Murder on Astor Place

by Victoria Thompson

  The first thing she noticed was the smell. Could there be an uncovered chamber pot in here? But then she remembered that sudden death loosened control over bodily functions, adding one final humiliation to the process. She thought of the girl she had seen, dying in her own excrement, and she shuddered.

  “You all right?” Malloy asked.

  Sarah bristled at his feigned concern. “How did she die?” she asked, looking around reluctantly for any evidence of foul play. Mercifully, she saw no blood.

  “Strangled.”

  “Was it someone who broke into the house?”

  “No sign of a break-in.”

  The top drawer of the dresser was half-opened, as if someone had already been rummaging through it. Probably Malloy. Unable to bring herself to rummage, Sarah went over and examined the articles that were readily visible. At first she couldn’t believe her eyes, and without meaning to, she reached down and fingered the topmost garment. She hadn’t been mistaken, she realized as she rubbed the fabric between her thumb and fingers and noted the fine hand-stitching. Silk. For an instant, she pictured the cloth lying against the girl’s flawless skin and snatched her hand away.

  “She’s dead,” Malloy reminded her crudely. “You can’t offend her.”

  Sarah gave him what she hoped was a quelling glare. He was the kind of man her mother would have called common. A man who lacked education and refinement. Even his body seemed designed for manual labor with its broad chest and powerful shoulders. She thought of her father and the other men she’d known in her old life, slightly built men whose power came from wealth and knowledge. They were dangerous, able to crush anyone who stood in their way, but Detective Malloy was dangerous, too, in a very different way. Sarah would do well to remember that.

  She glanced back at the dresser. Nothing on it but a brush, a comb and some stray hairpins. Except that the brush, when Sarah turned it over, had a silver back, and the comb was tortoiseshell.

  Something was very wrong here. Very wrong indeed. Forgetting Detective Malloy, who still watched her from the bedroom doorway, Sarah pushed the top drawer shut and opened the next one. It was empty.

  “All the others are empty, too,” Malloy said.

  Sarah didn’t even acknowledge him. She was too busy trying to make sense of something. She went to the clothespress and pulled the doors open. Only a few garments hung inside. “Was she in her nightclothes when she died?” Sarah asked.

  “No. She was still completely dressed. Even had her shoes on.”

  Only two spare shirtwaists and a jacket in the clothespress, and just enough underclothes to fill one drawer. Those details told her something, although she wasn’t yet sure what. The waists were simply made, but Sarah instantly recognized the work of a skilled seamstress in the delicate tucks across the bodice of one. She reached for the jacket, trying not to think of the girl who had so recently worn it. Sarah could still catch what must have been the girl’s scent in the folds of the finely woven wool, and for a moment her head swam. She fought off the momentary weakness and examined the jacket. Mother-of-pearl buttons and intricate braiding down the front. She turned the garment in her hands, knowing what she would find or at least what she should find, unless the girl had been clever enough to remove it. But she hadn’t, and there it was, embroidered into the lining by the seamstress who had custom made it, the name of the person for whom it had been designed.

  Alicia VanDamm.

  With a cry, she dropped the jacket as if it had burned her.

  “What is it? What’s the matter?” Malloy demanded, crossing the room with long strides.

  Sarah hardly heard him. She was too lost in memories, visions of a tiny girl with long, golden curls and enormous blue eyes. A girl of delicate beauty who always seemed much older than her years and who hardly ever smiled. Mina’s baby sister.

  “Sit down,” Malloy was saying, and he put his big, workman’s hands on her and forced her down into the chair. “Don’t go fainting on me now. Put your head down.”

  Before she could stop him, he’d forced her head down almost to her knees.

  “Let go of me!” she cried with as much dignity as she could muster with her face practically in her lap. She had to twist her head from side to side to dislodge his grip, losing her hat in the process, but finally he released her.

  Sputtering in outrage, she sat upright and glared at him again. If she’d been a man, she would’ve punched him, policeman or not. As if guessing her thoughts, he backed up a step and put up his hands as if to ward her off. Or maybe he was just letting her know he was finished manhandling her.

