“It wouldn’t be a bad idea, though,” he replied. “Do you know who Ugo Ruocco is?”
“I know he has something to do with the Black Hand.”
Frank glanced back to see if any of Ruocco’s boys had followed. “Keep walking,” he told her, steering her toward Mulberry Street.
This time she came along without protest.
“Ruocco runs the Black Hand,” Frank said just loud enough for her to hear. “He collects protection money from all the Italians, and if somebody refuses to pay, they get beat up or killed or their store gets bombed, or maybe even all three.”
“I know all that,” she reminded him.
“Then you should also know he wouldn’t hesitate to kill a lowly midwife who annoyed him.”
He was glad to see she looked a little bit chastened, but only a little. “What if we’re right, and Nainsi was murdered? What will happen?”
“Probably nothing.”
“What do you mean, nothing?”
He should’ve known she’d be outraged. “I mean if Ruocco pays off the right people, no one will care if she was murdered or not.”
That silenced her, but not for long.
“I don’t suppose he’d want his family accused of murder,”
she said.
“To Italians, family is everything,” he explained. “They don’t trust anybody who isn’t a blood relative, and they stick by family to the death.”
“Patrizia Ruocco doesn’t seem to like Ugo much,” she observed.
“Maybe she doesn’t, but she still sent for him when she thought her family was in trouble.”
She thought this over for a minute or two. “Poor Nainsi,”
she mused. “And her mother . . . I can’t imagine how awful it would be to lose a child like that, and then to lose your grandchild, too.”
“I couldn’t believe Mama Ruocco let her daughter-in-law keep the boy,” Frank said in wonder.
“I couldn’t either. Everybody knows how much Maria wanted a child of her own, though, and the Ruoccos can probably give him a better home than Mrs. O’Hara.”
“Mrs. O’Hara won’t see it that way,” he reminded her.
“I know.” She sighed. “But the law is against her. Even if she had the means to fight them, she’d still lose.”
They’d reached the Prodigal Son Mission, where Sarah volunteered, and she stopped. “Malloy, I’m going into the mission while I’m here to see if they need anything. Will you let me know what the coroner finds out about how Nainsi died?”
He nodded reluctantly. “For all the good it will do. And don’t start thinking about justice for this girl,” he warned.
“She shouldn’t have gotten mixed up with the Italians in the first place, and nobody but her mother is going to care what happened to her.”
She frowned, hating what he said but knowing he was right. “Thank you for coming anyway.”
He just shook his head. “Be careful. And stay away from the Ruoccos.”
She smiled a little, and Frank felt a familiar catch in his chest. “I’ll try,” she said and started up the front steps to the mission.
When she was safely inside, he headed for police headquarters in the next block to make his report.
Sarah hadn’t intended to stay so long at the mission, but they were having a problem with one of the girls and needed her help. Now she’d have to hurry if she wanted to get home before the streets became completely jammed with people returning from the day’s work. She’d missed another afternoon with Aggie, too. Thank heaven she had Maeve and didn’t have to worry about whether Aggie was safe.
She was skirting the south edge of Washington Square when she heard the first newsboy calling out the headlines.
“Irish girl murdered in Little Italy!” he cried, waving a penny newspaper to attract the attention of the pedestri-ans.
Sarah started at the coincidence. She knew he couldn’t be talking about Nainsi’s death. The penny papers only cared about sensational stories, and Nainsi’s wouldn’t qualify. As Malloy had said, only her mother would care if she’d been murdered or not.
She reached the corner and turned up the west side of the Square. On the next corner stood another newsboy selling a different paper.
“Dagos slit Irish girl’s throat and steal her baby!” he was crying, waving the papers. People were passing him coins and snatching the papers from him as quickly as they could press within reach.
