A Ring of Truth Read online

  Praise for Book 1 (A Girl Like You) of the Henrietta and Inspector Howard series

  “Michelle Cox masterfully recreates 1930s Chicago, bringing to life its diverse neighborhoods and eclectic residents, as well as its seedy side. Henrietta and Inspector Howard are the best pair of sleuths I’ve come across in ages—Cox makes us care not just about the case, but about her characters. A fantastic start to what is sure to be a long-running series.”

  —Tasha Alexander, New York Times best-selling author of The Adventuress

  “Fans of spunky, historical heroines will love Henrietta Von Harmon.”

  —Booklist starred review

  “Flavored with 1930s slang and fashion, this first volume in what one hopes will be a long series is absorbing. Henrietta and Clive are a sexy, endearing, and downright fun pair of sleuths. Readers will not see the final twist coming.”

  —Library Journal starred review

  Copyright © 2016 Michelle Cox

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, digital scanning, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please address She Writes Press.

  Published 2016

  Printed in the United States of America

  ISBN: 978-1-63152-196-6 pbk

  ISBN: 978-1-63152-197-3 ebk

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2016957316

  For information, address:

  She Writes Press

  1563 Solano Ave #546

  Berkeley, CA 94707

  She Writes Press is a division of SparkPoint Studio, LLC.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  To my children, Nathaniel, Owen, and Eleanor.

  You must know that all of the stories, read through all the years, have been a poor attempt to express the aching, extraordinary love I have for each of you.

  I hope you will feel it always.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Acknowledgments

  About The Author

  Chapter 1

  Henrietta shifted uncomfortably as she stood next to Clive outside the massive oak double doors of the Howard family home—Highbury, he called it—in Winnetka. Though he had assured her all the way here that his parents would love her, and despite his quick, reassuring wink as they had walked up the flagstone pathway, she still felt uneasy, and her breath caught in her throat when a servant opened the door for them and welcomed Mister Clive home. Clive smiled at him and casually handed him his hat and motoring coat, but Henrietta felt sure the servant was sizing her up all the while, and was convinced that he was not impressed with what he saw.

  As Clive exchanged pleasantries with the man—Billings, he called him—mostly about the weather and the drive up, Henrietta smoothed her dress and wished to God she had chosen her plain blue paisley. Instead, she was wearing the emerald green dress she had borrowed from Polly to audition in at the Marlowe. It showed off her figure beautifully, hugging her curves and accentuating her bosom, but she felt certain now as she stood there awkwardly that it was all wrong. She had intended to impress Clive’s parents, but with a deepening sense of dread, she began to suspect that she should have chosen something more modest. She attempted to console herself with the fact that she had at least had the sense to elaborately pin up her long auburn hair in a somewhat old-fashioned style.

  It was times like this that she missed Polly the most. Polly would have known the proper attire to wear when meeting the parents of one’s new fiancé. But Polly had not returned from her grandmother’s in Missouri where she had fled after Mama Leone had been murdered at the Promenade, and Henrietta didn’t really blame her. Since then, Henrietta had received a few brief letters from her, but they hadn’t been of any substance. Henrietta had also considered asking Lucy for advice, but she had unfortunately only seen her once since the Marlowe.

  They had met for coffee one afternoon and found themselves predictably discussing all of the sordid particulars of their attempt to uncover the “secret” behind the green door at the Marlowe (the burlesque theater where they had both, until very recently, been employed) and how it had all culminated in that terrible night in which Henrietta had been captured by Neptune and his cronies, that is, before Lucy had rescued her—and Clive as well.

  Eventually, however, their conversation had moved to lighter subjects, Lucy remarking how much she and the other girls missed her. Leaning forward across the stained table, Lucy had urged Henrietta to join her and Gwen and Rose at the Melody Mill, where they had all picked up jobs as cocktail waitresses, the Marlowe obviously having since been shut down by the police. “It would be just like old times,” Lucy had urged. Henrietta had politely declined, a smile she could not contain creeping across her face, then, as she bashfully announced that there would be no need of that now that she had agreed to become Mrs. Clive Howard!

  Lucy laughed with delight at the news and begged for all the particulars of the happy event. Henrietta was excitedly able to relate, in great detail, how the proposal had come about, but when Lucy then naturally asked about the wedding itself, Henrietta realized distressingly that she knew very little about the details. They didn’t have a date yet, nor did she yet have a ring, Henrietta admitted with a forced little laugh of her own. Lucy suggested with a shrug and a certain provocation in her eyes that perhaps the inspector was just too busy at the moment with his cases, or some such police thing, to worry about these obviously minor details for now. Doubtless he would get around to it eventually, she had teased. Henrietta knew that Lucy had meant her words to be playful and teasing, but they hadn’t sat very well just the same.

  Not long after this exchange, Lucy had stood up and said she had to run and wished Henrietta the very best of luck. After kisses and promises to keep in touch, Lucy dashed off down Clark, and Henrietta had wondered as she watched her go, not for the first time, about the wedding, and, more importantly, just what her role as a policeman’s wife would be—if Clive would expect her to keep on working—at something respectable, of course—or if he would want her to stay home and keep house for him. Either way, she assumed working as a cocktail waitress at the Melody Mill would be out of the question, so she let the idea go as she watched Lucy disappear into the crowd before she had herself distractedly made her way to the trolley.

