Murphy’s Law

by Rhys Bowen

  “She was asking questions about poor Mr. Levy earlier today.”

  Daniel gave me an amused glance. “You’re lucky I’m here, aren’t you? You’re the prime suspect in their eyes. You’d be facing a lynch mob.” He took my arm and helped me to my feet. “Come on. I’ll have my constable take you home now. Cherry Street, isn’t it?”

  “Look, Captain Sullivan,” I took a deep breath. “I’m not living there. I—I moved out. I’m living in the ladies’ hostel down by the Battery Park.”

  He moved closer to me, so that the other policemen couldn’t overhear. “What happened?”

  “Uh—things weren’t going too well, between me and my husband.”

  He nodded with understanding. “It’s not always easy after such a long separation, is it? People change over the years. I’ve seen it happen before.”

  I managed a small, suffering smile, thinking it better for once to be silent.

  “And what about the children? Are they at the hostel with you?”

  “They’re staying for now with his cousin’s family. It’s better for them to be with a family while I find a place and work.” These lies were becoming positively stupid now. Stop before it’s too late, Molly.

  “And you? What will you do now?”

  “Find a job. Get on with my life. See how things turn out.”

  “On your own? Get on with life on your own?”

  He sounded shocked, and I realized that it wasn’t going to be easy to free myself of my mythical husband. A woman who left her husband and children would be frowned upon and considered loose. I needed to change the story.

  “Very well, if you must know the whole story. I’ve discovered my husband has taken up with another woman. So the sooner I find a decent situation for myself and the children, the better.”

  He nodded. He was trying to look sympathetic and sad, but he wanted to grin. I can’t tell you how much that lifted my spirits.

  “I’d take you home myself,” he said, “but I have work to do here.”

  “That’s all right. I’ll be sensible and go straight home, I promise.”

  He smiled. “I’m going to make sure of that. Take Mrs. O’Connor home, Constable. She’s staying with the good ladies of the Bible Society. She surely can’t come to any harm there.”

  I turned back to look as he ushered me out of the door. He was staring after me.

  The constable ushered me through the crowd, who muttered and glared at me. Someone spat at my feet.

  “I had nothing to do with it,” I started to say, but the constable grabbed my arm and shoved me through the crowd. “Come along, ma’am. Better not say anything right now when they’re riled.”

  He took me through backstreets and alleys until I saw the twinkle of bright lights ahead and realized where we were. “Oh, this is the Bowery, isn’t it? Look, you don’t have to come all the way with me. I’ll be just fine from here.” I was imagining the look on the receptionist woman’s face if I arrived with a policeman holding my arm. She’d probably take me for drunk and disorderly.

  “The captain told me to take you home,” the constable insisted.

  “It’s only just down this street, isn’t it?” I said. “And what could happen to me with all these people around?”

  He was still looking worried. “Look, Constable,” I said. “I’m staying with the Bible Society ladies. I’m afraid they’d get the wrong impression if a policeman brought me home my first night.”

  He smiled. “Oh, I see what you’re getting at. All right then. I don’t suppose much can happen to you between here and there. If you get worried, you’ll find plenty of our men patrolling this street. Lots of Irish saloons and Italian taverns, and when they meet . . .” He tipped his hand to his helmet. “I’ll say good night then, ma’am.”

  “Thank you, Constable. I’m most grateful.”

  He swung around to the right and I turned left, into the Bowery. It was the height of evening traffic. Customers were pouring out of cabs and into eating houses and theaters. Shoppers were coming out of stores with laden baskets. All in all a merry scene. I hurried through the crowd, admiring, every now and then, a particularly fine bonnet. Maybe I’d have an ostrich feather like that on my hat some day. . . .

  They say the Celts are born with a sixth sense. I’d never given much thought to it until now, but gradually I was aware that I had become tense and vigilant. I stopped and turned around. The merry throng swept by me. I turned back and walked on. I could feel the back of my neck prickling. I don’t know how I knew, but I did. My sixth sense was telling me that I was being followed.

