Murder in Little Italy gm-8

by Victoria Thompson

  “He does have a good reason for wanting her dead, but why would he make up a story about sleeping in Lorenzo’s room?”

  “Because he knows his brother will lie for him.”

  “He wife would lie for him, too,” Frank pointed out. “In fact, she already did. She told us he was with her all night and couldn’t have killed Nainsi. Why would he tell us a different story?”

  Gino frowned as he concentrated on getting it right. “I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense. He only needs one alibi.”

  “That’s right. He only needs one, and if he didn’t kill Nainsi, then one of the stories is true,” Frank informed him.

  “We need to figure out which one.”

  “How can we?”

  “It’s not hard. Which story did we hear first?”

  “The one Maria told us.”

  “And what does her story prove?”

  Gino thought about it for a minute. “That Nainsi was alive when Antonio and Joe came home from Ugo’s place.

  That Joe was nearby, close enough to slip over and smother her if he wanted to.”

  “Maria said he never got up the rest of the night, though,”

  Frank reminded him.

  “If she was asleep, how could she be sure?” Gino asked reasonably. He was starting to catch on.

  “Right, so she could be lying about that part, at least.

  Now, if Joe’s telling the truth, what does that prove?”

  “That he wasn’t even near Nainsi from the time they left for Ugo’s until after she was killed.”

  “But why didn’t he just tell us Nainsi was alive when he came home, and he was in bed with his wife all night, if that’s the truth?”

  “Because . . .” Gino’s face brightened with understanding. “Because it’s not the truth. He told us what he really did that night.”

  “Then why did Maria lie?”

  He thought for another minute. “To protect her husband.”

  Frank shook his head. “Donatelli, people sometimes lie to protect other people, but most of the time they lie to protect themselves.”

  Lorenzo came racing up the steps, taking them two and three at a time, until he reached Maria’s crumpled body.

  “What happened?” he demanded of Sarah.

  “She fell,” Sarah said quite truthfully. “I tried to catch her, but . . .”

  He wasn’t listening. “Maria, can you hear me?”

  Antonio and Mrs. Ruocco were close behind him, both yelling questions.

  “Maria fell down the stairs,” Lorenzo said, his voice both angry and anguished.

  Maria groaned.

  “Maria, can you hear me?” he asked again, taking her hand.

  “Get her inside,” Mrs. Ruocco cried.

  “Be careful,” Sarah warned. “She might have broken bones.”

  “Antonio, go get doctor,” Mrs. Ruocco said, sending the boy racing back down the stairs.

  Lorenzo kept trying to get Maria to respond, and finally her eyes fluttered open. “What . . . ?”

  “You fell down the stairs,” Lorenzo said. “Where are you hurt?”

  “Everywhere,” she murmured.

  Sarah descended the few remaining stairs to the landing.

  “Let me check her over before you move her.” She knelt, and Maria’s dazed eyes focused on her. Sarah saw a flicker of fear.

  “It’s all right,” Sarah said reassuringly. “Let me know if anything hurts.”

  Quickly, she felt Maria’s limbs and discovered a badly wrenched knee and an apparently broken arm. Lorenzo lifted her as gently as he could, carried her into Mrs. Ruocco’s bedroom on the second floor and laid her on the bed. She was moaning softly and cradling her broken arm. Was Sarah the only one who saw the adoration shining naked in Lorenzo’s eyes as he gazed down at her?

  “What you do on steps?” Mrs. Ruocco asked, oblivious of her son’s devotion to his brother’s wife. “You never look, you only hurry, hurry!”

  “Is she all right?” Valentina asked from the bedroom doorway.

  No one answered her. Lorenzo just stared at Maria helplessly while Mrs. Ruocco continued to berate her for being so careless as to nearly kill herself.

  “Valentina, would you get a nightdress for Maria and bring it down?” Sarah asked.

  For once the girl obeyed without complaint, probably grateful for something to take her away. Sarah began removing Maria’s shoes.

  “Lorenzo, would you step out?” Sarah asked. “We need to get her undressed so the doctor can examine her.”

  “Will she be all right?” he asked, his desperation painful to behold. He’d apparently forgotten his animosity toward Sarah.