  It was an assumption she felt even more certain of now as she stood apprehensively beside Clive in the marble foyer of the Howards’ home, which he had somehow failed to mention resembled a castle, or very nearly so.

  She knew that Winnetka was north of the city, but she had of course never been here. The drive seemed to stretch forever, her dis-quietude growing by the minute, especially when they had finally arrived in the quaint town itself and had zipped past the more modest houses. Sheridan Road curved closer to Lake Michigan now to reveal larger houses—mansions, really—with huge acreage surround
ing them, set back from the road, half hidden, if not by symmetrical smatterings of trees, then by privets or brick walls, though Henrietta was able to glance at enough of them to be left speechless. Many of the estates backed up to the lake itself, making them surely worth thousands—probably millions!—Henrietta calculated, as she fretfully pulled at her gloves as though by pulling them on tighter, she could somehow make them more presentable. Henrietta had never seen anything like this, except perhaps in the movies, of which she had seen very few, actually, and she couldn’t pull her eyes away, so mesmerized was she, despite her new betrothed sitting beside her, his fedora hat placed firmly on his head and a pipe gripped loosely between his teeth.

  Every once in a while on the drive, between strands of conversation, he had taken his eyes from the road to look over at her, and each time, she felt her stomach churn. She was wildly attracted to him, and she thought him so dreadfully handsome with his hazel eyes and chestnut hair, though some of it was already beginning to gray. She had asked him several times since he had proposed to tell her about his family, but he had each time replied that he wanted to surprise her.

  When they had finally turned into a majestic tree-lined lane, complete with an iron gate and two massive lion statues atop brick pedestals at the entrance, she was filled with dread and hoped this was a joke rather than the surprise he had alluded to. Surely this wasn’t his parents’ home, was it? Henrietta had glanced over at him with more than a little confusion, and, truth be told, a bit of consternation as he had indeed sped down the lane toward the house. Where was the impenetrable Inspector Howard of the Chicago police that she had fallen in love with? Surely he didn’t belong here, did he?

  “Tea is to be served in the morning room, Mister Clive,” said Billings, whose thick jowls did not move an inch when he spoke, as if he were wearing a fleshy mask. Only his droopy eyes moved, and even then, not excessively. “I’m to show you through, if that’s agreeable, sir.”

  “I’ll show myself in, Billings, in just a moment,” Clive said, looking down at Henrietta now.

  “Very good, sir,” Billings said with a slight bow of his head and disappeared noiselessly down the hallway.

  “Ready?” Clive asked her with a smile, his eyebrow arched. “Not nervous, are you?”

  How could she not be? she thought, her heart racing, but she couldn’t help but smile at his penchant for reading her mind. “Of course I’m nervous!” she whispered, her eyes darting round the formal entryway and up the grand staircase, lined with larger-than-life portraits climbing the steps to the upper floors beyond. Henrietta had never seen paintings that large before or in such a quantity. Above her hung a gold-and-crystal chandelier that sparkled in the early afternoon sunlight coming through the stained glass of the windows set above the entryway. “Why didn’t you tell me it would be like this?” she chastised. “I . . . I don’t think I’m dressed right.” Again, she looked down woefully at her dress.

  Clive grinned. “Of course you’re dressed appropriately! You look a dream,” he said and bent closer to kiss her softly on the cheek. Despite the welcomeness of his kiss, it did not slip her attention that he had inadvertently changed her phrasing. Her employment as a curler girl at Marshall Fields had brought her into contact with a decidedly more elite clientele than she normally dealt with at Poor Pete’s, and she had striven almost immediately to imitate their more eloquent speech. It was something that Clive had commented on, actually, when he had first met her—that she didn’t sound like a taxi dancer. In truth, she did pride herself on being able to learn so quickly, but she still made mistakes sometimes, as Clive had just subtly implied.

  At the touch of his lips, though, she felt herself melt a little, and she leaned into him, feeling safe, if only for a moment, against his chest. She wished she could stay this way, tucked into him. Clive reached for her hand. “Come on, then. They’re really not so bad. Besides, we’ve done this once already, remember? Surely we can do it again.”

  Henrietta took his hand and blushed at the memory of how just a few weeks ago, they had made their way up the creaking stairs of Henrietta’s apartment building to tell Ma that they were engaged to be married. Henrietta would never forget as long as she lived the look of shock on Ma’s face when she haltingly explained that not only was the man standing beside her in the cramped, shabby apartment not her foreman at the electrics as Ma had been led to believe, though Ma had never actually met him, having only heard his name mentioned and only once at that, but that he was in fact a detective inspector with the Chicago police. That they had been on a case together and, well, had fallen in love in the process. It was not lost on Henrietta that as Clive respectfully removed his hat and shook Ma’s hand, his eyes never wandered once to the miserable surroundings but had instead remained locked on each person’s face with a cordial, genuine smile.

