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  This book is dedicated to our family. Thank you for the words of encouragement, the frequent check-ins and Zoom calls that made us feel that we were not alone during a scary and unpredictable year. Though we span in ages from seventeen to eighty-seven we find many things to connect us, especially our loud and constant jokes! So here is to our clan: John, Rhys, Clare, Tim, Anne, Jane, Tom, Dominic, Meredith, Sam, Elizabeth, Meghan, TJ, Mary Clare, and Little Dom. We love you all.

  And to the many Rhys Bowen fans who spent time with their favorite characters while they were staying home this year: you are a part of our family too. This new chapter of Molly’s life is for you.

  One

  New York, February 1907

  One thing about New York that is never predictable is the weather. The other thing that has not always been so predictable is my life. I suppose I was destined for trouble in many ways. Never the good child who didn’t question authority. Always with big dreams. My mother used to chant with monotonous regularity that I’d come to a bad end, rolling her eyes as she said it and probably invoking a saint or two as well. Well, the bad end hadn’t happened yet, but I’d certainly come close a few times.

  Now that I was no longer working as a private investigator (at least not officially), things were different. I was a New York housewife like any other, looking forward to a time of settled tranquility with my family and friends around me. Hoping for another baby, actually. The doctor had said there was nothing wrong with me so I should get on with my life and not worry. So that’s just what I was doing—taking care of my husband, my son, Liam, and Bridie, the young Irish girl we had saved from a life of servitude and had now made our ward. All was going remarkably smoothly until a snowman appeared outside my door one February afternoon.

  After a mild January, just when the first snowdrops were blooming, there came a vicious arctic blast that froze any spring flower that had had the nerve to appear. It was bitterly cold and snowed for two days without stopping, making leaving the house almost impossible. Daniel had joined the other men from our little street and dug a narrow pathway to Greenwich Avenue so that he could go to work and Bridie to school. I had been forced to stay home, making do with the supplies on hand. Although I hoped our supply of coal would last, it was rapidly dwindling and everybody was rushing to buy more. We shut off the front parlor and instead huddled in the back room that was normally Daniel’s realm, or sat around the kitchen table, enjoying the warmth from the stove.

  Usually my days involved a visit to my neighbors Sid and Gus. (And in case you are not familiar with my friends and think I am befriending a couple of Irish laborers, let me tell you that they are both young ladies of good family whose given names are Elena and Augusta.) But I had not seen them recently. I suspected they had been busy with their latest project. There was always something new that attracted their attention. They were true Renaissance women, dabbling in art and music and foreign cooking as well as social causes like the suffrage movement. But this wasn’t the time of year for suffrage parades. So I had been wondering if it was just the harsh weather that had kept them away when there was a knock at my front door, late one afternoon.

  “Aunt Sid, Aunt Gus!” Liam shouted excitedly, pushing to the front door ahead of me. Actually it sounded more like “Aaa-Si? Aaa-Gu?” but I knew what he meant.

  “Hey, young man, you stay inside.” I grabbed him by his sweater at the last minute. “It’s cold and snowy out there. And we don’t know if it is Aunt Sid and Aunt Gus.”

  I swept Liam up onto my arms so that he didn’t run out into the snow, then opened the door cautiously, letting in a frigid blast. Liam had been right. It was Sid standing there, her face only just visible under a big shawl.

  “My, but it’s bitter,” she said. “How are you faring, Molly?”

  “We’re huddled in the kitchen. Come inside.”

  “I won’t stay,” she said, “but I’ve brought you some of the Indian vegetable curry we made. We’re devoting ourselves to Indian food at the moment, having decided it’s wrong to kill and eat animals. It’s so good and it will keep you warm. I made far too much for the two of us and there was no way of halving the recipe.”

  “It’s very kind of you,” I said, reaching to put the casserole down on the hall stand. “Are you sure you won’t have a cup of tea?”

  She shook her head. “No, thank you. I must get back. We’ve work to do. We have a great pile of clothing to sort.”

  “Clothing? Are you going through your wardrobes?” It did cross my mind that a few good cast-offs might be coming my way. They had before.

  “Not ours. The Vassar Benevolent Society, of which Gus is currently president, is having a warm clothing drive. So many poor wretches freezing to death in the city. We’ve been collecting items and now our front parlor is full.”

  “I could come over and help you, if you like,” I said.

  “Oh, that’s kind of you, but I think we can handle it,” she said. “Besides, there isn’t space for more than two people in that room at the moment. Sometimes I can’t find Gus under all those clothes.” She smiled. “I’d better not let any more cold air into your house…” She turned to go, then paused, mouth open, and said, “What in heaven’s name?”

  I followed her gaze down the alleyway and there coming toward us was a walking snowman. As it approached it revealed itself to be a person, wrapped in a big white shawl but now covered in snow. I recognized that shawl at the same time that Sid called out, “Bridie? Is that you?”

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” I started toward her. “What on earth were you doing? Rolling in the snow?”

