Murder in Little Italy gm-8

by Victoria Thompson

  “That wasn’t much help,” Gino observed, closing the door behind her.

  “No, it wasn’t,” Malloy agreed. “According to her, none of the Ruoccos could’ve killed Mrs. O’Hara.”

  “Unless Joe snuck out again after he brought Antonio home.”

  “If he did—or if anyone did—no one would ever admit it,” Sarah pointed out.

  “So we’re back to Zio Ugo and his men,” Gino sighed.

  “We’re missing something. We’ve got to be,” Malloy insisted. “Let’s go over it all again.”

  “Ahem,” Sarah said meaningfully. “Could we find a place where we’ll be welcome if someone were to see us?”

  “I guess we should leave,” Gino allowed. He opened the door and looked out into the hallway. “Nobody out there.

  Mrs. Brandt, you go first.”

  Sarah stole down the hallway and out the door into the alley where Gino had admitted them earlier. After glancing around to make sure no one had paid attention to her some-what hasty escape, she slowed her pace and walked down to the street corner, where Malloy and Gino soon joined her.

  “There’s a coffeehouse on the corner,” Gino pointed out.

  The three of them adjourned there. When they’d ordered coffee, Malloy gave Sarah one of his looks. “How do you always manage to get mixed up in these things?”

  Sarah feigned shock. “If I remember correctly, you came to my house and begged me to do this.”

  “I don’t mean . . . Oh, never mind. All right, what do we know about Nainsi?”

  “She met Antonio at a dance house and tricked him into thinking he was the father of her baby,” Gino supplied helpfully.

  “But we know he wasn’t because the baby was started in June, and he didn’t even meet her until August,” Malloy said.

  “And she was already at least two months gone by then, maybe more,” Sarah added.

  “But her friends say she was seeing an Italian man months before that,” Malloy said. “A rich Italian man.”

  “Uncle Ugo?” Gino offered with a grin.

  “A girl like Nainsi wouldn’t fall in love with Ugo no matter how much money he had,” Sarah assured them. “Do you have any idea who the man could have been?”

  “We were considering Lorenzo,” Malloy told her, watching for her reaction.

  “Lorenzo?” she echoed in surprise, trying to see him through Nainsi’s eyes. “What made you think of him?”

  “We know he took Antonio out to the dance houses because Mrs. Ruocco wouldn’t let him go alone. That probably means he had been going to them himself before that.

  He could’ve met Nainsi and seduced her.”

  “Antonio said Mrs. Ruocco wants to find him a wife, but Lorenzo doesn’t want to get married,” Gino said.

  “He especially wouldn’t want to marry an Irish girl he met at a dance house,” Sarah guessed. “His mother would never stand for it!”

  “He could’ve eloped with her, like Antonio did, but maybe he’s not as noble as Antonio,” Malloy said.

  “Or maybe he just didn’t want to,” Sarah surmised. “But we’re getting way ahead of ourselves. What makes you think Lorenzo even knew Nainsi, much less fathered her child?”

  “Didn’t you say that Lorenzo was the one who stood up for Maria when she wanted to keep the baby?” Malloy asked.

  “Yes, I did. He’s been very supportive. He even sits up with her when the baby cries at night.”

  “You just heard Valentina say he spends a lot of time with the baby, and Antonio said the same thing. Why would a bachelor take such an interest in someone else’s bastard?”

  “Oh, my,” Sarah said, as the pieces started to fall into place. “You’re right. Lorenzo even mentioned that he didn’t approve of Antonio’s marriage. Of course he wouldn’t want his baby brother saddled with a girl like that.”

  “He wouldn’t like having Nainsi living under his roof, either,” Gino said.

  “But she wasn’t going to be living under his roof anymore,” Malloy reminded them. “Mrs. Ruocco was going to throw her out.”

  Something deep in Sarah’s memory stirred. “Nainsi wasn’t worried about getting thrown out, though,” she recalled.

  “She was almost smug when Mrs. Ruocco threatened her. If Lorenzo was the baby’s father, then all she had to do was tell Mrs. Ruocco the truth. She wouldn’t throw her grandson out, no matter which of her sons was the father.”

