Murder on Marble Row

by Victoria Thompson

  9

  FRANK WAS CHILLED THROUGH BY THE TIME HE reached the flat he shared with his mother and his son. In the years since his wife Kathleen had died bringing Brian into the world, Frank had dreaded coming home to this place. Far too many nights, he’d slept at the police dormitory down at Headquarters just to avoid the pain of not finding Kathleen here to greet him.

  And the pain of seeing Brian, the damaged child she’d left behind.

  Tonight, however, he didn’t feel that pain. Brian came running to greet him on his own two feet instead of crawling with his club foot dragging behind him. Thanks to Sarah Brandt and her friend the surgeon, his son was no longer a cripple who might end up begging for his living on some street corner.

  Frank whooped a greeting and snatched Brian up, lifting him high until his head touched the ceiling. The boy laughed, but it was a harsh, grating sound, and like the other noises that came from this throat, it made no sense at all. For three years, Frank had believed Brian’s brain was as damaged as his foot, but now he knew—thanks again to Sarah Brandt—that Brian was only deaf.

  Not that being deaf wasn’t pretty awful, too, but at least his mind was fine. He could learn to read and write and even communicate with others. He might even learn a trade, in time.

  Frank lowered Brian and hugged him fiercely to his chest. The boy wrapped his arms and legs around him as if clinging for dear life. Over the boy’s shoulder, Frank saw his mother watching them with a trace of fear in her eyes.

  “Hello, Ma,” he said.

  Mrs. Malloy was a small woman who looked far older than she was. She’d supplemented the family’s income by taking in other people’s laundry, and the hard work had taken a toll. “Supper’s almost ready,” she replied, starting for the kitchen. “I’ll get it on the table.”

  “How’s Brian doing?” he asked before she could walk away.

  Her expression was wary. “Finally got him to take off them shoes to change his socks, but he still sleeps in ’em.” Brian had never worn shoes until after his operation.

  “Maybe I’ll let him see me get ready for bed tonight and show him how I take mine off to sleep.”

  She didn’t look encouraging. “Do what you want, but he’s stubborn, just like you were at that age.” She started for the kitchen again.

  “Ma,” he said, stopping her. He’d been dreading this conversation, but he had to give her some warning. “I’m taking Brian out tomorrow after supper. You’re welcome to come along.”

  “Where on earth you taking him at that hour?” she asked, alarmed but pretending to be angry. “The boy needs his rest.”

  “I won’t keep him out late. There’s some people I want him to meet.”

  “Meet? How does a deaf boy meet somebody? Or did you teach him to say howdy do when I wasn’t watching?”

  “It’s a deaf family, Ma. I’m going to talk to them about sending Brian to school.”

  The blood drained out of her face, and she laid a work-roughened hand on her bosom, as if she felt a pain in her heart. “Mother of God, you can’t send him away, not after all this.” She gestured toward the foot that now worked just like its mate.

  “I’m not going to send him anywhere,” Frank said, trying not to sound annoyed. “There’s deaf schools right here in the city. They’ll let him come during the day and go home at night. They’ll teach him to talk, Ma.”

  “He can’t talk,” she insisted. “All he can do is make funny sounds.”

  “The deaf have a way of talking with their hands. They call it signing. He needs to start learning it before he gets much older, or he won’t be able to learn at all. That’s what they told me at the school.”

  “Of course they told you that,” his mother said angrily. “They want your money. Brian’s deaf and dumb, Francis. There’s no operation to fix that.”

  “The family I want to visit tomorrow, the father’s a printer. He earns a good living. They’ve got two kids, and the mother takes care of them just fine, even though she can’t hear, either.”

  “So I guess you’re going to talk to these people with your hands, are you?” she asked skeptically.

  “Their children can hear. One of them’s thirteen. She’s going to translate for me.”

  “That’s fine, then,” she snapped, out of patience. “You go and talk to people who can’t hear a word you say if you want to, but there’s no reason for Brian to go. He can’t talk with his hands or anything else.”

  “They’ve got a boy, Ma. I want Brian to meet a kid who isn’t afraid of him and doesn’t make fun of him.”