  “Good, you’ve got your color back,” he said. “For a minute there, I thought you was gonna go all vaporish on me.”

  “I don’t get the vapors, Detective,” she informed him.

  “If you say so,” he replied, unconvinced. He picked up the jacket from where she’d dropped it. “What did you see on this?”

  Sarah swallowed against the dryness in her throat. “Inside, in the lining.”

  He turned the jacket and found the embroidery. “This her name?”

  Sarah nodded.

  “You know her? Is that why... ? But you said you didn’t know her,” he recalled.

  “I said I thought she looked like an old friend. The old friend is Mina VanDamm. Alicia is her baby sister. Or was.”

  “Unless the girl stole the jacket.”

  Sarah only wished that were true. She shook her head. “No, I’m sure it was she. I haven’t seen her since she was a child, but she looks... looked,” she corrected herself, “too much like Mina for there to be any mistake.”

  “What would she have been doing here all by herself, then?” he asked, staring at the jacket as if it would give him the answer. “Did the father die? The family break up? Lose all their money?”

  “Not that I know of.” Indeed, she was certain Cornelius VanDamm was very much alive and well and still a millionaire. Suddenly, Sarah had to get out of that room. She rose to her feet. Where was her hat?

  She saw where it had rolled over beside the bed. She went for it in the same instant Detective Sergeant Malloy guessed her purpose and went for it as well. He beat her there, and in his haste, brushed against the shawl that lay at the foot of the bed. It slid to the floor and something metal tumbled from its folds, clanging to the uncarpeted floor between them.

  “What’s this?” he asked of no one in particular. Since he still held the jacket in one hand and had picked up her hat with the other, he shoved the hat at her and bent to pick up the long, slender object. When he rose, he held it up to examine it.

  Sarah couldn’t contain her surprise.

  “Do you know what it is?” he asked.

  Sarah was very much afraid she did. “It’s a curette.”

  “A what?”

  “A medical instrument.” She had a set of them, although she had no use for them now. They had belonged to Tom.

  “Why would the girl have had it?”

  “I don’t think she did.” Everything was making sense now, or at least a little bit of sense. Sarah remembered her impressions of the girl in those brief moments when their paths had crossed yesterday, and the realization she’d had this morning on her way over here. “I think someone must have brought it here.”

  “Why?” His eyes were dark, almost black, and he suddenly seemed very large and dangerous again. She didn’t want him to know this about Alicia, but she had no other choice. He would find out soon enough anyway.

  “Because ... It’s an instrument that... Well, it can be used for other things, but it’s what an abortionist uses.”

  He didn’t say a word, but his very silence was a force, compelling her to continue.

  “I thought when I saw her yesterday... it was just an impression, but sometimes you can tell just by looking at a woman. Something in the eyes ... And that would explain why she was here, why she’d left her family. I think ... I think you’ll find that Alicia was with child.”

  2
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  FRANK COULDN’T BELIEVE THIS. HE’D LOOKED AT the girl’s body long and hard, and he hadn’t seen anything to indicate she was in a family way. If she was, this Sarah Brandt must be a witch to have divined it. Still, if this really was a tool used by an abortionist...

  “You seem pretty sure of yourself. Maybe you do a little of that on the side yourself,” he tried. Performing abortions was illegal, although the authorities hardly ever prosecuted anyone for carrying out what many believed was a service to humanity. And maybe it was, if it was a service to prevent children who would grow up poor and hungry from ever being born.

  But if Frank had hoped to rattle Sarah Brandt, he failed. She simply stared right back at him, her blue-gray eyes as cold and still as glass. “I’m not trained to perform abortions.”

  “Then how do you know what this is?” he challenged, holding the instrument up to her face.

  She didn’t flinch. “My husband was a physician. I... sometimes assisted him in certain procedures. When a pregnancy goes wrong ...” She hesitated, probably seeing what Frank was feeling reflected on his face. “But perhaps you’d rather not hear the details.”