  “Lorenzo couldn’t have that,” Malloy said. “So he killed her.”

  “And then he fell in love with his son,” Sarah realized.

  “I’ve seen it happen many times. That’s why he stood up to Ugo when he wanted them to get rid of the baby.”

  Gino had been listening to them with great interest. “This is a really good theory,” he said. “So how do we prove it?”

  13

  This silenced all of them. Sarah saw the discouragement in Malloy’s dark eyes and the hopelessness in Gino’s.

  “We’ll have to bring him in,” Malloy said finally, but without much enthusiasm.

  “All he has to do is keep his mouth shut, though,” Gino reminded them. “We can’t prove a thing without a confession . . . or witnesses.”

  “His family won’t turn on him, even if they know he did it,” Sarah said. “And I’m sure he wouldn’t have wanted any of them to know. Nainsi’s death was silent in the darkness, and no one saw the killer going into Mrs. O’Hara’s flat. He surely would’ve waited until the family was asleep—and Joe and Antonio were out—before he left for her place.”

  Malloy was rubbing his chin. “But Mrs. O’Hara was working on her ties when she died. If it was late at night, she would’ve been in bed.”

  “Maybe not,” Sarah said. “Piecework doesn’t pay very much, so the only way to earn more is to make more. People sometimes work all night.”

  “In the dark?” Malloy asked.

  “Was there a lamp on the table?”

  “Yes, but it was empty.”

  “Then she might have been burning it, and it went dry after she died.”

  “Or it might have been empty, and she died when it was still daylight,” Malloy argued back.

  “Either way, there’s still no reason Lorenzo couldn’t have done it,” Gino pointed out. “Even if Valentina didn’t see him leave the house all day, he could have. He wouldn’t have been gone long.”

  “Then let’s go bring him in,” Malloy said wearily. He laid money on the table for the coffee and rose from his seat.

  Sarah gathered her things and preceded the men out into the street.

  “Thank you for all your help, Mrs. Brandt,” Malloy said formally, because Gino was there.

  “I don’t think I helped much,” she demurred.

  “Yes, you did,” Gino assured her. “We wouldn’t have dared talk to Valentina without you.”

  “And when Mrs. Ruocco finds out I helped you waylay her daughter, I’ll probably never deliver another baby in Little Italy again,” she predicted with a rueful smile.

  “I don’t think it’ll be that serious,” Malloy said. “Can I convince you to go home now?”

  “Yes, you can. I’ll be happy to spend the rest of the day with Catherine.”

  “Who?” Malloy said in surprise.

  Sarah couldn’t help smiling. “I asked if I could start calling her Catherine, and she said I could.”

  Malloy grinned back, the sort of sentimental smile she seldom saw, which made Gino ask, “Who’s Catherine?”

  Malloy sobered instantly. “I’ll tell you later. Find Mrs.

  Brandt a cab so she can be on her way.”

  “Will you send me word about what happens with Lorenzo?” she asked.

  “I’ll be sure you find out,” Gino promised, earning a frown from Malloy.

  All too quickly, they put her in a cab and left her to imagine what would happen next. Whatever it was would only bring more heartache to the Ruocco family.

  This time Frank and Gino decided to try a diffe
rent approach to convincing Lorenzo to come to Headquarters for questioning. A deciding factor was that Ugo Ruocco had increased the number of men he had guarding the street outside since they’d taken Antonio in for questioning, and Frank didn’t think they’d just stand by while he and Gino marched Lorenzo out the front door. He pulled in a couple of officers from another precinct and instructed them carefully in what their part would be.

  Saturday had brought more customers to the restaurant for lunch. Perhaps they thought that with Mrs. O’Hara dead, there would be no more trouble. Frank and Gino waited until the crowd had thinned down, and then sent two officers in, dressed as ordinary working men. Frank and Gino waited out of sight around the corner with the police wagon. A beat cop was idly strolling down the street in front of Mama’s Restaurant, and within minutes the front door flew open, and Joe started hustling one of the disguised policemen out, convinced he was nothing more than an unruly customer.

