“I doubt she got herself murdered just to ruin your social life,” Frank tried, unable to resist. But it was obviously impossible to insult the VanDamms, at least by criticizing their finer feelings. They merely stared back at him blankly. He sighed in defeat. “Mr. VanDamm, I’ll need for you to go down to the morgue and identify the body.”
He frowned at that, but Mina was positively outraged. “How dare you ask my father to go to a place like that? Don’t you know who he is?”
“He’s the father of a murdered girl,” Frank said. “We need positive identification of the victim. You wouldn’t want to bury some stranger, would you?”
“I’m afraid the officer is right, Mina,” VanDamm said reasonably. “We must be sure it’s Alicia.”
Mina opened her mouth, but she must have changed her mind about whatever she’d been about to say. She closed it again with a snap and took a moment to collect herself. Then she smiled a queer little smile that gave Frank gooseflesh because it looked so forced, and she said, “You mustn’t do this,” using a voice that surprised Frank. Suddenly, she was kind and gentle, as if speaking to someone infirm. “No one will blame you for not wanting to see her like that. No one can expect you to put yourself through such an ordeal.”
VanDamm considered this for a moment, wanting to agree with her, and then he remembered something. “I thought you said someone already identified her,” he said to Frank. “An old family friend.”
Mina looked shocked, as well she might. “A family friend?” she echoed incredulously.
“She didn’t exactly identify her. Your daughter’s name was sewn into her jacket, and this woman said she’d thought the girl looked like Miss Mina VanDamm. She knew you, she said.”
“Who is she?” Mina asked skeptically.
“Sarah Brandt. She’s a midwife.”
Mina widened her eyes at him. “I know no such person, although I suppose it’s possible she may know of me. We’re one of the oldest Knickerbocker families in New York.”
She didn’t have to tell Frank, of course. Everybody knew the Dutch families—dubbed Knickerbockers ages ago because of the knee britches the early arrivals had worn—had been the first to settle in what was then New Amsterdam. Frank didn’t think that made them particularly special, just because their ancestors had fled persecution a hundred and fifty years before his had, but that was the way of the world. Mina VanDamm seemed intent on making the most of it, too.
“In any case,” Frank explained doggedly, “Mrs. Brandt hadn’t seen Alicia in a number of years, so she couldn’t make a positive identification.”
Mina VanDamm sighed to show her impatience, then she had another thought. “Alfred can go, then,” she told her father. “He’ll recognize Alicia as well as any of us.”
VanDamm nodded sagely, as if this were the only logical solution.
“Who’s Alfred?” Frank asked, thinking for an instant he might have discovered Alicia’s lover.
“Alfred is the servant who admitted you,” VanDamm said.
Frank couldn’t believe it. They were going to send a damned butler to identify a member of their own family.
And just when Frank thought nothing could shock him more, Mina VanDamm turned to him and said, “I think you’ve bothered my father quite enough for one day. You may leave now.”
SARAH LOOKED UP at the tall town house on what was known as “Marble Row” and hesitated. All during the long elevated train ride up from Greenwich Village this morning, she had debated the wisdom of calling on her old friend. She hadn’t seen Mina VanDamm in a decade, and likely, Mina no longer lived here anyway. She’d be married and gone. Sarah couldn’t remember reading about her wedding in the Times, but that meant nothing. She hadn’t followed the society column for years.
She could ask for Mrs. VanDamm, of course, but Sarah remembered her as one of those flighty, worthless women who never had a thing to say worth hearing. She wouldn’t learn much from Francisca VanDamm. And approaching Mr. VanDamm wasn’t even worth considering. He was a man just like her own father, a man who considered females just one step above dogs in intelligence and who wasn’t likely to give her the time of day, much less a hearing.
Well, maybe the servants would at least tell her where Mina lived now. Then she would seek her out and share with her what she knew about Alicia’s last days. If the police couldn’t find Alicia’s killer—and Sarah had personal experience with their failures—then the VanDamms could hire their own investigators, which was the best way to solve a crime in any case, according to Sarah’s understanding of the current police situation.
