“I don’t know,” Sarah admitted.
“Was it the baby? My sister died in childbirth,” Mrs.
O’Hara remembered. “She wouldn’t stop bleeding.”
“That wasn’t it. She didn’t bleed any more than normal.
She didn’t seem to be sick, either.”
“So it wasn’t childbed fever?”
Sarah hesitated. She knew nothing for certain except that she couldn’t explain Nainsi’s death and she’d seen several things to make her suspicious. “Mrs. O’Hara, I don’t see anything that would have caused her death.”
The older woman’s face darkened with fury. “I knew it.
They killed her, didn’t they? How did they do it? And which one was it?”
“I told you, I don’t know how she died,” Sarah repeated.
They both looked up at the sound of footsteps in the hallway. Mrs. O’Hara rose to her feet as Patrizia Ruocco appeared in the doorway. Maria was right behind her. Like everyone else, Mrs. Ruocco stopped in the doorway to stare at the body.
“She is dead,” she said without a trace of emotion.
“And you killed her,” Mrs. O’Hara said.
Mrs. Ruocco looked at her as if she were a maniac. “I did not even know she was dead.”
“You and your brood! She was fine last night, and now she’s dead. Somebody here killed her.”
“Siete pazzeschi! She die from the baby. Women die from babies every day.”
“She says Nainsi didn’t die from the baby!” Mrs. O’Hara insisted, gesturing toward Sarah.
Mrs. Ruocco fixed her razor-sharp gaze on Sarah, silently daring her to repeat such a vile accusation to her face.
“I just said I don’t know why she died,” Sarah hastily explained. “It could have been from childbirth, but I’ve never had a patient die like this before.”
“This is crazy. You are all crazy!” Maria insisted, pushing her way past her mother-in-law into the room. “And why is she lying here like this? No respect!” She grabbed the edge of the covers Sarah had drawn back and jerked them over the dead girl, covering her face.
The violent action knocked several pillows to the floor, and Sarah mechanically bent to pick them up. As she did, she saw something that stopped her breath—a reddish smear on one of the pillowcases. Blood? It could have come from the birth, but Sarah was certain she’d changed all the linen on the bed last night.
As casually as she could, she turned the pillow over before placing it back on the bed, so the smear didn’t show.
She didn’t know what it meant, but if it was connected with Nainsi’s death and someone here had killed her, it might disappear.
“Mrs. Brandt,” Mrs. Ruocco said angrily, “this girl die from baby. What else could she die from?”
“It could be murder!” Mrs. O’Hara cried. “She was murdered, and one of you dagos killed her!”
“You are just upset,” Maria said in an attempt to soothe her. “Did you look at her? She has no marks on her, no bruises or blood. How could she have been murdered?”
This stopped Mrs. O’Hara for a moment, and she looked at Sarah helplessly. But Sarah had no answers, not yet anyway. She also didn’t want to incur Patrizia Ruocco’s wrath, because if she felt her family was in danger, she’d stop at nothing to protect them. Nainsi’s body might just disappear along with any chance of learning the truth.
“I’m sorry. I know this is upsetting to everyone, but if she died from something to do with the birth, something I’ve never seen before or a mistake I made, I need to know. A doctor could tell for sure how she died,” she said. “Just to ease Mrs. O’Hara’s mind and my conscience.”
“A doctor?” Mrs. Ruocco scoffed. “And who will pay for a doctor? Will you pay for him, you Irish pig?” she asked Mrs.
O’Hara.
“Yes, I will, you dago cow!” she replied. “And I’ll see all of you hanged for what you did to my girl!”
Mrs. Ruocco muttered something in Italian. “Get a doctor then. Just get this . . .” She gestured wildly toward the bed. “. . . this thing out of my house!”
Mrs. O’Hara made an outraged sound and started screaming profanity at Mrs. Ruocco, who haughtily turned her back and walked away. Mrs. O’Hara followed her, threatening to bring down every punishment under heaven upon her daughter’s killer.
