“They’re going to steal my grandson from me!” Mrs.
O’Hara wailed. “They killed my girl, and now they want her baby, too.”
“She cannot take care of a baby,” Maria argued. Frank really looked at her for the first time. She was a plain woman, no one he’d even glance at twice in the street, but fury had brought color to her cheeks and a sparkle to her eyes. She looked like a wild creature defending her young. “If she takes him, he will die!”
“I’d rather have him dead than with the likes of you!”
Mrs. O’Hara unwisely cried.
Even Mrs. Ruocco looked shocked.
“You see?” Maria said triumphantly. “You cannot just let him die.” She turned to her mother-in-law, her will like a flame that would scorch any who denied her. “Your son cannot give me a child, but you can. I want this baby, and you will give him to me.”
Sarah could see Mrs. Ruocco’s silent struggle. As much as she hated Nainsi, she also loved her family. Everyone knew how desperately Maria wanted a child of her own. Sarah had seen that desperation before, a longing that bordered on madness, and Maria looked as if she were very close to that edge.
Mrs. Ruocco laid a hand on her heart, as if it pained her.
She could not bear to refuse Maria any more than she could bear to consent. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, she said, “Giuseppe, he . . . he must agree.” She looked at her oldest son. Everyone looked at him. Mrs. Ruocco must have been certain he would refuse.
“Yes,” Maria confirmed in an oddly mocking tone.
“Giuseppe must agree.”
His face was white, and this time Sarah didn’t think it was from his hangover. She almost expected him to bolt again rather than face such a momentous decision, but he swallowed down hard and said, “Whatever Maria wants.”
Sarah gasped in surprise, and so did several others, but she didn’t have time to notice who. Mrs. O’Hara started screaming and fighting Frank, who still held her back from attacking Maria.
“You can’t let them take the boy!” she was telling him.
“He don’t belong to none of them! He’s mine!”
“The law says the baby belongs to the woman’s husband,” Frank informed her as he wrestled her flailing arms.
“But they said he don’t!” she argued. “They said Antonio ain’t its father. That’s why they killed my girl!”
“It doesn’t matter,” Sarah explained, going to Frank’s aid.
“Please, Mrs. O’Hara, listen to me. The law assumes a woman’s husband is the father of her children, even if everyone knows he isn’t. If she dies or if he divorces her, he still has custody of them. They’re his property.”
“But he ain’t the one that wants the boy,” Mrs. O’Hara argued, pointing at her son-in-law. “Don’t Antonio have no say at all?”
Everyone looked at Antonio again. He still held his head as if it would fly apart if he didn’t, and now his face was almost green. Paralyzed with indecision, he looked from his mother to his brother to Maria and back to his mother again. Mrs. Ruocco seemed to be daring him to stand up and be a man. Maria defied him to deny her, and Joe just stared back, helplessly.
Maria whispered, “Joe,” and that broke the spell.
As if she’d struck him with a whip, he jerked up to his full height. “You will keep the baby,” he informed his brother. “Tell her.” He pointed at Mrs. O’Hara.
“I will . . .” Antonio had to swallow. “I will keep the baby,” he said obediently, and this time he bolted, heading for the kitchen to be sick.
Mrs. O’Hara gave a primal howl of anguish.
Sarah saw Malloy’s desperate plea for help, silent though it was. “Mrs. O’Hara, there’s nothing you can do right now.
Let me take you home,” she said gently, moving to take the woman by the arm.
Defeated, she sagged in Malloy’s grasp, and he released her to Sarah. The older woman let Sarah lead her toward the front door.
“It ain’t right,” she was muttering as she wept loudly and sloppily. “It just ain’t right for them to have my girl’s baby.”
Malloy hurried to precede them and opened the door, holding it for them as he shouted something to the ambulance driver. Sarah murmured comforting phrases as she led Mrs. O’Hara out into the street.
“Where do you live?” she asked.
“Howard Street,” Mrs. O’Hara murmured brokenly. “Just past Broadway.”
