Murder on Lenox Hill

by Victoria Thompson

  “Your mother is right,” Sarah said. “But sometimes you need to when a nurse examines you.”

  “It’s all right this time,” Mrs. Linton said.

  Grace undid her buttons with the same intense concentration she’d used when pouring the tea. Sarah could see how tightly her dress was stretched across the front. Her breasts had definitely gotten larger since the dress had been fitted. After she’d listened to the girl’s heart, she said, “Has your chest been sore, Grace?”

  “Yes,” she said with a frown. “It hurts just like it did when I first got my bosom. Barbara said they’re just growing some more.”

  “May I look? Just to make sure nothing is wrong?”

  After Mrs. Linton nodded her approval, Grace allowed Sarah to examine her breasts.

  “Your mother said your tummy has gotten bigger, too,” Sarah said as Grace buttoned her bodice.

  Grace turned to her mother with a disgruntled frown. “Is this because I don’t bleed anymore?” she demanded. “Because I don’t want to bleed anymore. I don’t like it. It makes my tummy hurt, and I don’t care if I never do it again.” She turned back to Sarah. “If that’s why you came, you can just go home.”

  “Grace, it isn’t nice to speak to guests like that,” Mrs. Linton said sharply.

  Grace looked ashamed, but the color still burned hotly in her cheeks. “You don’t really have to go home,” she said apologetically. She gave her mother a sidelong glance, and added, “But I still don’t want to.”

  “Do you remember when you bled the last time?” Sarah asked.

  Grace shook her head.

  Sarah tried a different tack. “What was happening at the time? Maybe that will help you remember.”

  Grace frowned with the effort of recalling. “I think . . . we were having the church bazaar. Mama had to take me home because my tummy was hurting so much.” She smiled with satisfaction at having given the correct answer.

  “That was late July,” Mrs. Linton said in dismay. “Almost six months ago.”

  “May I look at your tummy, Grace?” Sarah asked, holding her kindly smile with difficulty as her apprehension increased. “I’d like to listen to it with the stethoscope, too.”

  “Do I have to take my clothes off? It’s not nice to take your clothes off unless you’re going to bed, you know.”

  “Could you just lift your skirts? I can listen through your drawers.”

  When Grace obliged, Sarah could see that the girl’s stomach was larger than it had appeared to be, just the right size for the sixth month of pregnancy. Many conditions could simulate pregnancy, of course, but those conditions would not produce the one thing Sarah was searching for with the bell of her stethoscope.

  And then she found it: a tiny, fetal heartbeat.

  2

  AS FRANK CLIMBED THE STAIRS TO THE SECOND FLOOR of the tenement building, he could hear the door to his flat opening and then the clatter of a child’s footsteps as his son ran down the hallway to the top of the stairs. His own step quickened as he hurried to meet the boy at the top of the steps. The instant Brian saw him, he launched himself into Frank’s arms. Frank enclosed him in a bear hug, savoring the feel of his small, warm body.

  The boy was making inarticulate sounds of joy, but Frank didn’t bother to respond. Brian wouldn’t hear him. Brian couldn’t hear anything at all.

  As Frank carried him up the last few steps, Brian pulled back and began making signs with his hands. He wanted to show Frank what he’d learned in deaf school. Frank recognized the sign for “father,” but the others were a mystery to him. Brian wasn’t quite four years old, but he was learning the signs for words as quickly as a hearing boy would learn the words themselves.

  Frank’s mother stood in the doorway of their flat, a small, round woman with a face like a dried-up potato. “I’ll never understand how he knows when you’re coming, but he always does. Runs to the window, he does, and starts dancing around and pulls me over to see,” she reported sourly. Nothing, it seemed, ever gave his mother pleasure, and as far as he could tell, she disapproved of everything. Her only redeeming quality was that she adored Brian and would have given her life to keep him safe.

  “How about it, boy,” Frank said to his son. “Do you have the second sight?”

  Brian grinned, having no idea what Frank had said but happy for his attention.