  I swung around again, but I saw nothing to alarm me, nobody I recognized, in that crowded street. And yet the feeling wouldn’t go away. I was sure someone was following me. I quickened my pace, but the feeling didn’t ease. Someone was keeping pace with me. It would have been easy enough to mingle with that crowd, to duck into stores and behind awnings if I looked around. I tried to remember—was it all lights and business right down to the ladies’ hostel? If so, I would be safe. But if there was a length of street with no crowds and no lights, then I would have real trouble. How stupid I had been to send the constable away. Daniel Sullivan knew this city better than I and he had been concerned about my safety.

  Not to worry, I thought. The constable said that policemen always patrol the Bowery. I’d find the nearest policeman and ask him to escort me home. But was that such a good idea? If the man who had murdered O’Malley and Levy didn’t know where I lived, was I stupid to show him now? All he’d have to do was wait for a suitable moment. At some stage I would come out of the building alone and unprotected and then he could strike. Somehow I would have to lose him.

  I picked up my skirts and ran, dodging in and out of people. Then I ducked into the nearest shop. It was a butcher’s, with carcasses hanging in the window and sawdust on the floor. The sight of the blood spatters and the smell of raw meat made me feel hot and clammy again. I held onto the edge of the glass-fronted counter, hoping that fainting wasn’t going to become a regular event with me. Until now I had always suspected that young women pretended to faint when convenient. The way the blood was singing in my ears at this moment made me decide that my prior judgment could have been harsh.

  “Can I help you, miss?” the man behind the counter asked.

  I made a supreme effort and stood up straight. “I’m still trying to make up my mind, thank you,” I said. I appeared to be studying the various cuts of meat, while at the same time watching the street out of the corner of my eye.

  The butcher was tapping the counter impatiently.

  “I’ll have—one of those, please.” I pointed at the smallest sausages down at the far end of the counter.

  “One? One sausage?”

  “That’s what I said. One sausage.” I returned his stare defiantly. “Is there any law about only selling sausages in twos?”

  “No ma’am,” he growled and savagely hacked one sausage from the string before wrapping it in paper for me. “That’s two cents.”

  As I fished in my purse for the money I stiffened. Bully Boyle had just walked past the store without looking in. I put down the money, snatched up the wrapped sausage and hurried to the doorway. I could see the back of Boyle’s head. He wasn’t in uniform but in a blue suit and smart derby. I moved out into the crowd and followed him. I wasn’t going to let him out of my sight. He was moving fast now, looking around him. Was he looking for me? He crossed the street. I crossed too, dodging the streetcars and carriages. Then he went into a dark-fronted store. It had three golden balls hanging over the door, a universal sign that even I, from a little village across the world, knew to be a pawnbroker’s establishment. I moved behind the awning of the fish shop next door and pretended to examine some eels.

  A few minutes later he came out again. I muttered, “Not fresh enough” to the angry fishmonger and followed Boyle. This time he crossed back to the original side of the street and went into the Irish Variety Theater we had
just passed. I watched him long enough to see him buy a ticket and go inside. Was he really going to spend the evening watching the clog-dancing sisters and listening to the men who were the pride of old Ireland, or was this just a ploy? Had he seen me through the butcher’s window, after all? At this very moment he could be sneaking out through a side door of the theater. I waited and watched. Time passed but he didn’t reappear.

  I knew I should be sensible and go straight home while I had he chance, but I had to know what Bully Boyle had been doing n the pawn shop across the street. I crossed and pushed open he pawn shop door. A bell tinkled and an old man sprang up from behind the counter.

  “Hello,” I said. “I’m looking to buy something nice for my ittle sister. It’s her twenty-first birthday. I don’t have much to spend but I want it to be nice.”

  He smiled a toothless smile at me. “It just happens I’ve got some nice stuff come in,” he said. “I haven’t even had time to price it all, but I’ll let you make me a fair offer.”