  She was right about that. She probably thought he was squeamish or maybe that he was embarrassed by this frank discussion of female problems. Let her think that. He’d humble himself a lot before he’d reveal the true reason for his discomfort with the subject of pregnancies gone wrong.

  “So you think an abortionist came here to her room. Someone she hired to get her out of a tough spot,” he said, trying out the theory to see how it sounded.

  “I don’t think anything,” she corrected him. “I’m a midwife. You’re the detective.”

  He ignored her. “That would explain why there was no break-in. She let the abortionist in. Late at night, after everyone was asleep. And then... what? She decided not to go through with it and refused to pay and ...”

  “And the abortionist strangled her?” Mrs. Brandt supplied, her skepticism obvious.

  Frank had to agree. It didn’t sound very logical. In his experience, abortionists did very well for themselves. The prospect of losing a fee didn’t seem likely to inspire one of them to murder.

  But Frank had another idea. A very clear idea, and one he suddenly realized he didn’t need to share with Sarah Brandt. He didn’t really need her for anything else now. Bringing her up here had just been a whim, and—he had to admit—a rather juvenile way of imposing his will on a woman who looked as if she didn’t get imposed upon very often.

  But he’d had his fun—if you could call it that—and he was finished with her.

  “You can go now,” he told her.

  She widened her eyes at him again. This time she was amazed at his rudeness. Unfortunately, she wasn’t the least bit humbled by it. “Detective Sergeant Malloy, Alicia’s family is very wealthy and influential, and I’m sure they’ll be extremely, uh, grateful to whoever finds the person who murdered her.”

  Frank bristled at her implication, all the more offended because the implication—that he’d work harder to solve a case for someone rich—was true. “I’m sure I don’t care if they’re grateful or not, Mrs. Brandt. I’ve got my job to do, and I’ll do it.”

  She didn’t snort in derision—ladies of her class didn’t snort—but she gave every indication that’s how she felt about his assertion. Frank told himself he didn’t care. He’d given up caring about other people’s opinion of him a long time ago.

  At least she didn’t argue with him. He watched her turn and start out, but then she remembered the hat she was still carrying, the silly thing with flowers and ribbon all over it. She stopped in front of the dead girl’s mirror and took a moment to put it back on, silently telling him she would do just what she wanted, when she wanted to do it, and detective sergeant or not, he couldn’t rush her.

  She smoothed her blonde hair with one hand where the hat pin had pulled it loose of the fancy roll she’d done it up into. Then she removed the hat pin, placed the hat on her head, just so, and reattached it with the long pin.

  Memories stirred to life, memories he hadn’t allowed himself for years. How long since he’d been in a bedroom and watched a woman smooth her hair? How long since he’d been alone like this with a woman at all?

  He knew exactly: three years and three months in another week. The night he’d sat at Kathleen’s bedside and held her hand while the life’s blood drained out of her. All because of a woman like Sarah Brandt.

  But just as he felt the old rage building, she turned to face him. Her expression couldn’t be called humble. Sarah Brandt would never wear such an expression. But this was as close as she probably ever came.

  “Please, Mr. Malloy, find Alicia’s killer,” she begged him.

  She didn’t wait for his reply, probably knowing he had none to give.

  SARAH WANTED TO go straight back home and lock herself in her bedroom and give vent to all the terrible emotions roiling inside of her. She wanted to weep and wail and rant against the injustices of the world, against the ruthless forces that snatched the good and the innocent and left the evil and the corrupt behind. She wanted to mourn Tom’s death anew while she mourned sweet little Alicia for the first time. She wanted to announce to the gods how much she hated the way they ran the world. She wanted to tell them how things should really be.

  But Sarah didn’t have time for such an indulgence at the moment. She had a patient to see.

  The officer in the foyer nodded politely when she came down the stairs and retrieved her medical bag. And he didn’t stop her when she went down the hall to the cramped and cluttered rooms where the Higgins family lived. Someone had sent the older children outside, thank heavens, because Mrs. Higgins was nearly hysterical with fear and fury.