Sarah turned her in that direction, and they started walking. She was starting to believe she would get the older woman away without further incident when Mrs. O’Hara stopped dead in her tracks and breathed a curse.
Sarah looked up and saw only an average-looking, middle-aged Italian man walking toward them, followed by a group of younger men who seemed to be ready for anything. Before Sarah could even comprehend what she was seeing, Mrs.
O’Hara said, “Ugo,” and turned and ran in the other direction, leaving Sarah standing alone on the sidewalk directly in the path of Ugo Ruocco and his minions.
4
The ambulance driver moved just as quickly as Frank would have wanted, whipping his horse into motion to pull the vehicle around to the alley to pick up Nainsi Ruocco’s body. Frank waited just an instant, to make perfectly sure the wagon was well on its way, before turning back to make sure Sarah and Mrs. O’Hara were well on their way, too. He saw Mrs. O’Hara scurrying past him in the opposite direction and without Sarah.
Instantly, he sensed the change in the crowd. Something had happened, and instinctively, he sought out Sarah to assure her safety. He found her at once, standing with her back to him in the middle of the sidewalk, all alone because the crowd had drawn away, stepping into the street to make way for . . .
Frank almost groaned aloud. Ugo Ruocco and about half a dozen of his young toughs were heading straight for Sarah.
He opened his mouth to call out to her, but someone else beat him to it.
“Mrs. Brandt! Mrs. Brandt!”
Sarah turned toward the young Ruocco girl who had come charging out of the restaurant to summon her.
“Mrs. Brandt, come quick! The baby is sick!”
“Sarah, don’t,” he tried, but she only gave him a puzzled glance before hurrying by him and back into the restaurant with the girl. He checked to make sure Ugo and the boys were still coming, then he followed her inside. The last person he wanted to see this morning was Ugo Ruocco, but he wasn’t going to leave Sarah to Ugo’s mercy, unprotected.
He winced when he stepped through the door. The baby was screaming, and even Frank could tell he was in pain.
“He just started crying,” Maria said in terror.
“Make him stop!” Antonio begged, hands over his ears.
He’d returned from the kitchen, but he looked like he might need to go back.
Sarah took the baby from Maria’s arms. He kept screaming, but she didn’t seem the least bit concerned. “He’s probably just hungry,” she said, heading for the kitchen door.
“But I already fed him this morning,” Maria protested, following after her.
“He’s hungry again,” Sarah explained as the door closed behind them, muting the sound of his wailing a bit.
Frank glanced around at who was left. Officer Donatelli waited patiently for his orders. Joe and Antonio were perk-ing up a bit, but they were still a little green. The girl—
what was her name again?—stood in the middle of the floor, wringing her hands in distress. Mrs. Ruocco sat at a table, head in hands, looking as if she wanted to be as far away from the rest of this bunch as possible.
Frank went straight to Donatelli and told him in a hurried whisper that Ugo Ruocco was coming and to go out through the kitchen to meet the ambulance in the alley to make sure they got the body away safely.
No sooner had Donatelli disappeared into the kitchen than the restaurant door opened again, and Ugo Ruocco came in. The younger men with him made a little show of jostling each other to be the first to follow, but
eventually they were all inside, too.
Ugo wasn’t a large man, but his presence seemed to fill the room. He wore a custom-made suit with a snow white shirt, the kind the men on Wall Street wore. No one would mistake him for a financier, though. His broad, olive-skinned face betrayed his heritage. Pock-marked and coarse featured, he obviously came from peasant stock. Only ambi-tion, relentless effort, and a cruel disregard for the welfare of others had elevated him to his current position.
“Zio!” the girl cried and ran to him. He caught her in an embrace.
“What is it, ragazza piccola?” he asked tenderly, stroking her hair. “What has made you so unhappy?”
“Nainsi is dead, and the police are here!” she informed him indignantly, looking up at her uncle with a theatrical pout.
“What is this about the police?” he asked, looking at Frank with a trace of amusement. He had no fear of the police.
“Uncle, thank you for coming,” Joe said, hurrying toward him for a quick embrace. Antonio followed.