When their voices died away as they descended the stairs, Sarah turned back to Maria, who looked absolutely terrified. “What will happen?” she asked in a whisper.
Sarah went to her, taking her icy hands. “Nothing, if Nainsi died in childbirth,” Sarah said, not wanting to upset Maria any more than necessary.
“I mean the baby,” Maria said, apparently not believing for a moment that Nainsi might have been murdered. “What will happen to the baby?”
Sarah had no answer for her.
“You must help me keep the baby,” Maria said desperately.
Sarah would have liked nothing more than to give Maria the child she’d longed for, but . . . “I’m not sure there’s anything I can do to help.”
“What will happen to him if I don’t keep him?” Maria asked. “I cannot give him to that woman!”
She had a legitimate concern. Mrs. O’Hara probably didn’t have the means to care for a child herself. Bottle-feeding required time and patience and diligence in addition to rigid cleanliness. “Maria, I’m not the one you need to convince. Have you even talked to your husband about this?”
Something flickered deep in her eyes, and her expression hardened. “He will do what I ask.”
“And what about Mrs. Ruocco?” Sarah asked, knowing full well she would have the final word.
Before Maria could reply, they both heard a commotion out in the street. They hurried over to the window and saw that in the street below, a small crowd was gathering around a screaming woman. The woman was Mrs. O’Hara. Maria jerked up the sash so they could hear what she was saying.
“Murder! Police!” she was screaming. “They murdered my daughter! Police! Get the police!”
Maria gave an outraged cry, turned, and ran from the room. Sarah took the time to close the window and give Nainsi’s covered body one last glance. On impulse, she took the bloodstained pillow and slipped it under the bed. Then she followed Maria, carefully closing the bedroom door behind her.
Down in the dining room, she found all the Ruoccos assembled. Antonio and Joe had finally made their appearance, and from the looks of them, they’d awakened to ex-cruciating hangovers. Only a drunken stupor would have allowed them to sleep through the morning’s excitement.
Lorenzo stood silently, his face expressionless as he observed the chaotic scene. Valentina was crying loudly, and Maria was pleading with her mother-in-law in rapid Italian, but Mrs. Ruocco ignored all of them. She was staring at the police officer banging on the front door, demanding admission.
For a long moment, no one moved, and then Lorenzo walked over to the door, unlocked and opened it. The policeman entered, followed by Mrs. O’Hara. Lorenzo managed to get the door closed before anyone else could force their way in, but the crowd outside pressed against the glass door and the front windows, peering inside.
“There they are,” Mrs. O’Hara said, pointing wildly.
“That’s all of them. They killed my girl.”
“This lady says a girl was murdered in here, Mrs. Ruocco,”
the officer said respectfully, because Patrizia Ruocco was a prominent figure in the community. Sarah recognized him, although she couldn’t remember his name. But he hadn’t seen her yet.
Mrs. Ruocco stepped forward, fairly radiating indigna-tion. “This woman is crazy. Her daughter marry my son, but she die in childbirth.”
“No, she didn’t,” Mrs. O’Hara exclaimed. “Ask the midwife. She’s right there!” She pointed directly this time, and Sarah winced.
“Mrs. Brandt?” the officer asked, peering at her in the shadows. “Is that you?” Practically all the policemen at Headquarters knew her from her associa
tion with Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy.
“Yes,” she said, reluctantly stepping forward and trying to look more confident than she felt.
“Do you know what’s going on?”
“I delivered a baby here yesterday, to Mrs. O’Hara’s daughter,” she added, gesturing to the older woman. “She was married to Mrs. Ruocco’s son, Antonio. This morning, she was dead. I’m not sure why she died—”
“They killed her, that’s why!” Mrs. O’Hara screeched, and all the Ruoccos began yelling in protest.
The officer had to shout and push the Ruoccos back when they tried to attack Mrs. O’Hara. “Quiet, the lot of you!” he hollered several times before order was restored. “I got to find out what happened here. If I don’t . . .” He glanced meaningfully over his shoulder at the curious crowd gathered outside.