  “We won’t know for certain until she’s been examined,”

  Sarah said, taking him by the arm and directing him to the door.

  “She pushed me.”

  Everyone looked toward where Maria lay on the bed. She was staring at Sarah with the same loathing as when she’d lunged for her on the stairs.

  “She pushed me down the stairs,” Maria said deliberately, pointing at Sarah with her good arm.

  Lorenzo and Mrs. Ruocco turned to Sarah in horror, but before anyone could speak, they heard someone calling from downstairs. To Sarah’s great relief, it was Frank Malloy.

  “She tried to kill you?” Malloy fairly shouted at Sarah. They were sitting at one of the tables down in the empty restaurant. Sarah had told him everything that had happened from the time she arrived at the Ruocco house earlier in the day until he’d come storming in a little while before.

  “She’s not in her right mind, Malloy,” Sarah pointed out.

  “Crazy or not, you’d be just as dead!” he pointed out right back.

  “Well, she didn’t kill me, so there’s no sense in getting upset now.”

  Malloy looked like he might explode, but he managed to swallow down his frustration. After a few moments of struggle, he asked, “Is she going to live?”

  “She didn’t seem to be too seriously hurt, but she might have internal injuries that don’t show up right away.”

  The doctor had arrived and was with her.

  “Why would she try to kill you, though?” Malloy asked.

  “I’ve been trying to figure that out, too.”

  “Did you say anything about knowing who killed Nainsi?”

  “No! When she as much as told me Joe was the baby’s father, I was pretty sure he must have done it, but I didn’t say a word. I was only trying to get away from her so I could tell you what I’d found out.”

  Malloy rubbed both hands over his face. “All right, let’s go see what she has to say for herself.”

  “The doctor probably isn’t finished with her yet.”

  “Good, then she won’t be expecting us.”

  Donatelli was in the second floor parlor with Lorenzo, Antonio, and Valentina. They all looked up when Frank and Sarah appeared.

  “The doc is still in there,” Donatelli reported.

  “Maria said she pushed her down the stairs,” Lorenzo informed Frank angrily, pointing at Sarah.

  “Use your head, Lorenzo,” Frank said irritably. “Why would Mrs. Brandt do a thing like that?”

  “Why would Maria say it if it wasn’t true?” Lorenzo challenged right back.

  “I don’t know. Let’s go find out,” Frank suggested and went across the hall to the closed bedroom door.

  “You can’t go in there!” Lorenzo protested, but Frank pushed the door open without knocking.

  Mrs. Ruocco cried out in protest, and the doctor looked up in surprise. He was tying off the wrapping around Maria’s broken arm. Maria glared at him but didn’t say a word.

  “What you come in here for?” Mrs. Ruocco demanded.

  “Get out!”

  “I need to ask Maria a few questions first,” Frank said.

  “She is hurt!” Mrs. Ruocco reminded him.

  “How bad?” Frank asked the doctor.

  “Broken arm and lots of bumps and bruises. S
he’ll recover.”

  “Good, then I guess she can talk,” Frank replied coldly, stepping into the room. Sarah came in behind him, and the others crowded around the open doorway.

  “I think I’ll step out and leave you to your business,” the doctor said, hastily gathering up his medical supplies and stuffing them into his bag. “I’ll be downstairs if you need me.” He worked his way through the gathering in the doorway and disappeared.

  When he was gone, Frank said, “Maria, you said Mrs.

  Brandt pushed you down the stairs. Can you tell me why she did a thing like that?”

  Fear flickered in Maria’s eyes as she stared at Sarah.

  “She . . . she said she would take the baby away.”

  Mrs. Ruocco made an outraged noise, but Sarah said,

  “You know that isn’t true, Maria. I suggested you find a nurse for him, that’s all.”

  “If she wanted to take the baby away from you,” Frank said, “why would that make her push you down the stairs?”

  Maria looked around nervously, as if trying to find an ally. “I . . . I don’t know. She just did.”

  “That’s funny, because Mrs. Brandt says you tried to push her, but she managed to duck out of the way,” Frank said. “If you were afraid she wanted to take the baby away, that would give you a good reason to want to hurt her, not the other way around.”