  He brought out a velvet-lined tray from behind the counter. It was full of pretty things—brooches, hair clips, pearls, and one thing that particularly caught my eye—a muff chain made of amethyst beads. I had seen that chain before, a few days ago. It lad been around the neck of a little German girl waiting to enter Ellis Island.

  Nineteen

  The next morning we had just finished the Bible reading and I was filing downstairs to breakfast with the other inmates when I heard a raised voice coming from the reception area.

  “I’m sorry. I’ve just told you. We have no Mrs. Kathleen O’Connor staying here.”

  I glanced down the stairs. A large policeman was standing there—the same constable who had escorted me home the night before. The moment I spotted him he happened to look up the stairs and saw me.

  “There she is. That’s her, with the red hair,” he said, loudly and dramatically.

  Every head in the place turned in my direction. I pushed past the other women and got to him before he could do me any more damage. Why had I been stupid enough to register here under my own name? Mainly because it was a hostel for unmarried women, I suppose, and because I had hoped I could finally give up the pretense of being Kathleen O’Connor.

  “I’m sorry, Constable,” I muttered to him so that the Bible lady couldn’t overhear. “I didn’t want to be traced. Just in case anyone was following me.”

  He nodded. “I understand, miss. Good thinking. And I’m really sorry to trouble you so early, but Captain Sullivan would like to see you right away.”

  No other summons would have made me miss my breakfast so willingly. “I’ll just get my wrap,” I said.

  When I came down again, the constable was waiting outside, but the dragon Bible lady was hovering at the foot of the stairs, blocking my exit.

  “This is a respectable establishment, Miss Murphy. I don’t know what you have been doing but you should realize that anyone who finds herself in trouble with the law is not welcome here.”

  “I’m not in any trouble with the law,” I said haughtily. “I witnessed a crime yesterday. The constable wants me to come to headquarters to make my statement.”

  “So are you really Murphy or O’Connor? Deceit is a tool of the devil, you know.”

  I’d thought this one out on my way upstairs. “Murphy is my maiden name,” I said. “I’ve gone back to it, since I arrived here to find my husband run off with another woman.”

  She looked at me with sympathy then, which made me feel guilty. Lying to a Bible lady was right up there with the seven deadly sins, I’d imagine.

  “I understand,” she said, patting my hand awkwardly.

  “I have to go. The policeman is waiting,” I said and hurried out through the front door, my cheeks burning.

  This time we took a cab. I was glad the dragon at the hostel didn’t have to witness my being driven away in a paddy wagon.

  Daniel Sullivan was sitting at his desk, sleeves rolled up, vest undone, collar undone, unshaven, looking somewhat the worse for wear.

  “You look terrible,” I blurted out. “Don’t you ever sleep?”

  He looked up with a tired smile. “Thanks for the compliment and no, not much while I’m on a case.” He motioned to the chair beside him for me to take a seat. “And I seem to be on a permanent case since I met you.”

  “Don’t go blaming it on me. I’m not enjoying it too much, either, you know.” I spread my skirts and tried to sit gracefully. “Four days I’ve been in New York now and every one of them has been full of policemen and dead bodies. I’d just like to get on with my life.”

  He smiled again. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sure you do have plenty of worries of your own at the moment. These days can’t have been easy for you.”

  They haven’t been all bad, I wanted to say, and had to remind myself that it wasn’t proper to start flirting with policemen—especially when I was still officially a married woman and only a hair’s-breadth away from being a suspect myself.

  He straightened the pile of papers in front of him. “Look, I’m sorry to call you in so early, but I wanted to get working on this right away. I thought over what you said last night and I had to admit it made sense.” I tried not to grin and looked down at my hands.

  “Who would have more to lose than a prominent New Yorker?” he went on. “So I had my men round up everything they could from the studio and we were in luck. Levy was an old-fashioned kind of photographer. If he’d been modern and used celluloid film in his camera, we’d have been out of luck. But he still used plates. We found an undamaged plate of the mayor’s group and we’ve had a print developed. I want you to take a look at it.”