  Her face crumpled, and she turned quickly away, but not before he saw the tears glistening in her faded eyes. “I’ll get supper,” she mumbled and hurried away before he could see her cry.

  Brian was squirming to get down. He wanted to show Frank his toys and get him to play a little. Frank let the boy take his hand and lead him to the sofa, where Brian had lined up his tin soldiers in neat little rows. For tonight, at least, he’d forget about Gregory Van Dyke and bombs and anarchists and faithless wives and children.

  SARAH’S PARENTS INSISTED ON SENDING HER HOME IN their carriage after supper, and she didn’t object. The evening was even colder than the afternoon had been, and she’d already walked a great deal that day. She was thanking the driver for helping her down from the carriage when she heard her next-door neighbor’s front door open. Light spilled out of her house and down her front steps, and Sarah could see Mrs. Ellsworth’s slender figure silhouetted in the doorway.

  “Mrs. Brandt, is that you?” she called.

  “Yes,” Sarah replied. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

  “You didn’t disturb me. I’ve been watching for you.

  Someone came by about an hour ago, wanting you to come and deliver a baby. I told him I thought you’d probably be home soon and—”

  “Thank you,” Sarah said, trying not to feel disappointed at not being able to go in and crawl into her nice warm bed. This was her calling, and she loved her work. She only wished she wasn’t so tired. “Did you get the address?”

  “Yes, I wrote it down. I’ll bring it right over.”

  Sarah sighed.

  “I’ll wait and take you, Mrs. Brandt,” the coachman said.

  “Oh, I couldn’t ask you to do that,” Sarah said, but he was shaking his head.

  “Sure you can. Your mother’d have my hide if she found out I left you to find your own way at this time of night.”

  He was right, of course. “I’ll only be a few minutes,” she said and hurried up her own steps to unlock the front door.

  She’d hardly gotten inside when she heard Mrs. Ellsworth coming up the stairs behind her. “I would’ve told him to find someone else, but they wanted you, and from what he said, there’s plenty of time,” she explained as she stepped into Sarah’s house. She handed her a slip of paper with a name and address written on it in Mrs. Ellsworth’s neat, spidery hand.

  “This is a first baby,” Sarah said, recognizing the name. “They usually take their time. Thank you for taking the message.”

  She turned and went into the front room, which served as her office, and found her medical bag. She began checking to make sure she had all of her supplies.

  “Have they found out who killed poor Mr. Van Dyke yet?” Mrs. Ellsworth asked.

  “Not yet.” Sarah had seen Mrs. Ellsworth yesterday morning when she’d been setting out to visit her parents to comfort them. Mrs. Ellsworth spent a lot of time sweeping her front porch just so she could accidentally encounter her neighbors and find out what they were doing.

  “Surely, it was those foreigners who don’t believe in government. They’re the ones who use bombs and blow poor, innocent people up. Civilized people don’t do such things.”

  Sarah thought of Emma Goldman. She’d looked perfectly civilized. Of course, her lover hadn’t used a bomb on Mr. Frick, either. “Mr. Malloy is investigating the case,” Sarah informed her. Mrs. Ellsworth held Malloy in high regard.<
br />
  “Then I’m sure he’ll find out who did it. None of us is safe with people like that walking around.” She fidgeted as Sarah closed up her bag, not wanting to leave but having no real reason to stay. Sarah knew she was lonely because her only son worked such long hours. “I don’t suppose you’ve had time to visit the mission, have you?” Mrs. Ellsworth asked after a moment.

  Sarah smiled at the memory. “As a matter of fact, I was there yesterday.”

  “How is that dear little girl, Aggie? The one you’re so fond of.”

  Sarah’s hands stilled as she pictured the child’s sweet face. “She’s doing fine, I suppose, but . . .”

  “But what?” Mrs. Ellsworth came closer, instinctively wanting to help.

  “She really doesn’t belong there. She’s too young. She should be living with a family, someone who could give her the love she needs.”

  “Has she started speaking yet?”