  Elsie, of course, had rushed to Henrietta’s side when the initial shock had been absorbed by all in the room. Stanley, who had only recently, almost begrudgingly, shifted his affections from Henrietta to her sister, Elsie (at Henrietta’s insistence), had likewise jumped to his feet with surprising alacrity, muttering, “Oh, Hen!”

  Clive’s attempt at polite introductions had little effect on Ma, who merely stood with her hands on her hips, eyeing both of them carefully. “Aren’t you a bit old for her?” were Ma’s first words to the happy couple, delivered bluntly after a few painful moments of silence.

  Clive had tilted his head to the side and gave a slight nod in recognition of the question’s appropriateness. “Yes, Mrs. Von Harmon, I am older than Henrietta. I’m thirty-six, to be exact, nearly twice her age, and I feel at this juncture I should also mention that I was previously married”—here Stan let out a low whistle—“but she died while I was away at the war. Childbirth. The baby, too.”

  Henrietta heard Elsie, still standing at her side, let out a sad little noise, and she thought she detected a slight ripple of compassion cross Ma’s face.

  Clive cleared his throat. “That being said,” he continued, “I’m very much in love with Henrietta, and I wish to marry her.” Here he looked at Henrietta lovingly and took her hand, causing Henrietta to blush slightly and Stan to turn momentarily toward the window, Elsie keenly watching him as he did so.

  Ma stared at them for a moment or two longer and then let out a bitter sigh. “Well, if that’s what you want,” she said with an apathetic shrug, looking intensely at Henrietta and ignoring Clive. “Police don’t usually last too long. Don’t expect me to cry at the funeral.”

  “Ma!” Henrietta cried out, looking as though she were about to say something more, but Clive motioned her to stop.

  “I understand your feelings perfectly, Mrs. Von Harmon. My own parents felt exactly the same when I joined the force after the war. But, you see, I felt I had to try to do some good in the world when I came back, and this seemed to be . . .”

  Ma cut him off with a disgusted sniff and even had the boldness to roll her eyes. Such “highfalutin” concepts of integrity and justice were lost on Ma, Henrietta knew, but she was furious with Ma’s response just the same. How could she be so rude? What must Clive think! In shock, Henrietta stared at the floor before gathering enough courage to glance up at him now and was surprised to find his face not one of annoyance or judgment, but one of placid patience.

  “If it’s any consolation, Mrs. Von Harmon,” he continued calmly, “I’m usually not in harm’s way. It’s only after the crime that I’m called in to investigate.”

  Ma sighed again as if defeated. “Well, I suppose I don’t have any say in it, anyway. One less mouth to feed. Though I don’t know what we’re supposed to do now, without your wages,” she said irritably.

  “Oh, Ma! Can’t you ever be happy? I won’t leave you destitute!” Henrietta chimed in, no longer able to keep still. In truth, however, she wasn’t sure how she was quite going to manage that. “And anyway, one minute you’re trying to marry me off to . . . to Stan,” she sputtered, “and the next minute
you act like I’m deserting you when I finally do find someone . . . someone that I love. Very much.” It was all coming out badly, and Henrietta didn’t know how to fix it in the heat of the moment. She felt Clive give her hand a small squeeze before he released it.

  “Not to worry, Mrs. Von Harmon,” he said, his hat still in his other hand, “I’m quite able and happy to provide for all of you.”

  Ma sniffed again. “On a policeman’s salary? I think not! We’ll find a way. We don’t need charity, you know!”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that, Ma,” Eugene chimed in smoothly from his perch in the corner. Henrietta hadn’t noticed him sitting on the low stool by the fireplace, his hands folded between his legs. He had been staring at the floor, but he now looked sideways at Henrietta. “If Hen’s beau is willing to help us, maybe we should let him, seein’ as he’s gonna be one of the family now.”

  “Eugene!” said Ma angrily.

  “Have you no shame, Eugene?” Henrietta blurted out. “It’s time you grew up and got a job!”

  “I am only sixteen, Henrietta!” he said with a scowl.

  “What difference does that make?” she retorted. “Elsie and I have been working since we were thirteen! Scrubbing toilets or ironing . . . anything! I know you like school, but surely you could find something at night! My God!”

  “As a matter of fact,” Stan interrupted them, “I was just telling Eugene earlier about trying Olson’s. My cousin’s neighbor works there, and he might just know of a position on the delivery trucks, riding in the back, jumpin’ on and off. Right, Eugene?”

  Eugene looked over at Stan now, an odd expression on his face, before he nodded and looked back at the floor.

  “That or I’m always hoping something will turn up at the electrics,” Stan offered encouragingly.

  Ma sank into a chair and put her head in her hands. “That’s another thing! I can’t believe you lied to us all this time, Henrietta,” she said morosely. “All this time I’ve been bragging to the neighbors about you getting a place at the electrics, and all this time you’ve been playing me! I must look a fool to the whole neighborhood. I even baked a cake for you!” she cried, suddenly slamming her fist onto the table. “Well, don’t expect any favors this time,” she said, her voice heavy with disgust.