This was too much of a coincidence. Sarah waded into the crowd and emerged with a slightly wrinkled copy of the scandal sheet. Stepping into the square where she could read without blocking anyone’s way, she quickly scanned the story. They’d given Nainsi’s name the American spelling of Nancy, and they said her throat had been cut, but otherwise, it was her story, all right. According to the paper, Nainsi had been practically kidnapped by the Ruoccos and kept a prisoner until she gave birth. Then she’d been murdered so they could have her baby. The paper had included a drawing of a voluptuous young girl sprawled on a bed in a skimpy nightdress. With one arm she clutched an infant and with the other she tried to ward off a large, dark man wielding a knife.
When Sarah looked up, she realized many others had stopped to read the story, just as she had, and they were murmuring in outrage. Sarah and Mrs. O’Hara were no longer the only ones in the city who cared if Nainsi had been murdered.
Frank had spent most of the day investigating a suspicious warehouse fire. He stank of smoke and only wanted to get home and have a hot bath, but when he stopped by headquarters to make his report, he found Gino Donatelli waiting for him.
“Pew,” the young officer said as Frank approached.
“Warehouse fire,” Frank explained. “Was she smothered?”
Donatelli nodded.
“Come with me.” Frank led him back to the detectives’
area and sat down at a battered desk. Donatelli pulled up a rickety chair beside it.
“Did you stay for the whole autopsy?” Frank inquired knowingly.
Donatelli smiled a little sheepishly. “Didn’t have to. Doc Haynes didn’t have time for it today anyway. Lorenzo wasn’t going to leave without an answer, though, so he started looking the body over to see what he could find.”
“He noticed the red dots on her face?”
“Yeah, and he explained to Lorenzo what they meant. He looked at the pillow and the girl’s cut lip and the blood on her teeth, and showed Lorenzo how she was smothered, just like you did back in her room.”
“Did that convince him?”
Donatelli shook his head. “He was still arguing, so Doc pried the girl’s mouth open and started looking down her throat.”
“Down her throat?” Frank repeated. “For what?”
“He gets these long pincher things and sticks them in her mouth and pulls out this feather.”
“How’d she get a feather in her throat?”
“It was a feather pillow,” Donatelli said grimly. “Doc says she must’ve sucked it right through the pillowcase when she was fighting real hard to breathe.”
In the normal course of things Frank knew, feathers fre-quently worked free of the loose pillowcase ticking. His mother collected them carefully, probably intending to have enough someday to make a new pillow or at least to stuff back into the old one. He’d never inhaled one, though. Now he felt a tickle in his throat and had an unreasonable urge to cough. His discomfort must have shown on his face.
“Yeah, that’s how Lorenzo acted, too,” Donatelli said with a grin. “He even started gagging. Doc said he could watch while he cut open her chest, just to make sure, and that’s when Lorenzo bolted.”
“So he’ll report back to Mama and Uncle Ugo that she was smothered.”
“Doc isn’t really going to do the autopsy until tomorrow, but he was pretty sure what he’d find,” Donatelli said.
“I’ll check with him later and get his report. Thanks, Donatelli,” he said generously. “You did a good job.”
The young m
an looked pleased, but he didn’t smile.
“There’s one more thing.”
Frank didn’t want to hear one more thing about this case.
“What is it?”
Donatelli reached into his uniform pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. When he unfolded it, Frank saw it was one of the penny newspapers. Then he saw the drawing.
“What the hell . . . ?” he muttered, snatching the paper from Donatelli. “Her throat wasn’t cut,” he protested as he read. “Where’d they get this?” he demanded of no one in particular.
“Mama’s is only a few blocks away from here,” Donatelli reminded him. “Somebody could just go over to the press shacks and tell them whatever they wanted to hear.”
The rooms in the two houses directly across the street from Police Headquarters were rented by hordes of reporters who spent their days watching the Black Marias arrive and disgorge their prisoners, hoping one of them would provide a good story. Donatelli was right, somebody with knowledge of a story like Nainsi’s would only have to stand outside on the sidewalk and wave to get all the attention he wanted. Or she wanted.
“Nainsi’s mother,” Frank guessed.
“Who else would care?” Donatelli asked. “I don’t think the Ruoccos wanted this story in the newspapers.”