  Bridie staggered toward us, snow falling from her as she came. “Oh, Molly,” she said, and I could tell she was near to tears. “The boys set on me when I was crossing Washington Square. They were having a snowball fight, then they saw me coming and they all turned on me. They pelted me with snowballs. They wouldn’t stop and I couldn’t run through that snow.”

  “Which boys?” I demanded. “Let me get my cape on and I’ll give them a piece of my mind. I’ll teach them to attack young girls.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Sid said. “We’ll teach ’em, won’t we, Molly?”

  Bridie put up a hand to stop me. “It’s no use. The constable on the corner saw them and came after them. They ran off, laughing. Besides, you’ll only make them hate me more.”

  “And why would they hate you?” Sid asked.

  “Because I’m Irish,” she said flatly.

  “Because you’re Irish?”

  She chewed on her lip, which made her look much younger than her thirteen years. “They are mostly Italian in my class. They get into fights with the Irish boys. They call us names.”

  “Don’t they know they’re in America now and everyone is welcome?” Sid demanded. “You need to talk to that principal, Molly.”

  “I most certainly will,” I said.

  I put an arm around her shoulder. “Come inside, my darling. Let’s get you out of those wet things and have a nice hot cup of tea by the fire.” I turned back to Sid. “Thank you for the curry. I must take care of her.”

  I put down Liam and he went up to Bridie, who was now shaking snow off the shawl into the alleyway. “Bwidie all wet,” he said.

  As I was about to close the door Sid grabbed my arm. “Now do you agree with what we’ve been saying? About Bridie, I mean. We can’t leave her at that place any longer.”

  “Let’s not discuss it now.” I shot a warning look at Bridie.

  We went inside and I closed the door. I was tempted to go straight down to that school, or find the boys for myself, but Bridie was shivering and still one step away from tears. “You should get out of those clothes right away. Would you like me to run you a hot bath?” I asked her.

  “No, I’d rather have a cup of tea by the fire,” she said. “It’s awful cold in the bathroom.”

  “It is,” I agreed. “Well, you go up and get changed. We won’t even mind if you put on your nightgown and slippers.”

  She gave me a grateful smile and went up the stairs, snow still falling from her hair.

  “Bwidie cold,” Liam commented as we went through into the kitchen. “Bwidie make snowman?”

  “I think Bridie was a snowman,” I said, having to smile. Out of all of us Liam was the only one who didn’t seem to feel the cold. Still, he had the energy of a naughty two-year-old and was always running, jumping, climbing, and getting into things he shouldn’t.

  My mother-in-law stood up as we came into the kitchen. “What on earth was all that about?” she said. “You kept the front door open for ages, Molly. What were you thinking letting all that cold
air in? We’ll never manage to heat up the place again.”

  My mother-in-law felt the cold most cruelly. We had brought her down to stay with us after she’d suffered a bad bout of influenza. She had lost her maid, Ivy, who had gone on to better things, and her one aging servant, Martha, was finding the big house too hard to take care of alone. So until we could find a new maid and possibly a cook for Mrs. Sullivan, Daniel was insisting she stay with us.

  Of course I couldn’t say no, but it was certainly a challenge having so many people crammed into one little house. The real challenge was Daniel’s mother watching me every moment, ready to comment on things she did differently. “Oh, so that’s the way Daniel likes his pork done these days? He always used to tell me that pork chops should be grilled.” I couldn’t quite tell whether she meant it to rankle, but it certainly did. I was all too aware that she had been disappointed when Daniel chose me over a society beauty called Arabella Norton. To be frank, I was a little surprised myself. After all, I had nothing—having escaped from the wild west coast of Ireland, where I had grown up in a peasant’s cottage.

  “It was Bridie,” I said. “A gang of boys set upon her in the square. Absolutely pelted her with snowballs, poor little thing. I’ve sent her up to change out of those clothes and I’ll pour her a cup of tea. Can I pour you one at the same time?”

  “I wouldn’t say no,” she said. That was another thing that annoyed me about her. She rarely said either please or thank you. “But that’s not a nice thing to happen to a young girl. It’s quite different if she was part of the snowball fight. I remember Daniel always enjoyed a good snowball fight when he was a boy.” And she smiled at the memory.

  I’d just put a generous helping of sugar in the tea when Bridie came down, wearing her robe and bedroom slippers.

  “Saints preserve us!” Mrs. Sullivan exclaimed. “Is bedtime now at four o’clock?”

  “I told her she could,” I replied. “She needs to warm up. Come and sit by the fire, my love.”

  Bridie shot a glance at my mother-in-law as she accepted the seat by the fire. She cradled the cup in her hands, took a sip, then gave a sigh of contentment. I watched her fondly, feeling a great surge of maternal love for her. She’d been mine on and off since I brought her across from Liverpool all those years ago—a terrified little mite who had just been taken from her own mother. Now she’d blossomed into a bright and confident young girl—at least until her schoolmates started giving her a hard time.

  She looked up from her cup of tea. “What were you talking about just now?”

  “When you came down? I can’t even remember.”

  “No, to Aunty Sid. She said something about you agreeing with her.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Sid and Gus feel that I shouldn’t keep you at that school any longer.”