  Sarah winced. “Just that one time, and not again since. I’m afraid . . .”

  “You’re afraid no one will want to adopt her if she doesn’t speak,” Mrs. Ellsworth finished for her. They’d had this discussion before.

  “But I’m sure if she was with a loving family, where she felt safe, she would start talking again.”

  “You may just have to take matters into your own hands,” Mrs. Ellsworth said.

  Sarah looked at her in surprise. “What does that mean?”

  “What does your heart say it means?”

  Sarah felt the familiar rush of frustration. “I can’t take care of a child, Mrs. Ellsworth. Look at me, I’m on my way to deliver a baby, and I won’t be home until morning. I couldn’t leave a child alone all night.”

  “I’d be happy to help—”

  “You have your own home and your own life, Mrs. Ellsworth. You couldn’t always be available at any hour of the day or night, every day of the week. I’d need a nurse-maid, and I can’t afford that.”

  Mrs. Ellsworth smiled sympathetically. “You’ll figure something out,” she said. “The heart always finds a way.”

  Sarah didn’t want to think about this, not right now. She had too much else to think about at the moment. “I’d better hurry,” she said.

  “Oh, yes, but do try to get the baby to hold off until morning, won’t you? Children born at sunrise are very bright, you know.”

  Sarah couldn’t help but smile. Mrs. Ellsworth’s superstitions were always interesting. “Are you certain of that?”

  “Of course. I was born at sunrise, you know.”

  FRANK THOUGHT HIS LIFE COULDN’T GET ANY MORE complicated, but then he arrived at Police Headquarters the next morning and found two messages waiting for him. One was from the coroner, who wanted to tell him his findings on Van Dyke’s death. The other was from Felix Decker.

  As unappealing as another trip to the morgue was, Frank much preferred it to seeing Felix Decker. Standing there in front of the sergeant’s desk and staring at the man’s name, all he could think about was the conversation he’d had a few weeks ago with a boy named Danny who lived on the streets. Danny had once earned some pocket change by delivering a message to Sarah Brandt’s husband Tom. That message had lured Dr. Tom Brandt to a meeting with the man who’d murdered him. The only thing Danny knew about the man was that he was rich, middle-aged, and that either he or Tom had said the name Decker just before he’d killed Tom.

  Not too long ago, Frank had entertained the fantasy of repaying Sarah Brandt for all her help by bringing her husband’s killer to justice. True, Tom Brandt had been dead more than three years, and his chances of solving the case now were slim, but he’d wanted to try.

  That had been his first mistake. His second mistake was in finding a witness who implicated Sarah’s father. Felix Decker came from one of the oldest and most powerful families in the city. No one was going to try him for murder, no matter how much evidence Frank managed to accumulate. None of that mattered, though, because Frank had no intention of accumulating any more evidence. If Felix Decker had killed his son-in-law, Sarah Brandt would never know it, at least not from Frank. Sometimes learning the truth could be more painful than the injustice of not learning it.

  But Decker had asked for Frank by name to work on the Van Dyke murder, and now the moment of reckoning had come. Decker must know about his friendship with Sarah Brandt, a friendship he could never approve of. If Decker had chosen Frank in the hope that he would fail, Frank was playing right into his hands. He was no closer to finding the truth than he’d been when he’d first walked into Van Dyke’s ruined office. On the other hand, if Decker wanted Frank to succeed, he was going to be disappointed. Frank felt the dull weight of dread settling into his stomach.

  The doorman Tom let Frank out of the building again. As he walked down the front steps back into the frigid morning, Frank decided he’d go to the morgue first. That would be the more pleasant of the two visits.

  THE CORONER GREETED FRANK AS HE STEPPED INTO HIS untidy office. The smell of death seemed to have seeped into this room, or perhaps Doc Haynes had brought it with him.

  “What did you find out about Van Dyke?” Frank asked, moving a pile of papers to take a seat on the only chair in the room.

  “Pretty much what we thought. Bomb killed him.”

  Frank gave him a look, and he shrugged.