“She’ll be sorry,” Frank predicted. “Ugo will make sure of it.”
Frank heard somebody calling his name. He swore.
“Maybe it’s about something else,” Donatelli offered.
“Malloy!” It was one of the Goo-Goos, a brand-new officer, breathless from running through the building in search of him. He sighed in relief when he saw Malloy sitting at his desk. “Commissioner Roosevelt wants to see you right away.”
“Yeah,” Frank said to Donatelli, rising reluctantly. “He probably wants my advice on running the department or something.”
Donatelli rose also and followed Frank down the hall toward the stairs to the second floor where Roosevelt kept his office. “If you need somebody who speaks Italian, you know where to find me,” he said in parting.
Frank just grunted and started up the stairs.
Miss Kelly, the girl secretary Roosevelt had hired in a break with decades of tradition of an exclusively male staff, greeted him and told him to go on in. The commissioner was waiting for him.
Frank wished he’d had a chance to clean up first, but Roosevelt would have to take him as he was.
“Been cleaning chimneys, Detective Sergeant?” Roosevelt asked with his toothy grin.
“Warehouse fire, sir,” he replied. “I just got back.”
“You were down at that Italian restaurant this morning, though.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes, sir. I suspected the girl had been murdered, so I sent her body to the morgue for an autopsy.”
“Throat cut, eh?”
“Oh, no, she was smothered.”
“Then the scandal sheets are wrong.”
“They’re wrong about a lot of things, Commissioner,”
Frank explained wearily. “She wasn’t kidnapped. She was married to one of the Ruocco boys. He thought he’d gotten her in a family way. When the baby came way too early, he knew it wasn’t his. The whole family was pretty mad. The next morning she was dead.”
“What about the baby?”
“It’s fine, and the Ruocco family wants to keep it. Seems one of the other boys’ wives can’t have any of her own.”
“The girl was murdered, though. No doubt about that?”
“No, sir, no doubt at all, according to the coroner.”
“Who did it?”
“We don’t have any idea. And it’s Ugo Ruocco’s family.”
Roosevelt grimaced in distaste. “The girl married his son?”
“His nephew. He’ll try to protect them though. He’ll bribe and threaten whoever he has to.”
“A girl was murdered. We can’t let a criminal stop us from investigating,” Roosevelt insisted.
“He can make sure we don’t find the killer, though,”
Frank said. “If it was somebody in the family—and it probably was—they’ll never turn on each other. All they have to do is keep quiet.”
Even though he understood, Roosevelt didn’t like it.
Frank wished he wasn’t the one delivering the bad news, but it couldn’t be helped.
They could both hear the sound of a paddy wagon pulling up in the street below with its load of boisterous drunks. It was early for that, Frank noted. They didn’t start picking up that kind of crowd until long after sundown. Even then, they usually didn’t make this much noise.
Roosevelt must have had the same thought. He went to the window overlooking the street, and Frank followed. The men spilling from the wagon didn’t look drunk. They were much too feisty and coordinated as they dodged the officers’
locust clubs and managed to get in a few licks of their own.
One even successfully broke free and raced away down the street to freedom. The officers were too busy to even notice his escape.
“What’s this?” Roosevelt muttered. “It looks like a riot!”
Frank thought so, too.
Someone knocked loudly on the office door, and before Roosevelt could answer, it opened.
Minnie Kelly stuck her head in, her eyes wide. “An Officer Donatelli says he has to see you, Commissioner.”
“He was with me at the restaurant this morning,” Frank said to Roosevelt.
“Send him in,” Roosevelt said.
Donatelli didn’t wait for Miss Kelly. He was right behind her, and he stepped around her into the room.
“Mr. Roosevelt, sir, there was a riot down at the Ruoccos’
restaurant. I knew Mr. Malloy was with you, and you’d both want to know right away.”
“What kind of a riot?” Roosevelt demanded. “Who was involved?”
“A group of Irish boys, it seems, sir,” Donatelli said.