The police commissioners had made great strides in cleaning up the department in the past year, but in purging the corruption, they had decimated the ranks, leaving the entire force seriously under strength. Even the most dedicated officers were overwhelmed, and Sarah had no reason to believe this Detective Sergeant Malloy was particularly dedicated. So if Alicia’s murder was solved, it would probably be only because her family hired someone to do it.
The butler who opened the door looked at her askance, probably judging her unworthy of entering. Indeed, she knew her appearance no longer marked her as a member of one of the elite families of New York, but fortunately, she recognized him from her visits here as a girl.
“Good afternoon, Alfred,” she said, startling him. “I heard about the family’s tragedy, and I was wondering if you could tell me where I can find Miss Mina to express my condolences.”
“I’m sorry, madame, I don’t ...” He shook his head to express his confusion.
Sarah smiled. “It’s been a long time. I’m Sarah Brandt. That is, that’s my married name. When you knew me, I was Sarah Decker.”
His eyes lightened with recognition. “It has been a long time, Miss Decker... I mean, Mrs. Brandt. These are very sad times for the family, and I don’t know if Miss Mina is receiving this morning, but if you give me your card...”
Sarah shouldn’t have been surprised to find Mina here after all. Naturally, she would be here with her parents in their time of grief. She stepped into the foyer and handed him her card after folding down the top right corner to indicate she was calling to pay her respects. There was a whole language to the business of calling cards, depending on which comers were folded over, but those cards were usually engraved with just the visitor’s name on fine paper. Sarah’s card was the kind that identified her as a midwife. Alfred frowned over it for a second, obviously wondering if he should even deliver such a thing to Mina.
“Please tell Miss Mina that I saw her sister, Alicia, the night before she died.”
The butler’s head came up in surprise, although his expression betrayed little. Then he offered her a seat and disappeared up the stairs, moving a little more quickly than propriety allowed, she couldn’t help thinking.
Sarah wouldn’t have been surprised at being turned away. Mina had probably forgotten all about her, and the two of them had never actually been friends in the first place. Mina was always a bit too self-important and conscious of her position in society for Sarah’s tastes, even back when Sarah had been conscious of those things herself. But to her relief, Alfred soon returned and ushered her upstairs to one of the private suites where she found Mina swathed in black and reclining on a fainting couch. One hand clutched a lacy handkerchief into which she had apparently been weeping, and the other reached out limply in welcome.
“Sarah, dear, how good of you to come,” she said, her voice faint and cracked with grief. “Have you heard the news? We’ve lost dear, sweet Alicia!”
3
“I’M SO SORRY,” SARAH SAID, CROSSING THE ROOM to take Mina’s hand in hers. Closer now, she realized that Mina didn’t look as if she’d really been doing much crying into the crumpled handkerchief. Her eyes were clear and dry.
Her mourning gown looked rather fresh and unwrinkled, too. Every well-dressed lady had at least one such gown for attending funerals and for weathering the period of time between the unexpected loss of a lov
ed one and the moment when one’s dressmaker could deliver an entire new wardrobe of mourning apparel. Sarah had a feeling Mina had already ordered hers.
“I could hardly credit it when Alfred told me you were the one who found poor Alicia,” Mina said, her pale blue eyes properly troubled and confused.
“I didn’t find her,” Sarah said. “In fact, I only saw her for a moment the other night, at the house where she’d been living. I was there to deliver a baby and—”
“Then it’s true?” Mina exclaimed, glancing down at the hand in which she still clutched her handkerchief. Sarah saw Mina also held the business card she’d given to Alfred downstairs, the one that proclaimed her profession. “You’re a midwife?”
She said it as if being a midwife was one step lower than being a grave robber, but Sarah chose not to be offended. Sometimes, she mused, good breeding was a curse. “Yes, I am.”