When he’d finished with the children, Ugo looked over to where Mrs. Ruocco stood. She’d risen from her chair but made no move to greet him.
“Patrizia,” he said in a tone of mock amazement. “You sent for me.”
“Ugo,” she said by way of greeting, although she said it with a grimace through gritted teeth. If her children were happy to see their uncle, she wasn’t.
“Sit down, Uncle,” Joe urged, pulling out a chair for him.
“Is that your baby crying so loud, Antonio?” Ugo asked mildly as he took the offered seat.
Antonio’s lip curled in disgust. “You know it is not my baby, Uncle.”
Ruocco nodded, and Frank noted that he had already been told about the baby’s birth and questionable lineage. When had that happened?
“But it is your wife’s baby,” Ruocco said. It wasn’t a question. “Did Valentina say she died?” he added with appropriate, if false, regret. “That is too bad for you, Antonio, to be a widower so young.” He gave the boy a sympathetic glance while he smoothed his lush mustache with one finger. Antonio looked away in embarrassment. “But why does this sad event bring the police to us?”
Everyone in the room looked at Frank. Ruocco’s boys had stationed themselves around the room, ready to block any attempt at escape and ready to take any action Ruocco might command of them. Frank hated being in such a vul-nerable position, but he knew better than to show fear.
Ruocco would smell it like the wolf he was.
“It looks like somebody helped Nainsi Ruocco along into the next world by holding a pillow over her face,” Frank said. He pretended not to notice the small gasps of surprise and the wave of animosity that roiled from the rest of the people in the room.
Ruocco didn’t bat an eye. “I am sure this is all a terrible mistake. In fact, I will be happy to pay you a reward for your efforts if you will straighten out this misunderstanding.”
The offer was a reasonable one, and Ruocco would have every reason to expect Frank to accept it. Everyone knew the police did what they were paid to do, and they certainly weren’t paid very much to uphold the law of the land.
Who would care if one more poor Irish girl died, after all?
And what good would come of bringing her killer to justice? A respectable family would suffer a lot of misery, and the girl would still be dead.
Frank had once believed he had no choice but to follow this logic and live by these unwritten rules. He knew better now, and he wanted to tell Ruocco what he could do with his offer of a bribe. He couldn’t though, at least not yet.
Sarah was still in the building, and Frank would be no good to her or to anyone else if Ruocco told his henchmen to slit his throat for showing disrespect.
“They already took the girl’s body to the morgue,” Frank said. “It’s out of my hands now.”
Irritation flickered across Ruocco’s broad face. He turned back to Mrs. Ruocco and demanded something in Italian.
She straightened defiantly and replied, mentioning Lorenzo.
“Lorenzo?” he scoffed, dismissing his nephew with a wave of his hand.
“We didn’t have any choice, Uncle,” Joe hastily explained.
“Nainsi’s mother ran out into the street screaming for the police when she found out the girl was dead.”
Before Ruocco could react, the kitchen door swung open, and Sarah came into the dining room, apparently unaware of what was going on. She glanced at the newcomers and then dismissed them as unimportant, going straight to Mrs.
Ruocco.
“Maria is going to need some help learning how to prepare the baby’s bottles and take care of him,” she said, as if nothing else was more important. “I’d be happy to help her, but if you’d prefer, I can suggest someone else to—”
“Who is this?” Ruocco demanded.
Sarah looked at him in surprise, and Frank noticed she managed to let Ruocco know his behavior was rude.
“She is the midwife, Uncle,” Joe hastily explained.
“And she was just leaving,” Frank said. “Mrs. Brandt, get your things.”
“Brandt,” Ruocco echoed thoughtfully, looking her up and down. “You are not German,” he added, referring to her name.
“No, I’m not,” she replied, offering nothing else. And making no move to leave, either, Frank noted impatiently.
Ruocco stared hard at her, annoyed that he could not classify her. An ordinary midwife he could deal with, but he could see Sarah Brandt wasn’t ordinary. Even though she moved among the working classes, she would always carry with her the evidence that she had been born to wealth and privilege, the daughter of one of the oldest families in the city. Ugo didn’t know all that, but a man as perceptive as he was, who depended on his ability to judge others in order to retain his power, would sense it.