  “She hates me,” Maria tried. “She doesn’t want me to have the baby.”

  “And you’d do anything to keep him, wouldn’t you?”

  Frank asked. “You’d even kill someone.”

  “No!” Maria insisted, and Mrs. Ruocco gasped in shock.

  “What are you saying?” Lorenzo cried from the hallway outside. “Leave her alone!” He started into the room, but Donatelli grabbed him and held him back.

  “Do you want to know how much Maria wanted to keep the baby?” Frank asked of everyone present. “I’ll tell you.”

  “Don’t listen to him!” Maria begged. “He’s lying!”

  “It’s too late, Maria,” Frank said with a trace of sympathy. “Joe told us everything.”

  “No, he’s lying. It isn’t true!”

  “What is not true?” Patrizia Ruocco demanded, her dark eyes narrowed in suspicion at her daughter-in-law.

  “That Joe is the baby’s real father,” Frank said.

  Maria cried out in anguish, and Sarah watched the blood drain from Mrs. Ruocco’s face.

  “That can’t be true,” Lorenzo insisted furiously. “Joe wouldn’t do that!”

  “He admitted it to me today,” Frank said. “Nainsi didn’t know he was married, and she came looking for him here at the restaurant. Maria saw her, didn’t you, Maria?”

  Maria didn’t reply. Her face looked as if it were carved from stone.

  “And when Maria found out, she wanted the baby for herself, so she made the plan to trick Antonio into believing the baby was his.”

  Antonio made a strangled sound in his throat, and Lorenzo roared in outrage.

  “Liar!” Maria cried.

  “You can ask Joe,” Frank told Mrs. Ruocco, although he could see she was beginning to believe him. The story simply explained too much. “He’s the one who told me all of this.

  It was a good plan, too, but then you figured out Antonio couldn’t be the baby’s father, Mrs. Ruocco. You were going to put Nainsi and her baby out. To keep that from happening, Nainsi would’ve told you the baby was Joe’s. Maria couldn’t let you find out the truth, couldn’t let you know what kind of a man Joe was, and what kind of a woman she was, what the two of them had done to Antonio. So she killed Nainsi.”

  “Maria?” Mrs. Ruocco pleaded, wanting her to deny it but knowing it was true.

  “I didn’t! Mama, don’t listen to them!”

  “And then, when Mrs. O’Hara wanted the baby, Maria had to kill her, too. How did you manage to sneak out of the house without anybody seeing you, Maria?”

  Maria pressed her lips into a bloodless line, but Valentina said, “I know!”

  Everyone turned to where she stood in the hallway behind her brothers.

  “I saw her! We were all downstairs for lunch, even though hardly anybody came that day. I went upstairs because Mama was yelling at me, and I got tired of it. When I got upstairs, I heard the baby crying. I called for Maria, but she didn’t answer, so I started looking for her because I didn’t know how to make him stop. Then she came in from the outside stairs. She said she’d been to the privy, but . . . she looked so strange and . . . I didn’t think of it before, but she had her hat on! Why would she wear her hat out to the privy?”

  Everyone turned back to Maria, who hissed something at Valentina in Italian.

  “I don’t suppose you noticed if she had blood on her,” Frank said quite casually. “There wouldn’t have been much, though, because she cut Mrs. O’Hara’s throat from behind. Did you use one of the knives from the kitchen downstairs, Maria?”

  Mrs. Ruocco caught her breath, and Frank looked at her sharply.

  “You know something,” he said. “What is it?”

  She wasn’t looking at Frank, though. She was looking at Maria with horror in her eyes. “I could not find knife at lunch,” she said.

  “That’s right!” Valentina remembered with satisfaction.

  “It was your favorite knife, the one you keep really sharp.

  That’s why you were yelling at me. You said I lost it, and I told you I didn’t do it!”

  Her mother didn’t spare her a glance. She kept staring at Maria. “I look and look. Then I find at dinner. You kill with my knife, then put it back in my kitchen!”

