by Gina Welborn
Frank met Winslow’s questioning gaze. “Miss Morgan says the girl is a kindhearted soul who fancies art. And, judging by her coolness with Daly, she’s not one of his many mistresses. She’s insignificant. Besides, I heard she’s not fond of men with last names that start with W.” He patted Winslow’s shoulder. “There’s always Norma. She thinks you’re cute.”
Winslow looked dubious. “Norma said that?”
Frank’s lip curled. “There’s not a female in Manhattan who doesn’t think that.”
Winslow’s grin couldn’t get smugger.
“Where did Daly go?” Frank refocused on the job.
“He spoke to three men, none suspects, at the refreshment table—” Winslow withdrew a notepad from his inner coat pocket and flipped it open “—before the concierge gave him a message. He then made a call using the public phones. I caught all the numbers except the last.”
“We can check them against the numbers in his file.” Frank leaned against the marble column to take weight off his wounded left foot, the potted fern next to it shielding them both from Daly’s view. “Anything else?”
Winslow replaced the notebook. “The meeting with O’Flaherty is off.” He paused. His blue eyes met Frank’s and he grinned. “Van Kelly is in custody.”
Shock at the news punched the air from Frank’s lungs. Now that was the catch of the decade. He’d have given anything to be the one to make the arrest. It would have pushed him to the top of the list as Henkel’s replacement next month. His determination to arrest Billy O’Flaherty and Edwin Daly doubled. He needed to catch the pair together in the same room.
“Who caught Van Kelly?”
Winslow gave a “don’t know” shrug.
Frank hoped it wasn’t Ben Loskowitz, his greatest competition for the promotion.
Though New York boasted too many mobsters to keep straight, every U.S. marshal knew about Van “the Shadow” Kelly. The mafiosi boss never left a paper trail and never talked on phones out of fear of being recorded. The Secret Service had been on Kelly’s tail for months in connection with counterfeiting, but the man excelled at keeping in the shadows. The file the Southern District had on Kelly contained half a page of information, amounting to almost nothing. Not even a description of what the man looked like.
“Any charges against Kelly?” He noted the hope underlining his tone.
“It sounded like none, but Daly looked worried.” Winslow checked his pocket watch. “I think I’ll head back to the courthouse and make a few calls.”
“About the girl?” A pointless question, yet Frank hadn’t been able to stop it from sliding off his tongue. His pretty-boy partner had never made it through a day of work without stopping to flirt with a lady.
Winslow adjusted his hat. “I’d be lying if I said no. She’s a looker. So...you want to give me her name?”
“Not really.”
While Winslow chuckled, Frank eased around the column. The mafiosi informant they’d been trailing all morning was halfway to the front entrance. “Let’s see where Daly’s headed. He can’t be taking Kelly’s arrest well.”
Winslow fell into step with Frank. “I say anyone connected to Kelly should be nervous.”
Chapter 2
A first rule for behavior in society is: “Try to do and say those things only which will be agreeable to others.”
—Emily Price Post, Etiquette
Central Department of the Metropolitan Police
300 Mulberry Street
9:42 a.m.
“I did not kill Mad Dog Miller.” Her brother’s words broke the eerie silence in the dank and stuffy meeting room. Giovanni’s gravelly voiced insistence did little to abate the sinking feeling in Malia’s stomach. Good thing she was sitting.
This was not a conversation one could have standing up.
“I believe you,” Malia insisted. He wasn’t—couldn’t—be a murderer. Vaccarellis weren’t criminals. Yet the police believed Giovanni was, which was why they’d brought him in for questioning and kept him in custody since yesterday evening, even though the witness who claimed to have seen him with Miller right before the shooting was now dead. Or so she’d been told three times already by the officer at the front desk; by Giovanni’s lawyer, Mr. Sirica, as he walked her to the meeting room; and finally by her brother.
Giovanni’s dark brows drew together. “You look petrified.”
Tears suddenly brimmed in her eyes. “I am. For you.”
“Don’t be. They have no evidence.”
