the trash increased.

“May I ask who wishes to see him?”

But Stella had already spotted Romulus through the window of his private office. He was alone, and that was all she needed to know. Stella rounded the front desk and dashed across the floor. She rapped on the glass window and entered his office without waiting for a response.

Romulus had been standing at his window with his back to the door, staring down at the activity in the street below. He whirled around at her entrance. “Miss West! I see you are wearing another of your prison-garb ensembles.” He sighed. “Pity, since I know you can do so much better.”

She shut the door. It was hard not to feel like a brown wren beside his flawless attire, but she didn’t care. “I have to quickly solve a problem, and I desperately need your help.”

“Ouch,” Romulus said. “What a split infinitive.”

Stella couldn’t believe her ears. “Are you quibbling over my grammar?”

“No self-respecting publisher can overlook such flawed syntax,” he said. “The modifier goes after the verb, not before. I’m surprised they didn’t teach you that at Cornell.”

While she stood here getting lectured on grammar, the papers in her desk were probably being thrown into the trash and lost to her forever. All her work over the miserable weeks as a stenographer would be useless. She hadn’t had a proper night of sleep in months, her feet hurt, and she was further than ever from finding A.G.

It was too much. She plopped down into the guest chair and burst into tears.

“Oh dear,” Romulus murmured. He rounded his desk to stand awkwardly at her side, but she couldn’t bear to look at him. He was her only hope for finding a way to get into her desk before the horrible Mr. Grimes destroyed her list, and he wanted to argue about grammar. She cried harder.

Romulus tried to offer a handkerchief, but she pushed it away. “Come now,” he coaxed. “This is about more than bad grammar. Tell me.”

“I don’t have bad grammar,” she said on a shuddering breath.

“You do so, dearest . . . but please. I’m afraid I’ve never been able to resist a pretty woman in tears. And you are pretty, despite the potato sack you’re wearing.”

If she wasn’t so terrified of what was happening at her office, she would have laughed. Romulus pulled out his desk chair, folded his hands, and focused his entire attention on her. Blubbering wasn’t going to solve her problem, so she forced herself to calm down and wipe away her tears.

“Out with it,” he said. “What can I do to help?” All trace of teasing was gone, and his voice was tender and genuinely concerned.

“I got fired from my job at City Hall. It doesn’t matter why, but they told me I couldn’t go to my desk to retrieve my personal papers. I have an important document in my desk. I need to get it back before they ruin it.”

“I don’t know how I can help you with that.”

“Can they do that?” she asked. “Is it legal? Don’t I have any rights to my personal property?” She explained how Mr. Grimes had offered to have an officer fetch specified items for her, but she’d turned it down. “They have no business looking at that document. It’s private.”

“I’m no lawyer, but it seems you may not be entitled to privacy for things stored in their desk.”

“But I need that document,” she insisted. “I don’t care if I have to hire a lawyer or a private army to get it back, but it needs to be done quickly. If they clean out my desk, it will probably be thrown away.”

Romulus shifted in his chair, the corners of his mouth turned down and his eyes darkened in concern. He parsed his words carefully. “Miss West, you seem to be engaged in something entirely underhanded. I can’t help you if I don’t have a better understanding of what’s going on.”

His concern was fair. She needed his help, and perhaps if she explained everything, he would be more willing to give it.

“I’ve already told you my sister died under mysterious circumstances. Gwendolyn uncovered a web of corruption at City Hall and was working with a partner to root it out. All I know about her partner is that his initials are A.G. I need to make contact with this man. I’ve spent the past six weeks combing through the archives, trying to identify everyone whose initials are a match. That is the list I need. And I can’t ask them to retrieve it, because that may put this man in danger, or at least under suspicion.”

“Not to question your intelligence, but did you ever consider asking the city for a list of employees? It is a matter of public record.”

She rocked back in her seat. “Could you repeat that, please?”

“Ask for a list of payroll employees. It should be a simple enough matter.”

It could
not
be that easy. She sat staring at Romulus, her mouth hanging open and a wave of heat flooding her body. She knew nothing about running a business or payroll or what was public record, but he seemed to think it possible.

“Given your circumstances, I can understand why you’d be reluctant to ask for such a list at this point. I can have a clerk run over and put in a request. They ought to be able to produce one within a couple of days.”

She unclenched the arms of the chair, and if she hadn’t already been sitting, she probably would have collapsed in relief. “You’d do that for me?”

Before she’d even finished speaking, he had pushed away from the desk and stepped outside, summoning a clerk at a nearby desk and issuing the command to send a runner to City Hall with the request. To her horror, another wave of tears welled inside. This level of help was unfamiliar, and she wanted to weep in gratitude. She tamped it down, forcing herself to draw slow, steady breaths as Romulus returned to the office and shut the door.