  They were both shouting, and the cop was throwing punches that Joe managed to duck. Seconds later, the other officer emerged, grappling with Lorenzo. Instantly, the uniformed beat cop started pounding his locust club and shouting for help.

  That was the cue for the wagon driver to slap his team into motion. The Black Maria went hurtling around the corner just as other uniformed cops emerged from their hiding places to assist in calming the melee.

  Ugo’s men had immediately moved in to help the Ruocco boys, but the police quickly discouraged them by grabbing every man they saw and throwing him into the paddy wagon. Joe and Lorenzo were the first inside, in spite of their vocal and violent protests that they’d just been protecting their property. The two unruly customers followed, mostly to make sure the Ruoccos didn’t escape, and by then most everyone else had fled. The wagon rumbled away, and Frank and Gino met it at Headquarters when it pulled up to disgorge its passengers.

  By then Joe and Lorenzo were furious and ready to take on the entire police force, until they emerged and saw Frank’s smiling face.

  “Good afternoon, fellows,” he greeted them. “So glad you could make it.”

  Lorenzo gave him a murderous glare. “You! After what you did to Valentina, I should cut your throat!”

  “Like you did to Mrs. O’Hara?” Frank inquired mildly.

  Lorenzo had no answer for that.

  “Bring them inside, boys,” Frank said, and the officers escorted them none too gently up the front stairs.

  Joe noticed the two “customers” walking away. “What about them?” he asked in outrage. “They started a fight in our place!”

  “They’re cops,” Gino informed them. “We needed a way to get the two of you down here without having to wade through Ugo’s men.”

  Frank and Gino were roundly cursed in two languages, so Frank let the boys cool their heels for over an hour down in separate interrogation rooms. He could have let Joe go, of course, but he didn’t, reasoning that he might need to verify something Lorenzo said . . . or didn’t say. Besides, he felt ornery.

  When Frank and Gino finally joined Lorenzo downstairs, he had regained control of his temper. In fact, he looked entirely too cool for Frank’s taste. Sitting in the dingy room hadn’t panicked him like it had Antonio. He simply looked disgusted.

  Frank took a seat opposite him while Gino manned the door. “We know why Nainsi died, Lorenzo. We know everything.”

  “Then why am I here?” he asked. “Why is my brother here? Why haven’t you arrested the killer?”

  “Tell me, Lorenzo, why did you defend Maria against Ugo when she wanted to keep the baby?”

  The question puzzled him. “Because she wanted him.”

  “Because she wanted him?” Frank asked. “Or because you did?”

  “Why would I want him?”

  Frank nodded sagely. “That’s a good question. Why would a man even care what happens to a little bastard some whore delivered on his doorstep?”

  Lorenzo shifted uneasily in his seat. He didn’t like Frank’s choice of words, but he didn’t protest.

  “That’s what Nainsi was, wasn’t she? A whore?”

  The word pained him, and Lorenzo didn’t want to agree.

  “She was foolish. Young and foolish.”

  “Young, but not too foolish. She got herself a husband, didn’t she? A man to take care of her and her baby when the real father wouldn’t.”

  Lorenzo refused to respond. Frank could see the muscles in his jaw working.

  “Why do you think the real father wouldn’t marry her, Lorenzo?”

  “I don’t know,” he said through gritted teeth.

  “Let’s think about it then. Maybe the real father was the kind of man who likes to take advantage of foolish young girls. He likes to use them for his pleasure and then move on to another one. Maybe he’s the kind of man who wouldn’t care that he has a son somewhere whose name he doesn’t even know.”

  Anger flickered across Lorenzo’s face. “Maybe he is.”

  “What would you think of a man like that, Lorenzo? A man who’d turn his back on a girl after he put a baby in her belly? A man who’d turn his back on his own child?”

  “He is not a man,” Lorenzo decreed.

  “But you didn’t want Antonio to marry Nainsi, did you?

  Even when everybody thought the baby was his, you didn’t approve. Why is that?”

  “That girl, anyone can see she’s a liar. Antonio would never . . . He’s too young to know what to do. She would have to show him, and how would she know what to do if she hadn’t been with another man already?”

  “So you didn’t think the baby was his right from the beginning?” Frank guessed.