Virtually all the faces were Italian, so Sarah didn’t think they’d riot over the death of an Irish girl, but who knew what could happen? Riots had started over much less.
Sarah turned to Mrs. Ruocco. “I have a friend who is a police detective. He’ll be fair, and he’ll find out what really happened to Nainsi.”
Mrs. Ruocco frowned suspiciously. “He is Italian?”
“Well, no,” Sarah had to admit. Police Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt had opened the ranks of the New York City Police Department to people of all ethnic groups, but she didn’t think they had any Italian detectives yet. “He . . .
he’s Irish, but I promise you he’ll be fair,” she hastily added.
Mrs. Ruocco made a rude noise. “Do what you want,” she told the policeman. “Lorenzo, go find . . .” She hesitated, her face twisting with distaste before she finished. “Go find Uncle Ugo. Tell him come right away.”
Sarah winced, and the policeman visibly paled. Ugo Ruocco was a prominent member of the community, too.
But not in a good way. Rumor said he was the leader of the notorious gang of thugs known as the Black Hand.
Sarah turned to the policeman. “You’d better get Detective Sergeant Malloy, now.”
3
Frank Malloy hoped he could refrain from strangling Sarah Brandt when he saw her. How many times had he told her not to get involved in crimes? She seemed to attract trouble like a magnet, though. Too bad Little Italy was only a few blocks from Police Headquarters. A longer walk might’ve helped him calm down a little. Pushing his way through the crowd that had gathered in the street didn’t im-prove his mood either. He strode into Mama’s Restaurant in full fury.
What he found knocked the fury right out of him and made him want to turn tail and run flat out to the nearest gang of criminals armed with brickbats and rocks. At least he knew how to handle them. He absolutely hated hysterical females, and this room was full of them.
“Malloy,” a familiar voice said over the din. “Thank heaven you’re here.”
His anger flickered to life again as he turned to see Sarah Brandt coming toward him. “Don’t blame heaven,” he told her grimly. “It’s your fault I’m here.”
She didn’t look the least bit repentant. “You’re the only one I could trust to handle this.”
He winced at the caterwauling of the other women. “I’ll have to introduce you to some other detectives real soon, then.”
She ignored his sarcasm. “Malloy, a young woman died here mysteriously last night. Well, she was just a girl, actually. I delivered her baby yesterday, and this morning when I got here, she was dead.”
Frank felt the old familiar wave of pain threatening to wash over him. His wife Kathleen had died in childbirth.
No wonder these women were grief-stricken. But what had Sarah said about how the girl died?
“What do you mean, she died mysteriously?” he asked.
“I’m not really sure, but . . .” She lowered her voice and leaned in closer so no one would overhear. “She didn’t die from the normal complications women die of in childbirth, and I saw some things that made me suspicious.”
“What things?” he asked, taking her by the arm and leading her farther away from the family.
“I’ll have to show you, but . . . I’m afraid that she may have been murdered,” she whispered.
“Here, in this house?” Malloy asked. He knew the Ruocco family. Everyone in the neighborhood did, and he’d eaten here a hundred times.
She nodded.
“That’s impossible. Why would anybody kill a woman who just gave birth?” For Italians, a new baby was the hap-piest event in their lives.
“They were very angry with her. When it was born, they realized the baby didn’t belong to her husband.”
Frank had seen newborn babies. They all looked the same, like tiny, squalling old men, and you couldn’t tell anything about them, certainly not who their fathers were. “How would they know that?”
“It’s a long story, but the mother was an Irish girl who’d married Antonio Ruocco because she was in a family way and—”
“Irish, you say?” Frank could hear the warning bells ringing in his head.
“Yes, she was Irish, and they knew the baby wasn’t Antonio’s because—”
“Wait,” Frank said, stopping her with a raised hand.