  “Bite your tongue,” his mother said, crossing herself. “And put him down. He can walk as well as you can, you know.”

  Not long ago, Brian hadn’t been able to walk at all, until a surgeon Sarah Brandt knew had operated on his club foot.

  Sarah Brandt. He owed her so much. How could he stand by and let her father destroy her husband’s reputation?

  “What did you learn in school today, Ma?” Frank asked slyly as he carried Brian into their flat. “Tell me what he’s saying.”

  Mrs. Malloy scowled at him as she closed the door behind them, but when Frank set his son down so he could take off his overcoat, he noticed she was doing something with her hands that looked suspiciously like signing. She put her palms together, as if she were praying, then opened them up to lie flat beside each other. Whatever she’d said sent the boy scurrying off to his bedroom. “He’s got a book to show you,” she said.

  Frank hung his coat up on a rack. “What kind of book? Where did he get a book?”

  “At school. He got it for you.”

  Before Frank could ask more, Brian came clomping back into the room, his specially built-up shoe making his steps sound slightly uneven. He carried a book which he proudly presented to his father.

  Frank looked at the title, Sign Language for the Deaf. His heart felt odd in his chest, as if it had swelled or something. He opened the book and fanned through the pages. Inside were drawings of a person making signs, all kinds of signs, and the words for each were written underneath. “What’s this?” he asked, his voice sounding thick because of the emotions clogging his throat.

  “What’s it look like?” his mother asked him impatiently. “It’s a book so you can learn to make the signs and talk to Brian, too.”

  Frank had to swallow a couple of times. “How did he get it?” he asked in amazement. Frank had never purchased a book before. He had no idea how much it would cost, but he knew it would be a lot. “Where would he get the money? Where would you get the money?” he added, since she would have had to give it to him.

  She made a derisive noise. “They wanted to pay me at that school. Can you imagine? All I do is look after the boy. He’s too young to leave there alone all day, no matter what you think.”

  Brian was pulling on his pant leg, demanding attention. Frank handed him the book, and he immediately plopped down on the floor and began looking through it. “I told you, you don’t have to stay there with him all day,” Frank said in exasperation. “There’s teachers there to look after him.”

  “And they’ve got a roomful of children to look after, too. What if Brian was to slip out? Who’d notice?”

  They’d had this argument before, so Frank gave up. He’d known his mother would have to accompany Brian to and from the school, since neither of them wanted him to board there. Frank had imagined she might enjoy having her days free while he was in school, but he’d been wrong.

  “What are you doing that made them want to pay you?” Frank asked suspiciously. He’d figured she’d been making a nuisance of herself, or at best, just sitting on a bench watching Brian all day.

  She shrugged. “Nothing to speak of, helping out here and there. Supper’s ready.” She turned away and went into the kitchen. He followed her.

  “You aren’t cleaning or anything, are you? Because I pay good money for Brian to go there, and you don’t have to—”

  “I don’t clean,” she snapped over her shoulder as she began dishing up some stew from the pot on the stove.

  He let a minute of silence go by while she finished filling the bowl she held. “Ma,” he said in warning.

  She gave him a g
lare that would’ve stopped a hardened criminal in his tracks. Many a rookie policeman would’ve en-vied her ability, but Frank was used to it. He waited patiently.

  She set the bowl down on the table with a bang. “I told you, I help out.”

  “With the children?” he asked.

  “Where do you think they need the help?” she replied, turning to fill another bowl.

  “Is that how you’re learning the signs, too?”

  This time she gave him a disparaging look, as if she were disappointed in having given him life. “Somebody needs to be able to talk to the boy,” she reminded him. “What’s the use of him learning if he’s got no one to sign to?”

  For the second time today, Frank felt the sting of rebuke. “Ma, I don’t have time to go to school to learn all that.”

  “Of course you don’t,” she agreed. “That’s why we got you that book.”

  “Which brings us back to where we started. How did you pay for it?”

  “I told you, they wanted to pay me for helping, but I told them my son provides for us, and I didn’t need any money,” she informed him. Frank took small pride in the back-handed compliment, the only kind she ever gave. “But I did say I’d like to have one of those books the teachers have, so they gave it to me.”