  “Not much else to say, is there? He was standing right over the bomb when it exploded. The thing was packed with nails, and they tore him up pretty good. At first I thought he probably never knew what hit him, but then there’s that wire in his hand.”

  “The engineer said strange things happen when something explodes,” Frank said.

  “Maybe, but part of the wire doesn’t get blown into a person’s hand. From what I saw, it looks like he had the wire in his hand when the bomb blew up.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “I know. Wasn’t the thing rigged to explode when he opened the cabinet?”

  “No, it had wires running down to the basement under his office. Somebody had to pull the wire outside the building to make it explode.”

  “How did pulling the wire make it go off?”

  “Something about making two wires touch, and that sent electricity from the battery to set off the fuse.”

  Dr. Haynes shook his head. Something still didn’t make sense. “Then somebody would’ve been waiting and had to know just when Van Dyke opened the cabinet. How would he know just when to pull the wire?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why did Van Dyke open the cabinet just then?”

  “Near as we can figure, he’d brought a present for his partner and was putting it in there.”

  Dr. Haynes frowned. “Why didn’t he just give it to him? Why put it away?”

  “His partner wasn’t at work yet. It was a bottle of brandy, and we think he was putting it in his liquor cabinet, maybe for safekeeping or to hide it or something.”

  “So nobody could’ve expected him to be opening his liquor cabinet that early in the morning,” Haynes said.

  “No, which is why I can’t figure out why the killer chose that moment to blow him up.”

  Haynes thought about it, silently acting out the motions a man would make opening a cabinet and putting something in it. “Doesn’t work,” he decided. “Van Dyke was holding that wire when he died.”

  “Are you sure?” Frank said in surprise.

  “No other way it could’ve got in his hand like that. He was holding the wire. He must’ve opened the cabinet and seen the bomb. The killer didn’t know he’d be opening the cabinet, so he wasn’t ready to blow it up. Van Dyke saw the bomb, though, and maybe he thought he’d pull the wire off so it wouldn’t explode.”

  “But when he touched it, he somehow triggered it,” Frank said with growing excitement. This meant that many of the people he knew couldn’t have set the bomb off could now be suspects.

  “That’s the only thing that makes sense,” Haynes said.

  Frank’s
excitement faded as quickly as it had blossomed. “Still doesn’t tell us who put it there, though.”

  “No, but that’s not my job to figure out,” Haynes reminded him with a touch of satisfaction. “You’re on your own there, Francis, my lad.”

  As if he needed a reminder. Frank pushed himself out of his chair. “Thanks for the information, for all the good it did me.”

  “My pleasure,” Haynes said and went back to his paperwork.

  FELIX DECKER’S OFFICE WASN’T WHAT FRANK HAD EXPECTED. Frank figured he owned the building, but his name wasn’t on it. The elevator operator took him to the seventh and top floor, and let him out in a large but plainly furnished room where a middle-aged man sat at a desk, working in a ledger book.

  He looked up at Frank from under his green eyeshade and took him in with one swift glance. The man recognized Frank for what he was. People always knew he was a policeman, even though he wore a suit just like half the men in New York.

  Using the anger he already felt for Felix Decker, Frank braced himself for the hostility he usually encountered from the clerks and secretaries who wanted to protect their employers from contamination by the lowly police, but the man simply said, “You must be Detective Sergeant Malloy. Mr. Decker is expecting you.”

  He got up and went to announce him. Before Frank could wonder if he should sit down, the fellow told him to go on into Mr. Decker’s office and held the door open for him. Although every instinct rebelled against it, he did.

  The office was large but not enormous. High ceilings gave it an airy feel and must have helped in the summer’s heat. Tall windows overlooked Fifth Avenue. Decker’s desk dominated the room, but only because it sat in the center. Frank thought of all the attorneys he’d visited. None of them would have had a desk so ordinary. Two leather chairs of obvious good quality had been placed in front of the desk for visitors, but they were well worn, as was the rug on the floor. Nothing was exactly shabby, but even Frank could see Decker didn’t waste good money on ostentation. He supposed when your social position was as secure as Decker’s, you didn’t have to impress anyone.