  Maria’s face had gone white, and two red spots burned in her cheeks. Her eyes were wild as she looked around frantically for someone to help her. “I didn’t have any other choice! Nainsi wouldn’t have been a good mother! If she didn’t marry Antonio, she would’ve abandoned the baby.

  Lorenzo, tell them! I had to protect the baby!”

  But Lorenzo had nothing to say. Like everyone else, he was staring at her in horror. Donatelli wasn’t even restraining him anymore.

  “Mama!” she cried desperately. “He’s your grandson! I couldn’t let that woman have him!”

  “What woman?” Mrs. Ruocco asked bitterly. “Nainsi?

  Mrs. O’Hara?”

  Maria clutched at the bedcovers with her good hand. “It was all Joe’s fault! He was unfaithful to me. He got that girl in trouble! He arranged for Antonio to meet her!”

  “Giuseppe kill no one,” Mrs. Ruocco reminded her. She turned to Frank. “You will take her away?”

  “No!” Maria screamed. “You can’t let them put me in jail!!”

  “If the doctor says she can be moved, I’ll send for a matron and an ambulance right away,” Frank told the woman.

  “Mama, don’t do this!” Maria begged. “I was only trying to protect the family!”

  Mrs. Ruocco refused to even look at her. “I not you Mama,” she said and walked out of the room. Valentina and Antonio followed her, but Lorenzo stood there, still staring at Maria in disbelief.

  “What will happen to her?” he asked Frank.

  Frank didn’t want to mention Old Sparky, so he simply said, “That’ll be up to the judge.”

  “What about the baby?” Lorenzo asked.

  “The baby is mine!” Maria cried furiously. “Bring him to me! I have to take him with me!”

  “You can’t take the baby to jail,” Sarah said with more kindness than Frank would have shown.

  Maria gave a primal howl and started sobbing hysterically.

  “Officer Donatelli, would you go and ask the doctor to come back up?” Sarah asked.

  No sooner had he gone than Sarah heard the baby wailing upstairs. “Lorenzo, Joe is the baby’s father, so he’s really your nephew. Why don’t you go get him and take him to your mother, where he belongs?”

  Lorenzo took one last look at the woman he’d come to love, the woman who had betrayed them all. Then he turne
d away.

  15

  Roosevelt looked very pleased with himself when Frank entered his office.

  “Good work, Detective Sergeant,” he said. “Solving the Italian murder, I mean. Sad situation, of course, but at least no one can say we tried to hide the truth to protect anyone.”

  “No, sir,” Frank agreed grimly.

  “Even Tammany Hall seems satisfied. Of course, they’re always satisfied if they come out looking as if they really tried to help the working man—whether they really did or not.”

  Frank had no reply to that, so he offered none. He wasn’t sure why Roosevelt had summoned him. Surely, he wanted more than to tell him he was pleased with the outcome of the Ruocco case. As he waited uneasily, he realized Roosevelt seemed a bit uneasy, too.

  Finally, the Commissioner cleared his throat. “I . . . uh . . . I had a letter from Mrs. Brandt.”

  Frank shouldn’t have been surprised. They’d agreed she would contact Roosevelt. “Did you?”

  “Yes, and I understand from her that you have uncovered some new information about her husband’s death.” He made it sound like an accusation.

  Frank resisted the instinctive urge to be defensive. “Yes, I found a witness and . . . and some other interesting facts that weren’t known when Dr. Brandt was killed.”

  “After all this time?” Roosevelt asked skeptically. “It’s been three years, hasn’t it?”

  “Almost four,” Frank admitted.

  Roosevelt peered at him intently through his spectacles

  “And this witness suddenly came forward after almost four years?”

  “He heard I was asking around about the case,” Frank lied. He’d actually hunted the boy down after hearing about him from an informant. He wasn’t even sure if he could find him again.

  “What about this new information? Where did it come from?”

  Frank wanted to grind his teeth, but he forced himself to admit the truth. “Felix Decker gave it to me.”

  “Are you saying he had information about who killed Dr.

  Brandt and he didn’t use it at the time to find the killer?”

  Roosevelt demanded in outrage.

  “He didn’t think it had anything to do with Dr. Brandt’s murder. The officers who investigated believed Dr. Brandt had been killed by someone trying to rob him.”