  Brian was tugging on his pant leg again. He wanted Frank to look at the book with him, and he was looking up at him with huge brown eyes that were so like his poor, lost mother’s. Frank’s heart swelled again, so full of love that he could hardly breathe. For the first three years of Brian’s life, they had thought Brian was just a simpleminded cripple, but Sarah Brandt had changed all that. She’d been the one to realize that his mind was perfectly fine, just trapped in a body that couldn’t hear. She’d also been the one to suggest a surgeon who could fix Brian’s crippled foot, when other doctors had told him there was no hope.

  He wanted—no, he needed—to repay her. Once he’d thought finding her husband’s killer would do that, but now he knew differently. Now he knew that her father was determined to make her face a truth she’d never suspected and which might well destroy her soul. Frank couldn’t stop him. No one could stop a man like Felix Decker. Frank didn’t want to be a part of hurting Sarah.

  But . . .

  The truth was like a knife in his heart. If he was involved in the investigation, he would at least be able to control what Decker found out and, therefore, what he told Sarah. He might even be able to protect her from the worst of it.

  This wasn’t what he’d envisioned when he’d set out to repay her, but it was all he could do. He’d have to tell Decker he’d changed his mind.

  Brian was making demanding squeaks and squeals and banging the book against his leg. “Ma,” he asked, “what’s the sign for ‘supper’?”

  “NO, IT’S IMPOSSIBLE,” MR. LINTON INSISTED. THIS TIME Sarah heard panic in his voice.

  She was back in the parlor with both of Grace’s parents. Mrs. Linton was sobbing softly into her handkerchief, but Mr. Linton had chosen to shield himself behind anger.

  “How can you be sure?” Linton demanded furiously. “You’re just a nurse!”

  “Wilfred!” his wife cried in dismay.

  “Well, she’s not a doctor,” he reminded her indignantly.

  “No, I’m not,” Sarah agreed tactfully, “but I am a midwife, and I know how to judge if a woman is expecting a child. She’s actually pretty far along, about six months, I’d guess from what she told me.”

  “She told you how it happened?” Linton cried. “Who did it? Who is responsible? I’ll see him hanged!”

  “Please, Wilfred, this is difficult enough,” his wife pleaded. “And no, Grace didn’t tell us anything about what happened. Mrs. Brandt didn’t ask her, but she was able to remember when she last had her monthly cycle.”

  “And I can tell by how large her stomach is,” Sarah added.

  “But couldn’t it be something else? Some illness? Perhaps a doctor could . . . could do something . . .” He gestured helplessly.

  “Mr. Linton, you’re right, Grace’s symptoms could have been caused by an illness. In fact, at first I was afraid that she might have a tumor or some other growth that would explain the changes in her body.”

  Mrs. Linton made a horrified sound, her eyes large and bright with terror.

  “Yes,” Sarah confirmed, “it could have been something fatal, but thank heaven, it was not. She has all the signs of being with child, and most important, I was able to hear the baby’s heartbeat.”

  This made Mrs. Linton start sobbing all over again, and Mr. Linton completely despaired, sinking into his chair as if his very bones had withered inside of him.

  “But how? . . .” he wondered in despair. “Who could have done this to her? And when?”

  “She mentioned a friend named Percy,” Sarah recalled.

  “Percy York?” Linton scoffed. “He’s just a boy.”

  “He’s much younger than Grace,” Mrs. Linton said. “Young enough that he doesn’t seem to notice Grace is . . . is different. At least not yet. So they’re friends.”

  “They only see each other at church anyway,” Mr. Linton said. He rubbed his hand over his bald head and sighed. “I don’t understand. It’s just not possible.”

  Sarah waited, giving them time to come to terms with the reality of their situation. After a few minutes, Mr. Linton looked up. “Mrs. Brandt, please forgive me for my rudeness—”

  “I’m not easily offended, Mr. Linton,” she assured him. “And you have every reason to be upset.”