  He put the photograph on the desk between us. I bent over it, trying to concentrate, half conscious all the time of his head close to mine. Two rows of ladies and gentlemen, all looking rather pleased with themselves. I recognized the mayor, standing in the middle, flanked by the entertainers, the Italian opera star taking up more than her fair share of space. Then in the back row, at the end of the line . . .

  “That’s him!” I tapped excitedly at the photograph. “That man at the end on the right. I’m almost sure that’s him. Same bushy whiskers and large stomach.”

  Daniel Sullivan gave a nervous laugh. “I don’t think you’re right this time. That’s Alderman McCormack. He’s one of the big wheels at Tammany Hall.”

  “So who would have more to lose?” I demanded. “If he’s a big wheel at Tammany, then the Irish people in the city must love him and respect him. If he was the one who betrayed those boys in Plumbridge, he’d lose everything he’d gained here, wouldn’t he?”

  Daniel was shaking his head. “But you don’t understand. When I call him a big wheel, I mean a really big wheel. Men like him don’t do their own killing. Tammany owns half the gangs in the city. He’d have found it easy enough to have a band of thugs waiting for O’Malley the second he stepped ashore.”

  “But what if O’Malley had blurted out the truth about the alderman before he was killed? His bully boys wouldn’t be so anxious to work for him then, would they?” I hesitated, my brain racing at the word bully. “Wait a minute, though. Maybe I have got it wrong about Alderman McCormack. Maybe my first hunch was right, after all. I forgot to tell you what happened to me last night. I saw Boyle, the guard, down on the Bowery. I think he was following me. He’s definitely a crooked one, you know. He steals from immigrants and then pawns the stuff.”

  “He wouldn’t be the first to do that,” Daniel said, then stopped short. “You said you were followed last night? But I sent you home with a constable.”

  “I know.” I felt myself flushing at his stare. “I thought I could do the last bit on my own. I didn’t want the ladies at the hostel to see me being escorted home by the police.”

  “And would they have thought better of you if you’d arrived in a hearse?” he demanded.

  “It’s all right. I shook him off easily enough. I ran through the crowd and ducked into a but
cher’s shop. That’s when I saw Boyle going past.” My brain was racing again. “And that might make sense, too. One of those big wheels, as you call them, could have paid Boyle to stay on the island overnight and do the actual killing.”

  Daniel sighed. “I’ve told you before—we have sworn statements by other guards that he went back to the city with them on the last boat. The pilfering I’d believe. It’s very common, so I understand. But he wasn’t on the island that night.”

  “Then it had to be the alderman,” I said. “There’s a distinct resemblance between them and I saw a guard with big, bushy whiskers, a big paunch, and a big, booming voice.”

  “But he can’t be the one,” Daniel said. “It doesn’t make sense. He’s been in the city for as long as I can remember and I’m sure he comes from southern Ireland. Nowhere near Plumbridge.”

  Daniel picked up his half-full coffee cup, took a sip, made a face, and put it down. “Stone cold,” he said. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

  “Thank you, that would be wonderful. The constable dragged me out before I had a chance to eat my breakfast. And I’d already spent an hour listening to the Bible, too.”

  “That’s what happens to you when you mix with Protestants.” He gave me a grin. He really had the most enchanting smile.

  A young policeman was dispatched to bring us coffee and rolls.

  As soon as he had gone, Daniel’s face became serious again. He leaned closer to me, as if he didn’t want anyone to overhear. “If by any chance it were the alderman,” he said, “we’d never be able to prove it. This is a man who has every branch of the city in his pocket, including the law. I would be a fool to even try and pursue it. I’d find myself out on the streets with no job, if I managed to keep my skin. And the same goes for you. If you were the one person who could identify the alderman in court, I’d start ordering your coffin.”

  “But if you got proof of who he really was,” I insisted, “If you sent off to Ireland and had them check into his background?”