Free A bucket of ashes by P.B. RYAN Page A

the time to brag about your friends in high places. I know you’re acquainted with Charles Allen, the Attorney General, and with Mayor Shurtleff.”
    “I’ve met Governor Claflin a few times, as well,” she said, “and we got along famously. And there are several Boston aldermen and members of the Common Council whose wives I’ve become friendly with from serving on charity boards. Oh, and there’s Horace Bacon, the criminal court judge. His wife is an acquaintance of mine, and I happen to know she’s got expensive tastes—more expensive than he can afford on his salary. He’s not above accepting the occasional payment for services rendered. I paid him myself a couple of years ago—or rather Nell did, on my behalf, when I was trying to help Will out of a fix he’d got himself in.”
    Mr. Mead said, “That’s good to know, about Bacon, because he’s a close friend of Chief Justice Brigham of the Suffolk County Superior Court, which rules on divorce petitions. Anyone else?” He asked. “Anyone who might, perchance, have something to hide?”
    “You engage in blackmail, too?” Viola asked with a mock shudder of excitement. “How deliciously low.”
    “Not blackmail per se,” he said, “more like subtle threats—however, such tactics are always a last resort.”
    “As I recall,” Nell said, “Judge Bacon was one of the men who paid Detective Skinner to keep their names out of the investigation into Virginia Kimball’s murder last year.”
    “Charlie Skinner,” Mead said with a look of disgust. “Good riddance to that particular piece of human rubbish.”
    “You know of him?” Nell asked.
    “Oh, he had quite the reputation even before the police hearings in February. I was pleased when he was demoted, and delighted when he was kicked off the force altogether.”
    As if she were a mother bragging about her clever daughter, Viola said with a smile, “His dismissal was due in no small measure to Nell’s efforts.”
    “Well done, Miss Sweeney,” Mead praised. “You know, Skinner made himself the enemy of some very important men during those hearings. As you’re already aware, he was in the habit of taking bribes. If a gentleman found himself in a compromising situation—rounded up during a vice raid, say—he would have a nice, thick envelope sent to Charlie Skinner, and next thing you knew there would be no record at all of the arrest. But Skinner never forgot the names of those men, nor the nature of their transgressions, and during the hearings he put pressure on them to clear his name. That turned out to be impossible given his documented history of criminal activity, but he did manage to remain on the force, albeit as a uniformed patrolman. I suppose it wouldn’t hurt, while I’m trying to garner support for your divorce petition, for me to mention the fact that you were responsible for Skinner’s ouster from the force.”
    Mr. Mead snapped his notebook shut and returned it to his pocket. “At the risk of giving you false hope, Miss Sweeney, I must say I’m feeling quite optimistic. It helps that your husband is a convicted felon, whereas you are a young lady of sterling reputation with some of the most notable men in the commonwealth vouching for you. The only factor likely to drag things out would be Mr. Sweeney’s lack of cooperation. If you can manage to talk him into agreeing to the divorce, I think it’s possible you could be a free woman within a matter of weeks.”
    She gaped at him. “Oh, my God. That would be... That would be wonderful.” But first she had to talk Duncan into agreeing to it, and that would be much easier said than done.
    “I’ll go through the process with you in more depth tomorrow,” he told her, “and have you sign the papers and so forth. When would be the best time?”
    Nell looked to Viola, who said, “August usually takes a nap in the early afternoon. We could meet in my sitting room at, say, two o’clock.”
    “After I return to Boston,”