He looked around the room again and realized they were all staring at his Irish face with naked hostility, even the Irish woman sitting alone in the far corner of the room.
And the women had stopped crying. The silence was eerie.
An Irish girl in an Italian household who’d made someone angry enough to kill her.
He went back to the front door, opened it, and gave an order to the cop who was standing guard to make sure nobody in the crowd got too rowdy. The fellow took off at a run.
When he closed the door and turned back, Sarah Brandt was one step in front of him.
“Where’s he going?” she demanded.
“For help,” he replied.
“Help?” she echoed in amazement, but he didn’t bother to enlighten her. He needed as much information as he could get as quickly as possible.
“Now tell me exactly what happened,” he said.
“They killed my girl is what happened,” the Irish woman cried.
That set off the Ruoccos again, and they all started yelling at once in two languages, with the Irish woman yelling right back. Luckily, Frank had lots of experience dealing with unruly crowds, and this one wasn’t even armed. It took a few minutes, but he finally got them settled down again and cowed enough to stay that way, for a little while anyway. He knew he couldn’t question Sarah in front of them, though.
“Is there someplace where we can talk in private?” he asked her.
“The kitchen,” she said, pointing.
He followed her, and as he passed Mrs. Ruocco, he said,
“I sent for another policeman. Let me know when he gets here.”
She gave him a withering glare, letting him know exactly what she thought of him and the rest of the Irish policemen.
Frank sighed with relief as the kitchen door swung shut behind him. “Now tell me what happened, from the beginning.”
“I came here yesterday to deliver a baby. I didn’t even know that Antonio had gotten married—”
“The girl married Antonio?” he asked. “He’s just a kid!”
“So was she,” Sarah said grimly. “They’d only been married a few months, a little over five, I think. That’s why they were frightened when they called me. They thought the baby was coming too early.”
“You said they got married because she was in a family way?”
“That’s right, but she was supposed to only be about seven months along. That’s how long she’d known Antonio.”
Frank raised his eyebrows. If he’d been talking to a man, he would’ve observed that young Antonio hadn’t wasted any time playing dip the wick with the girl, but he refrained.
“Let me guess, the baby wasn’t early.”
“No.” She walked toward the stove and for a second he couldn’t figure out where she was going, but
then he saw the cradle sitting beside it. “See for yourself.”
She gently drew back the blanket, and he could see a baby sleeping peacefully. He didn’t know much about infants, but this one was big and fat. Nothing sickly about him. Even Frank could see he’d been born on time, maybe even a little past time.
“I guess young Antonio was a little surprised,” he said.
“He probably wouldn’t have known the difference, but of course his mother did. She’d known the baby was conceived before they were married, but no one guessed the girl was much further along than she claimed. Not until the baby was born, that is.”
“I can imagine Mrs. Ruocco was pretty mad.”
“Everyone was. Nainsi’s mother—the lady outside who is claiming they’d killed her daughter—tried to defend her, but Nainsi didn’t even try to deny the truth. I guess she was depending on the Catholic Church to prevent Antonio from divorcing her or something. She didn’t even seem concerned.”
“When did she turn up dead?”
“I got here early this morning to check on her and the baby, and when I arrived, someone started screaming upstairs. Valentina—she’s the youngest in the family—had gone in to see why the baby kept crying, and she found Nainsi dead. Her body was cold and starting to stiffen, so she’d been dead a couple hours by then, at least.”
“And what makes you think somebody killed her?”
“I said I wasn’t sure, but she has a broken fingernail, like she’d been struggling with someone, and then I found a pillowcase with a smear of blood on it.”
“There’s a lot of blood when a baby is born,” Frank remembered all too vividly.
“I’d changed the bedclothes.”
“But you might’ve missed some.”
“Malloy, I don’t want her to have been murdered,” she said in exasperation. “If I could think of another explanation, I’d have given it to Nainsi’s mother and the Ruoccos and gone home. She didn’t die from any of the usual things that women die of in childbirth. I know the signs of all of them.”
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