“How awful for you! I had no idea! I thought you were married.” She glanced at the card again. “Your name is different.”
“I’m a widow,” Sarah said, deciding not to mention that she’d probably be delivering babies even if Tom were still alive to support her. Mina would never understand such a thing, and neither would any other woman of her class.
“But that’s still no reason for you to have a... a trade,” she said, selecting the most demeaning term she could imagine. “Surely, your father would provide for you.”
And just as surely, Mina couldn’t imagine why he wasn’t doing so. But if she was looking for gossip, Sarah wasn’t going to oblige her. She hadn’t come here to talk about herself anyway.
“I was a little surprised to find you still at home,” she said, deftly changing the subject and looking pointedly around at the lavishly decorated chamber which was obviously still Mina’s permanent abode. Apparently, Mina had found the new Moorish style of decorating to her liking. The place was furnished the way Sarah imagined a Pharaoh’s tomb might be. Or perhaps a Pharaoh’s harem, if Pharaohs had harems. “I was certain you’d be married yourself by now and living elsewhere.”
Sarah had just returned her old friend’s insult in kind, since finding one’s self an old maid was perhaps even more humiliating than having to support one’s self with a “trade.” She thought she caught a glimpse of anger in Mina’s pale eyes, sort of like the spark of stone striking flint, but only just that one flash. It was gone as quickly as a spark, and Mina managed to dredge up a pitying look.
“It was a sacrifice, as I’m sure you understand, but I simply couldn’t marry and leave Father alone. You know how Mother was when we were girls, and she’s only gotten worse through the years. Her mind is... well, she hasn’t been herself for years, and her health has failed dreadfully as a result. Then Alicia... What can I say? She was always such a trial to us, and now—” She quickly covered her mouth with her handkerchief, letting Sarah’s card fall to the floor as she apparently fought for control of her emotions.
Sarah couldn’t help wondering what those emotions were. As she recalled, Mina had never been particularly fond of Alicia. She’d been almost seventeen when the girl was born and positively mortified at this evidence of her parents’ sexuality. Mina had left school when word got around, refusing even to discuss the rumors of her mother’s pregnancy, although her pain—and probably her jealousy—had been patently obvious. She hadn’t shown her face at a single social event for months before Alicia was born, and for a long time afterward had been unwilling even to acknowledge the child’s existence. Apparently, time hadn’t reconciled her to her younger sister.
After a moment, Mina was able to speak again, and when she did, she forced a pained smile and said, “Where are my manners? I haven’t even offered you a chair.”
She looked around, as if searching for one, and Sarah took it upon herself to pull up a stool so she could remain near enough to read every nuance of Mina’s expressions. The stool’s seat was upholstered with gold brocade and rested on a base made entirely of a gilt sphinx with grotesquely large and naked breasts. She thought even a Pharaoh’s harem would have rejected such a piece.
When she was seated, she said, “I can’t help wondering what Alicia was doing in that boardinghouse.”
Mina collapsed back against the cushions as if merely considering the issue was more than she could endure, and she lifted her hand to her forehead in the classic “tragic heroine” pose. Sarah rolled her eyes, but of course Mina didn’t notice.
“We had no idea she was there, of course. We had no idea where she was at all! She was always unstable, but she’d begun behaving even more strangely these past few months. She’d taken to having hysterics over every little thing and weeping for no reason whatever. Finally, we had to send her to Greentree. That’s our country home on the bay. We thought the country air might be good for her, and of course, the solitude. But then she ran away. One morning the servants went to waken her, and she was gone, as if she’d disappeared. We’ve feared the worst for weeks now. How could we not? A young girl alone in the world with no one to protect her, and Alicia was even more helpless than most. She was a wicked, evil girl to frighten us all like that, but then, she’s always been hopelessly spoiled. Mother ruined her, and now we all must pay the price of the scandal she’s brought down on us.”