“Two people are dead, and you’re the only connection.”
“I was at the wrong place, wrong time,” he assured her.
“It’s a frame,” Mr. Sirica added.
“Malia, you can’t trust a copper. Ever. They’re all corrupt.” Giovanni rested his arms on the table, stretching out to her. “Believe me.” He sounded just like Papà and Nonno. Because of the mafiosi, Nonno had fled Sicily fifty-six years ago to create a life in America free from crime and corruption.
Malia stopped her head from shaking. “The dailies said Roosevelt cleaned up the department.” She didn’t know whom to believe anymore.
Under the intense gaze of the guard standing at the door and Mr. Sirica sitting at the table too, Malia gripped her brother’s cuffed hands. The polished mahogany table against her bare wrists chilled her flesh, like the marble slab at Purity’s Ice Cream Parlor on Broadway. Still, the room was sweltering. What she’d give for a cool breeze from the open yet barred windows to her left.
“God is in control,” Giovanni whispered.
“And great is His faithfulness to us.” Malia recited the words they’d often heard their parents and nonni speak, yet her faith never felt more fragile.
Giovanni’s gaze shifted to the armed guard standing beside the room’s door with a hand resting on the scabbard that held his redwood nightstick. He then looked to Mr. Sirica, who immediately stopped chewing on his unlit cigar, stood and wandered over to the guard.
“Sergeant Peterson,” Mr. Sirica called in a too-loud voice.
Giovanni tugged on her hands. His amber eyes met hers, steady and unashamed, as if his conscience—his soul—was as pristine and pure as her white lace dress. Giovanni leaned forward, the chest of his white-and-black bee-striped uniform against the tabletop.
“The police are waiting for the judge to grant a search warrant.” He spoke in Italian and barely loud enough for her to hear. He switched midsentence to Dutch. “With your gloves on,” he whispered, “open Papà’s safe. 29. 5. 18. 76.”
Her birthday was a combination? And why use the Italian arrangement of putting the day before the month? A pounding began between her ears, and her straw hat felt as if it bore a stuffed ostrich instead of a dove.
“Papà has no—” when he squeezed her hands, she switched to Dutch “—safe in the apartment.”
“I insist,” yelled Mr. Sirica, “that my client is released!”
“Sir, that’s not possible,” Sergeant Peterson answered.
“You have no evidence directly tying him to this crime. Or any crime. This is injustice!”
Malia glanced over her shoulder at the red-faced guard and Mr. Sirica practically nose to nose as the lawyer waved his stovepipe hat in one hand, cigar in the other, and continued to make demands the guard refused.
Giovanni tugged on her hands again, drawing her attention. “Papà’s last gift to Mamma covers it.”
Behind the Hackert painting?
“Take what’s inside to Papà and Nonno’s lawyers.” The enunciation of his Dutch took on a sharp edge. His, her or maybe both their hands were sweating, yet they held firm to each other.
She nodded toward Mr. Sirica. “Why doesn’t he come with me?”
“Because I need him here.”
“But—”
&nbs
p; “Papà’s lawyers have a list I made, an insurance policy that will keep us both alive in the event something like this happened. They will know how to protect you until I’m released. But if the coppers find what is in the safe—” Giovanni’s voice broke, and he no longer looked like a suave, polished real estate investor unjustly dressed in a horizontal-striped jail suit. No, he was that boy in the photo next to her bed—a frilly, laced-covered four-year-old holding his equally frilly, lace-covered baby sister and looking terrified that he’d drop her as their parents took their picture. “Can you do this for me, Malia?”
For family she would do anything. She nodded, although the abrupt movement added to the growing pressure in her head.
“Pray for us,” he ordered. In English.
Malia stared at him. She’d given up believing his faith extended beyond Sunday attendance and dutiful giving. Even in the direst of times, he insisted she pray. True, his action annoyed her, but more so, it stoked the fear she felt for his soul.