  “Did you hear, Mrs. Brandt? Did they tell you?” she demanded tearfully the instant Sarah entered her room. She lay in the plain, iron bed, propped up on some bundles of rags that passed for pillows. “That girl was murdered right here in my own house! We could have all been killed in our beds! And my dear little ones sleeping like angels, and who could protect them with Mr. Higgins not being able to see his hand in front of his face or just about?”

  “How are you feeling?” Sarah asked solicitously, pulling up the only chair in the room, a straight-backed chair with a hole in the caning. The Higginses saved their good furniture for the paying guests.

  “How do you think I feel? There was a woman murdered in my own house!”

  The newborn babe lay on the bed beside his mother, fretting but not really crying yet. Sarah picked him up and unwrapped him carefully, lovingly. The sight of new life always awed her, this promise of tomorrow, a promise she herself would never fulfill.

  Fortunately, the baby looked healthy enough. No sign of dehydration. But if Mrs. Higgins’s milk dried up, he wouldn’t do nearly as well as if she was able to feed him. And the Higginses probably couldn’t afford canned milk, either. While Sarah’s main job was to get the babies safely delivered, she also took great pride in making sure they thrived afterwards, too.

  “This is a terrible thing, I know, and you must be very upset, but try to remember that none of your family was harmed. Whatever happened, you and yours were spared. And now you have a baby to think of. He needs you to be calm.”

  As if to prove her point, the baby began to wail. Mrs. Higgins frowned, probably annoyed by having her diatribe interrupted, but she took the baby when Sarah handed him over and bared a swollen breast for him. This was her sixth child, after all, and she knew exactly what to do.

  He latched onto the engorged nipple greedily, but after a few moments of avid sucking, he let go of it and wailed again.

  “My milk won’t let down,” Mrs. Higgins said, wailing, too. “And is it any wonder? I’m beside myself!”

  “There now, just relax. Lean back against the pillow, take some deep breaths and let them out slowly. Close your eyes, that’s right.”

  As Mrs. Higgins did as Sarah instructed, she also coaxed the n
ow-screaming baby to take the nipple again. After only a few more moments of frustration, he was rewarded with a gush of milk that had him gulping to keep up with it.

  When the baby had settled in, Mrs. Higgins opened her eyes. Sarah realized she looked unutterably weary and a lot older than Sarah knew her to be. And why shouldn’t she? Burdened with a nearly blind husband and a houseful of children and the care and feeding of her lodgers, and now a girl had been murdered in her house. She didn’t need to add an infant into the bargain, but she had one. Sarah would see that they both weathered this storm and came through all right.

  “I’m going to prescribe beer for you, Mrs. Higgins,” Sarah said. “Two big glasses a day.” The brewer’s yeast would strengthen her and the alcohol would relax her. “I’ll send someone out for it right now. How about that fellow who came for me the other night? Is he around?”

  Mrs. Higgins moaned in anguish. “He’s gone! Moved out in the night! Without a word! One room already empty, and now two more, and who will live here, where there’s been a murder? And with no lodgers, we’ll starve to death! All of us! What’s to become of us now?”

  Postpartum depression, Sarah judged, although anyone in Mrs. Higgins’s circumstances could be excused for being depressed. She would bear close watching to ensure she didn’t do something untoward. Women in her condition sometimes harmed themselves or others, even their newborns. She’d have a talk with Mr. Higgins and make sure some of the neighbor women came in to help. And she’d come by often to check the baby for signs he was failing to thrive. Short of removing Mrs. Higgins’s problems, it was all Sarah could do.

  Only after she left the house, once she’d gotten Mrs. Higgins to drink her glass of beer and extracted promises from her husband and neighbors, did Sarah recall one vital piece of information Mrs. Higgins had given her: Ham Fisher had moved out. In the night. The night in which Alicia VanDamm was murdered.

  For a moment she considered going back to tell Detective Malloy. He’d probably be very interested in that bit of news. But then she remembered his arrogance and his rudeness, and she knew he wouldn’t thank her for helping him do his job. No, surely he’d find out for himself that Fisher had moved out. And he’d probably also figure, as Sarah had, that his sudden departure was too coincidental not to have some relation to Alicia’s murder.