Sarah would have thought the family would be more aware of their loss of a daughter than their loss of reputation because of the circumstances of her death, but Sarah had also not lived among the socially prominent in quite a while. She’d almost forgotten how callous and self-centered they could be. And she knew only too well how unforgiving a family could be when one of their members broke society’s rigid code of conduct.
But she was wasting her time in judging the VanDamms, time that could be better spent finding clues that would lead to Alicia’s killer. “Could someone have helped her run away?” Sarah asked, aware that she was asking the kind of questions the police detective should have. Malloy wouldn’t thank her for interfering, but if she found out something useful, she wouldn’t worry about that. “She couldn’t have managed it on her own, could she?”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Mina said coldly. “She was cunning enough to take her jewelry with her, probably to sell it so she would have money to live on. Heaven knows, she wouldn’t have had any other means of support. So obviously, she planned the whole thing.”
“But how would she have known how and where to sell it without being recognized?” Sarah wondered aloud, remembering how naive she herself had been at that age.
“I’m sure I have no idea,” Mina snapped. “Alicia was very secretive, and she certainly never confided in me. If she had, I might have been able to stop her from making our family a laughingstock. But you saw her the night before she died. Perhaps she said something to you, something that would explain her behavior.”
This time Sarah could not mistake the calculating gleam in Mina’s eyes. Sarah wasn’t the only one interested in the circumstances of Alicia’s death. Mina wanted every scrap of information Sarah could give her about her sister, and she wanted it now.
“I only saw her for a moment. We didn’t really speak at all,” Sarah admitted. Was Mina relieved or annoyed? Sarah couldn’t be sure. “I didn’t even know who she was then, except that she looked so much like you—like the way I remembered you when we were girls—that I actually called her Mina. That seemed to frighten her, but I suppose that’s because she was afraid of being found out.”
“Of course she was, the stupid little baggage!” Mina said angrily. “She was afraid we’d bring her back to the bosom of her family where she was doted upon and pampered. Where her every wish was instantly granted, and where she never had to turn her hand except to feed herself.”
“But something must have driven her away,” Sarah prompted, recalling her own sister and how she, too, had run away from much the same situation. “Perhaps there was a young man—”
“What on earth makes you think that?” Mina demanded, but then she remembered. “Oh, bec
ause of Maggie,” she said knowingly, instantly tearing open old wounds that Sarah had thought long healed. “Well, Alicia wasn’t a bit like your sister. She didn’t have ideals.” She said the word as if it left a bad taste in her mouth. “Alicia was just selfish and silly, and she certainly didn’t run off out of love for some common laborer. Even if she’d known any young men—which she didn’t—Alicia never loved anyone but herself.”
Sarah bit back the urge to defend the two girls. Maggie was past caring, just as Alicia was. Still, she couldn’t leave Mina basking in her self-righteousness, especially not if enlightening her might help find Alicia’s killer.
Trying to pretend she took no pleasure in hurting Mina in return, Sarah said, “I think you must be mistaken about your sister, Mina. She most certainly knew at least one young man. You see, I’m fairly certain she was with child.”
“What?” Mina’s face went scarlet and her eyes blazed with outrage. “How dare you say such a thing!”
“Believe me, it gives me no pleasure to shame her like this, but I thought you should know. Your father can probably keep it from becoming public, but finding out who the father of her child was will undoubtedly help the police find her killer, since he probably—”
“The police?” Mina echoed scornfully. She was sitting bolt upright now, fairly quivering with fury. “You mean that horrible Irishman who came here to tell us Alicia was dead? Well, I won’t have it! I won’t have someone like that probing into our lives and spreading lies and gossip about us! Father will never allow it. He’ll put a stop to this investigation immediately!”
“Then how will you find out who killed her?” Sarah asked.
“I don’t care who killed her! Why should I when she never cared about any of us? And what good will finding her killer do anyway? It won’t bring her back, and it will only ruin the lives of those of us she left behind, and we’ve suffered enough already!”
Murder on Astor Place Page 5