She bowed her head and closed her eyes. Words she’d uttered every morning and night asking for her brother’s protection and for his salvation fell effortlessly from her lips. Jesus was their rock and refuge. Jesus would see that the truth prevailed. Jesus desired none should perish. Her pulse steadied and the rolling in her stomach abated with each spoken praise and request. They would be all right. Everything would work out all right.
She whispered, “In Jesus’s name—”
“Amen.” Giovanni raised her right hand to his face, resting her knuckles against his sculpted cheek. “Even when it doesn’t look like it, remember everything I am doing is to protect you. It is the duty and privilege given to me by Papà and Nonno. I will not fail. I never fail.”
Malia lifted the corners of her lips, yet the smile did not reach her heart or spirit. “I love you, Giovanni. I cannot lose you too.”
“Then help me. I expect you to do what you know is best.” Giovanni released his grip on her hands. “Peterson,” he bellowed in English, interrupting the guard’s words with Mr. Sirica, “my sister is leaving.”
From the chair next to hers, Malia claimed her white gloves and jade pochette that held her calling cards, lip pomade, a few coins for cab fare and the key to their Waldorf Astoria apartment suite.
Mr. Sirica rushed over and pulled her chair back as she stood.
Malia touched her brother’s hand, desperate to cling. Please, Jesus, let this be nothing more than mistaken identity. She then turned away, leaving Giovanni in the room with his lawyer. As she buttoned on her long gloves, she retraced her path through the police headquarters’ busy hallway toward the nearest stairwell. No one spoke to her, nor did she feel compelled to acknowledge anyone’s presence. Giovanni spoke to her in Dutch only when he wished to share a secret. In this case, Papà’s safe, and an insurance policy to keep them alive.
The latter implied someone wanted them dead.
Surely she had that wrong.
She had to have that wrong.
No one had any reason to want either her or Giovanni dead. Giovanni’s arrest had to be a mistake. Nothing else made sense, unless this was a frame. Or...
He truly was guilty.
A death for a death—wasn’t that the mafiosi way? Kill him. Kill him because he’d killed someone. But why involve her?
Pain increased under her temple. She lifted, with two shaking hands, the front of her lace skirt. As she descended the marble steps, two coppers, in long blue frocks and matching pants, climbed them. She paused midway, her shaky legs threatening to collapse, and she gripped the handrail. Stand strong. Don’t fall. She stared absently at two rows of nine brass buttons on one Metropolitan’s coat until he passed by.
The moment one inspector said “Mad Dog’s murder,” Malia jerked her gaze to their backs and focused on their conversation.
“Bagging Van Kelly is the coup we needed.”
Van Kelly? She’d never heard of him.
“Are you going with the team once Petrocino gets the search warrant for Kelly’s apartment?”
“Can’t. I have paperwork to finish on Mad Dog.”
“Did you hear Maranzano put a hit out on Kelly?”
“Quid pro quo for Mad Dog’s murder?”
“That, and to keep him from squealing. Now we get to protect the Shadow’s hide in order to give him the chair in six months. How’s that for irony?”
They turned down the hallway, and their conversation faded out.
Malia opened her mouth to call after them. If Van Kelly was the one accused of the gangster’s murder, and her brother was being held for the murder, then that could only mean Giovanni Vaccarelli was—
“Van Kelly?” she whispered. Her heart raced uncontrollably; her lungs struggled to grasp a breath. This couldn’t be happening. Couldn’t. Her brother could not be mafiosi.
“Oh dear, miss, is something wrong?”
Her legs feeling like wet pasta, Malia turned to face the older woman in a blue suit with brass buttons down the middle of the bodice. Though her face was kind, a police matron wasn’t an acceptable confidante. Coppers couldn’t be trusted. They had no honor. Malia had been taught that from the time she was little.
“No.” Tears blurred her vision. “I need to go.”
As the matron called after her, asking if she needed help, Malia hurried down the remaining steps, out of police headquarters, and onto the wide sidewalk between the buildings and street. Her stumbling walk resembled nothing learned from Miss Porter’s School on how a lady was to promenade. Carriages, bicyclists, motor cars, electric cabs, hackney coaches and horse riders traversed Mulberry Street. Reporters with their cameras stood talking with patrolmen near the front stairs. Newsies held up morning papers, calling for buyers.