  “But I don’t want to leave school,” she said. “I love learning. I know I’ll have to leave in the summer, but…”

  “That’s just it,” I said. “Clearly we’re not going to let you finish your education there. We’ll find a private academy for you. It’s just that—well, you know how passionate Sid and Gus are about educating you and sending you to Vassar one day? Well, Gus has suggested that she would pay to send you to her former ladies seminary.”

  “And where would that be?” she asked. “I thought Aunty Gus came from Boston.”

  “She did,” I replied. “It’s a boarding establishment out in Massachusetts.”

  “Boarding? You mean I’d live there?”

  “Yes,” I said. “And I think it’s a horrible idea. I nearly lost you before and I don’t want to let go of you.”

  “I don’t want to go away either,” she said.

  “Then you won’t. There must be schools in New York we can afford, or maybe Sid and Gus will insist on helping to pay since they are so keen on your education.” I realized, of course, that Daniel’s policeman’s salary was not going to stretch to a good private school, and Sid and Gus were so fond of Bridie and dying to help, but my pride was going to make it hard to accept. I took the cup from her and refilled it. “When they are done with their latest project we’ll put them into finding the best place for you.”

  “That would be grand.” Her whole little face lit up. “I’d love to go to a school where wanting to learn wasn’t a sin.”

  “If that’s the worst sin you’ve committed, I don’t think you need to worry, child,” Mrs. Sullivan exclaimed. “And if you want my opinion, the girl could benefit from going to a select ladies academy and mixing with a better class of person.”

  I tried to keep my calm demeanor—not always the easiest thing for me. “But Mother Sullivan, think about it. Daniel is a policeman. We live in this little house. How could Bridie possibly feel at home among the daughters of the rich and powerful?”

  “Daniel might not always be a policeman,” she replied with a knowing nod. “We have discussed his going into politics, haven’t we, and any connections that the family could make…”

  “Daniel will go into politics over my dead body!” There. The calm demeanor hadn’t lasted long. “And I am going to be selfish and say that I want Bridie at home with me.”

  “Then you could always think about the nuns,” she said. “There must be good convent schools in the city. Daniel might know. Those neighbors of yours won’t, not being of the true faith.”

  “Absolutely no nuns,” I replied. “I remember my own experience with nuns all too vividly. Sadistic, that’s what they were. If I dropped my slate pencil, out came the cane. If I spelled a word wrong, it was hold out your hand for the cane. One of them used to hit us over the head with a Bible. So no nuns for Bridie.”

  Bridie looked up and gave me a grateful grin.

  I drained my own teacup. “There, now I better think about supper.”

  “What had you planned for your man’s meal tonight?” Daniel’s mother asked. “I noticed we were out of meat and I didn’t see you going to the shops today.” She paused, then added, “Understandable in that blizzard, of course.”

  “I have our supper. I left it on the hall table when Bridie appeared,” I said. “My neighbors kindly made us an Indian curry.”

  “Curry?” Her nose wrinkled. “So Daniel actually likes heathen food now, does he?”

  “He’ll have to like it or go hungry,” I replied smoothly as I went down the hall to retrieve the dish. I suppose it was a result of being cooped up together in a too-small house, but my patience was wearing very thin with my mother-in-law and I noticed she had become more barbed in her comments recently. Something would have to change.

  That night in bed I recounted Bridie’s ordeal to Daniel. I could see I took it a lot more seriously than he did.

  “Does she know the boys?” he asked.

  “Yes, they’re from her school.”

  “Well, it was only snowballs. I used to have a bit of fun throwing snowballs myself.”

  “Yes, your mother told me. But this is different. They weren’t including her in the fun. They were attacking her. I’ll have a word with her principal in the morning.” I tried to control my anger. “Picking on a young girl. That’s what cowards do.”

  “Don’t bother,” Daniel said. “It won’t do any good. He’ll say it was only snowballs—a bit of boyish fun. You have to choose your battles.”

  “This is my battle, Daniel.” I flared up. “She came home in tears saying that they hate her.”

  “Why would they hate her?”

  “Because she’s Irish and she’s the teacher’s pet,” I said. “She likes to read and learn things. Those louts know they’re done with school in the summer and they just want to get out.”

  I told Daniel what Sid and Gus had proposed for Bridie. “Your mother thinks it would be a good idea to help you get into politics.”

  Daniel chuckled. “My mother always did have big ideas,” he said. “If you hear her speak you’d never believe she was raised by parents who’d escaped from the famine. But if Sid and Gus want to educate Bridie, I wouldn’t say no. They can look into finding a private school for her in the city. And you leave well enough alone.” He looked at me sternly and I gave him what I hoped was a meek smile as I snuggled close to him, deciding that whatever he said I would let that principal have a bit of my mind. I had never gotten anywhere by letting people walk all over me and I wasn’t going to let them walk all over my ward, either! I was surprised at how much of my life was now wrapped up in being a mother and taking care of my home, a far cry from the exciting days of running my own detective agency. Sometimes life felt rather dull after dealing with gangsters and murderers. I was sure I could handle a school principal.