  “I didn’t know, but I knew she wasn’t a nice girl for Antonio.”

  “Or maybe you knew because she’d been with you already.”

  Lorenzo actually reared back in shock. “Who told you this?” he demanded.

  “We figured it out,” Frank said with some satisfaction.

  “Nainsi was bragging to her friends about her Italian lover for months. When she married Antonio, they all thought he was the one she’d been seeing, but we know he didn’t even start going to the dance houses until August.”

  His expression was almost comical. “And you think I was this Italian man?”

  “A young man like you, who could blame you for going to dance houses? For wanting to spend time with girls who aren’t too virtuous before you have to settle down with a wife of your own? But wait, you don’t want a wife of your own, do you?” Frank said, pretending to just remember that fact. “Antonio said your mama wants to get you a wife like she did for Joe, but you don’t want to get married at all.”

  Lorenzo blanched, but he managed to hold his temper. “I never saw Nainsi before Antonio brought her to our house,”

  Lorenzo insisted.

  Frank slapped his hand down on the table, making Lorenzo jump. “Don’t bother lying, Lorenzo,” he said fiercely.

  “We know you’re the one who took Antonio to the dance house where he met Nainsi. We know you’d been going there for a long time. We know you got Nainsi pregnant and refused to marry her. We know you were angry when she tricked your little brother into taking responsibility for your mistake, and we know you killed her so she wouldn’t tell your mother the truth.”

  Stunned, Lorenzo stared at Frank for a long moment, as if trying to comprehend everything he’d just heard—or figure some way to deny it.

  And then he started to laugh.

  Sarah groaned when she heard someone knocking on her door. She and Maeve had been practicing calling Aggie by her new name and pretending to forget to make her laugh. Sarah didn’t want to stop. She wanted this joyous time to last forever. Maeve went downstairs to answer the door, but when she called up, Sarah knew she’d be leaving.

  As she and Catherine came down the stairs, she was surprised to see Antonio Ruocco waiting in the foyer. She knew a moment of apprehension, thinking he might have come to berate her for her part in questioning Valentina this
morning, but then she saw the desperate look on his face.

  “Mrs. Brandt, Maria needs for you to come right away.

  The baby is sick.”

  Sarah might have thought it was a trick to lure her someplace where Ugo Ruocco could take revenge, but Antonio was too innocent to lie so well.

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “He won’t stop crying,” Antonio reported in dismay.

  “And his bowels are running, and Mama says he’s too hot.”

  “Antonio, I want to help Maria, but I think your family must be very angry with me right now.”

  “Because of Valentina,” he said, nodding his head.

  “Yes, and because of my last visit there, too. Maybe Maria doesn’t know about Valentina, but I’m sure your mother—”

  “She knows. We all know. Valentina tells everyone who will listen, and then the police took Joe and Lorenzo away in a wagon today, too. We’re all very angry, but Maria doesn’t care. She says you are the only one who knows how make the baby well.”

  “But I doubt your mother would even let me in the house,” Sarah protested.

  “She’s the one who told me to come. She’s afraid of what will happen to Maria if the baby dies. Maria loves him so much . . . Too much, I think,” he added sadly.

  Sarah remembered what Valentina had said about Maria’s state of mind. She must already be near the breaking point, and with the baby sick . . . Sarah could at least provide reassurance and support to ease the strain Maria was under. If Mrs. Ruocco would let her in, that is.

  “Girls, I’m sorry, but I have to go with Mr. Ruocco.”

  Their obvious disappointment broke her heart, and she promised to return in time to tuck Catherine into bed.

  Then she checked her medical bag to make sure she had the proper remedies. Satisfied, she set out with Antonio.

  When they arrived at the restaurant, they found the shades closed and the restaurant dark. They’d be hard pressed to serve dinner with the two older boys still at police headquarters. Antonio took her inside and led her to the interior stairs, calling out to let his mother know they’d arrived.

  When they reached the second floor, Sarah could hear the baby crying from the floor above. She hurried past Antonio, snatching her medical bag from him. She found Maria and Mrs. Ruocco in the parlor. Mrs. Ruocco was rocking the baby while Maria paced. She ran to meet Sarah.