“That’s how it started. They got to reading the penny press about the girl who got killed, and they were drinking some, I guess. They worked themselves up into a fever and marched down to Mama’s, started yelling and then throwing rocks. A window got broke, and then all hell—I’m sorry, sir, then things started getting really rough. Some of the neighborhood toughs came out with sticks, and a lot of noses got bloodied. Our boys gathered up as many as they could from both sides and sent the others packing.”
“So that’s who they’re bringing in now,” Roosevelt said.
“Yes, sir, at least the ones that didn’t run away.”
Roosevelt removed his wire-rimmed glasses and rubbed his eyes. “I’d better telephone the mayor before he hears this from someone else. Malloy,” he added as he put his glasses back on, “you’re in charge of this investigation. I want the killer found.”
Frank wanted to remind him how he’d just explained that the task was impossible, but he resisted the self-destructive urge. “An Irish cop won’t get far with those people,” he said instead. “They only trust their own.”
“I don’t have any Italian detectives to send,” Roosevelt reminded him.
“I’ll help in any way I can,” Donatelli offered. “I grew up in that neighborhood.”
“Dee-lightful,” Roosevelt said, his good humor restored.
“Take this young man, Malloy. Donatelli, is it? Good work, Officer Donatelli. And just tell Conlin if you need anyone else,” he added, mentioning the chief of detectives. “I want this matter settled before this little altercation turns into a full-scale war between the Irish and Italians.”
“Yes, sir,” Frank said, although he had no hope at all that he’d be able to obey this order. One thing might help, though, if he could convince Roosevelt to do it. “Maybe we could start by getting the newspapers to publish the facts instead of all this business about the girl being kidnapped and her throat being cut.”
“Yes, yes, good idea, Malloy. Good idea,” Roosevelt said, rubbing his hands in anticipation of getting to work. “I�
��ll call a press conference. I’ll need a full report with all the details so I can answer questions. I’ll get Haynes there to talk about the autopsy, too.”
“He, uh, he hasn’t actually done the autopsy yet,” Frank admitted.
“Then he’ll do it tonight. I want the news in the morning papers. I’ll need that report right away, Detective Sergeant Malloy.”
Frank took the hint and made his escape, Donatelli on his heels.
“I never saw him up close before,” Donatelli whispered as they made their way downstairs. “He’s something, isn’t he?”
Frank didn’t answer. He was too busy trying to figure out how he was going to do the impossible and solve Nainsi Ruocco’s murder.
5
Sarah took Aggie for a walk the next morning to pick up several of the more reputable newspapers. Aggie almost had to run to keep up with her as she hurried back home to see what they had to say about Nainsi’s death.
When she arrived, she found Mrs. Ellsworth and Maeve in the kitchen with all the ingredients for an English pudding.
“Good morning, Mrs. Brandt,” she said cheerfully. “Going to catch up with the news?”
“I want to see what they have to say about a . . . a friend of mine. Maeve, will you take Aggie upstairs for a little while?”
“Mrs. Ellsworth was going to show me how to make a pudding,” Maeve said, not wanting to hurt the older woman’s feelings. She probably also wanted to eat the pudding.
“There’s plenty of time for that,” Mrs. Ellsworth said cheerfully. “Give me and Mrs. Brandt a few minutes to talk, and I’ll call you down when we’re finished so we can start the pudding.”
“Yes, ma’am,” she said obediently, taking Aggie by the hand.
As soon as they were out of earshot, Mrs. Ellsworth’s polite smile faded. “What’s wrong?”
“One of my patients was murdered night before last,”
Sarah said, laying the papers on the kitchen table to sort through them.
“Good heavens,” Mrs. Ellsworth said, taking a seat at the table. “I was afraid something like that would happen. I saw a crow on your back fence on Monday morning. It’s an omen of death. I didn’t say anything, because I know how you feel about my superstitions. I was just hoping you wouldn’t have a delivery that day.” She shrugged apologetically. “How did it happen?”
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