  “You are very gracious, and I hope I won’t offend you further by asking this, but I’m a man of the world, and I know that there are certain women who . . .” He glanced at his wife who was staring at him warily, not certain she wanted to hear what he would say next. He cleared his throat. “Women who can take care of girls in Grace’s situation.”

  “I won’t send Grace away,” Mrs. Linton said, outraged. “She’s going to endure a horrible experience. I won’t frighten her by making her think we don’t love her, too.”

  “I’m not talking about sending her away, Mother,” Mr. Linton said gently. “I believe Mrs. Brandt understands me, though.”

  Sarah did, indeed. “It’s a very dangerous procedure, but in Grace’s case, it doesn’t matter. She’s too far along to have it done.”

  “What are you talking about?” Mrs. Linton demanded.

  “An operation,” Mr. Linton said wearily. “To remove the baby.”

  She stared at him in horror, unable to comprehend such a thing.

  Sarah decided it was time to help them start thinking about realities and options. “Grace is young and healthy, and there’s every reason to believe her baby will be, too. You’ll need to explain to her what is happening and what is going to happen. And then, of course, you’ll have to decide what to do about the child.”

  “What do you mean?” Mrs. Linton asked, still stunned by the thought of the unimaginable operation.

  “Will you keep the child and raise it yourself or make other arrangements? You might have a family member who would welcome a child, or perhaps you could find a home for it with a couple who have no children of their own.”

  “Why, we’ll keep it, of course,” Mrs. Linton said quite certainly.

  “But Mother, the scandal,” Mr. Linton reminded her. “What will people say about Grace? And the child, what kind of a life will she have?”

  “A good life, raised by people who love her,” Mrs. Linton said, her voice throbbing on the edge of hysteria.

  “You shouldn’t try to decide today,” Sarah advised them. “This is something you’ll need to think about and discuss. Perhaps you’ll want to talk to your minister about it, too, or a trusted friend.”

  “You’re right, we will have to tell Grace, of course. She needs to know,” Mrs. Linton said. She turned her pleading glance on Sarah. “Will you help me tell her?”

  “Certainly,” Sarah said. “But I think you should wait a while. You�
�re both very upset right now, and we don’t want to frighten her.”

  “Could you come back tomorrow?” Mrs. Linton asked anxiously. “I mean, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble.”

  “We’ll pay you, of course,” Mr. Linton added. “Whatever your normal fee is, and we’ll want you to take care of Grace when . . . when the time comes.” His voice nearly broke, and he pulled out a handkerchief and blew his nose.

  “I’ll come back tomorrow,” Sarah promised. She would have done so even if they hadn’t asked.

  FRANK CERTAINLY HADN’T PLANNED TO RETURN TO FELIX Decker’s office so soon. In fact, he’d fully expected never to return at all. Felix Decker wasn’t the kind of man to forgive the kind of snub Frank had handed him yesterday. Frank was clenching his teeth as he waited for Decker to find time to see him. He still detested the man and the way he planned to hurt his own daughter, but if Frank hoped to convince Decker to put him on the case, he’d have to conceal his own feelings.

  He’d spent some sleepless hours last night trying to decide how to convince Decker he’d changed his mind and what reason he could give for it. As much as it galled him, he’d finally realized the best way would be to confirm Decker’s low opinion of him. Frank’s pride would take a beating, but it wouldn’t be the first time. He’d survive, and more important, he’d be in a position to protect Sarah from whatever he found out about her late husband.

  This time Decker left him cooling his heels for over an hour. Frank wasn’t too worried about getting in trouble at work for being gone so long. They knew about Decker’s summons yesterday, and he hadn’t even had to explain why he was returning today. Frank was allowing himself to wonder what it would be like to command the type of power that meant no one would question you, when Decker’s secretary finally told him the great man would see him.

  Decker’s desktop was covered with papers today, and his fine eyes were suspicious and a bit impatient.

  “I hope you aren’t going to waste my time again today, Mr. Malloy,” he said coldly.