“Who are you?” Ruocco asked, meaning much more than her name.
“I am the midwife,” Sarah said stubbornly. To her, that was the only correct or necessary answer.
Sensing she was somehow getting the upper hand, he changed tactics. “Do you think my nephew’s wife was murdered?”
Frank caught his breath, silently begging her not to answer that question.
“I don’t know why she died,” she said without even looking at Frank for guidance. “I never saw anything like it before.”
Ruocco’s eyes widened innocently. “Why do you want to ruin this family, Mrs. Brandt?” he asked, his voice suddenly silky with charm as he rose to his feet. “The girl lied to my nephew to give her bastard a name. She deserved to die.”
“I think God should make those decisions,” Sarah informed him. “I just want to know for certain how she died so I’ll know if it was my fault or if I could have done something to prevent it.”
“What if it was your fault? What if you killed her yourself?” he challenged, obviously enjoying the verbal duel.
“Then I will take the blame for it and try to learn from my mistake,” Sarah replied. “I always want to do my job better. Lives depend on it. I’m sure you can appreciate that, Mr. Ruocco.”
Frank wanted to shake her. Didn’t she know who she was talking to? This was no upper-class gentleman who would treat her with respect. Ugo Ruocco killed people who dis-pleased him.
But Ruocco seemed more amused than angered by her defiance. “Lives depend on it,” he echoed with a small smile.
“Patrizia, I do not know why you send for me,” he told his sister-in-law.
“To make the police go away and leave us alone,” Mrs.
Ruocco snapped, glaring at Frank.
This also seemed to amuse Ruocco. “Will you go away?”
he politely asked Frank, stroking his mustache again.
“I’m finished here,” Frank said, not wanting anyone to think he was leaving because Ruocco wanted him to. “I was waiting to escort Mrs. Brandt.”
“Are you finished, too, Mrs. Brandt?” Ruocco asked with exaggerated civility.
“Yes, she is,�
� Frank informed her. “Get your things, Mrs.
Brandt, and I’ll see that you get home.”
He saw the flicker of rebellion on her face, but she must have realized he was only concerned for her safety. She turned to Mrs. Ruocco again. “Please send for me if Maria has any problems with the baby. I’ll be happy to help in any way I can. I’m very sorry about Nainsi . . . about everything.”
Mrs. Ruocco betrayed only anger, although it didn’t seem to be directed at Sarah in particular. She nodded her head once in acknowledgment of Sarah’s words of condo-lence. “Giuseppe, get Mrs. Brandt’s coat.”
Joe looked around helplessly as Sarah went and fetched it herself from the chair where she had laid it. He went to help her with it before Frank could move.
As Sarah buttoned her cape, Ruocco asked of no one in particular, “Why does Maria take care of the baby?”
“Maria is going to keep the baby,” Joe hastily explained.
Ugo’s dark eyes narrowed, and he fixed his gaze on Joe.
“You are going to keep the whore’s baby?”
Joe blanched. “Maria is barren. She . . . she wants a baby,”
he stammered.
“The mother was a lying whore,” Ugo repeated.
“Will you tell Maria she cannot have a baby?” Mrs.
Ruocco challenged Ugo with a glare of her own.
“The baby can’t help who his parents are,” Sarah added, making Frank want to shake her again.
This time Ugo didn’t look amused. “You will go home now, Mrs. Brandt.”
Frank saw the flicker of rebellion again, but he hurried over and took her by the arm before she could offend Ruocco any more.
“Come on,” he said, picking up her medical bag.
For once she did as she was told. No one spoke as they left the restaurant. The crowd outside had retreated a respectful distance, in deference to Ugo Ruocco, but they still lingered in small groups. If something interesting happened, no one wanted to miss it. Still holding Sarah’s arm, Frank hustled her along the sidewalk until she finally shook loose of his grip and forced him to stop.
“Slow down. We don’t have to run away,” she snapped.
Murder in Little Italy gm-8 Page 6