Malia stilled her hands from covering her ears. Never before had New York sounded so noisy. Despite the spring breeze, the air was no less dank than that inside the meeting room. She wove through pedestrian traffic and hailed a hansom cab, even though an Electrobat, with its larger front wheels than back ones, pulled up to the sidewalk first. Considering how her head was spinning, she wasn’t about to ride on something that had no walls to keep her from falling out.
Another pedestrian slid onto the seat next to the driver, and the Electrobat drove off. A black hansom with a chestnut horse drew up to the curb. She reached for the side grip.
“Malia, wait!” a too-familiar voice called out.
Without a glance in Edwin Daly’s direction, Malia threw herself into the cab. “The Hyphen, please,” she said to the scarlet-liveried cabman through the small trapdoor in the cab’s back wall. An assistant district attorney was the last person she wished to see.
10:15 a.m.
What business did she have inside the police department?
Frank leaned forward in the hansom cab parked on the other side of Mulberry Street. He flipped his marshal’s star between his fingers. If he’d heard Edwin Daly yell the girl’s name, there was no way he’d believe that she hadn’t too, or seen Daly running to her with hat in one hand, arms flailing. Yet she had climbed into the cab and departed with haste. Warning bells clanged in Frank’s ears. But warning of what? Socialite. Art patron. Rebuffer of Edwin Daly’s attentions. Nothing about Malia Vaccarelli was suspicious. Except this.
Frank watched as the prosecutor looked from her retreating cab to the police department and back again as if he couldn’t decide between chasing after her and going inside. The lock of hair he’d waxed over his bald scalp slipped from its mooring, shifting with each twist of his head.
Winslow crossed Mulberry Street with a group of pedestrians. He separated from the group and hurried over to Frank’s cab, his cheeks flushed, his breath rushed. “Did you see the girl?”
Frank nodded and returned his attention to Daly, who still seemed indecisive as to what to do. The man
was too calculating to be unsure. His action had to mean something.
“Should one of us follow her?” Winslow asked between breaths.
“I think—” Frank winced and left his sentence unfinished. He wasn’t sure what he thought. Daly was their lead. The girl’s appearance here could be mere coincidence, or something else. His gut told him the latter.
Daly smacked his hat against his thigh. Then he pushed his way through the crowd toward the police department’s front doors.
“Follow him,” Frank ordered.
Winslow took a step away then stopped. “Are you going after the girl?”
“No.” Frank pinned his badge on his left lapel. “She is connected. Somehow. The answer is in our files, and I’m going to find it, even it takes me all month.”
Winslow nodded. Before Frank could say more, his partner looked to the cab driver. “Take him to Tweed Courthouse.”
* * *
Malia rested against the black leather seat and breathed deep until the urge to weep passed. Had it been only an hour since she received the message from Giovanni insisting she come to police headquarters to see him? Unable to make sense of everything, she closed her eyes and prayed. Her frantic pulse slowed to a normal pace by the time the two-mile ride was over. She opened her eyes as the cab turned off Fifth Avenue. It pulled into one of the Waldorf-Astoria’s ten carriage entrances on Thirty-Fourth Street, rolling to a stop on the herringbone brick path, between two Grecian columns. She withdrew coins from her clutch and handed the cabman the fare.
“Welcome back, Miss Vaccarelli,” the brass-buttoned bellboy said, assisting as she alighted from the cab.
“Thank you, Henry.”
“Enjoy your day!”
After a forced smile in his direction, Malia strolled across the tiled floor separating each bricked carriage lane from the other. She entered the ornate carved-mahogany-and-brass lobby that smelled of a wisteria garden and was bedazzled by the liveried bellboys, occasional dandified men in black suits, and colorful day dresses and ornate hats of the female guests. No one looked her way. There were no Metropolitans milling about the lobby, which meant the judge likely hadn’t issued the search warrant yet. She still had time to do what Giovanni had asked.
