Murder on Astor Place

by Victoria Thompson

  “And justice will be done.”

  Frank only wished he believed in justice. Then he remembered what Conlin had said, and he knew what he really wanted was revenge. “Alicia’s killer will be punished,” he corrected her.

  She nodded, understanding his unspoken message. “Alicia will still be dead, so there can be no true justice. But at least there can be some punishment.”

  Frank fervently hoped so. He could think of so many people who deserved it. “Then you’ll do it?”

  She looked surprised that he would even ask. “Of course I will. I just... I’m not sure I know where to start.”

  “You’ve already started, Mrs. Brandt. You just have to keep on.”

  9

  SARAH READILY ADMITTED SHE WAS FLATTERED BY Frank Malloy’s request that she investigate Alicia’s murder. She would never admit it to him, of course, but she was, nonetheless. She was almost as flattered as she was outraged by Malloy’s news that his superiors had taken him off the case. She could understand if he wasn’t doing a good job or if they were merely assigning such an important case to someone with more seniority or some such thing. But to simply tell him the case was closed without any intention of ever finding Alicia’s killer was more than she could bear. What choice did she have but to accept the challenge of solving Alicia’s murder herself?

  She hadn’t mentioned to Malloy how she had fantasized about being a detective. She also hadn’t mentioned how she had once questioned his dedication to finding Alicia’s killer. Whatever she might have thought of him before, he had vindicated himself by his request. And she wasn’t even counting the fact that he had entrusted a “mere” female with the task, but if she had, it would have counted heavily in his favor. If she wasn’t careful, she might start to think well of Malloy. Or at least not quite so badly.

  But all of that could wait for another day when she had the time and energy to think about such things at her leisure. In the meantime she had a murderer to catch. She and Malloy had discussed possible courses of action, and the one that seemed most logical to Sarah was a return to the Higgins house where it had all started.

  Today was going to be even hotter than yesterday, and the newspaper was starting to talk about a heat wave. If this was only April, what would July be like? In spite of the building heat, she found Mrs. Higgins in the kitchen preparing the noon meal for her lodgers. She would’ve preferred finding the new mother still in bed, but a quick examination of mother and child showed they were doing fine.

  “I see you’ve got all your rooms rented,” Sarah remarked as she sat at the kitchen table, cradling the baby, while his mother worked at the stove.

  “Yes, but for how long?” Mrs. Higgins asked plaintively. “Good lodgers is so hard to find, and the ones we’ve got now don’t fit that description. I’d reckon they’ll be gone before the month is out, owing rent into the bargain.”

  “Then you’ll find some better lodgers,” Sarah said reasonably. “Of course, when the police catch the man who killed Miss VanDamm, you’d have a much easier time renting your rooms.”

  “That’s certain,” Mrs. Higgins agreed, lifting a spoonful of soup to her mouth to taste. Apparently she was satisfied. She laid the spoon down on its rest and heaved the heavy cover back onto the cast iron soup pot with a clang, holding the handle with a corner of her apron. “But how will they ever catch him now? Nobody’s been around in a week. I don’t think they’re even looking anymore.”

  How true, Sarah thought, but she said, “I’m sure they’ll find the killer soon. Is there some reason the police should have come back? Have you heard anything or has someone remembered something?”

  Mrs. Higgins shook her head and turned a ball of dough out of the crockery bowl in which she had mixed it and began to knead it with practiced strokes. “Not that I know of. It’s just... the children are still so upset. They have nightmares. They think the killer is coming back to get them.”

  Sarah felt an instant empathy with them. How many times had she dreamed she was Maggie, bleeding to death on a tenement floor? And she had been nearly grown when that happened. Their little imaginations must be running wild.

  “I’d be happy to talk to them, if you think it would help. I know you’ve reassured them, but sometimes they don’t believe their parents. If an outsider—another grownup—tells them they don’t need to be afraid, they might believe it.”

  Mrs. Higgins’s lined face brightened instantly. “Oh, would you, Mrs. Brandt? They all think the world of you. Mary Grace says she’s going to bring ladies babies when she grows up, just like Mrs. Brandt does.”

  Sarah smiled, absurdly gratified by the compliment. “I’d be happy to speak to them.” From the sounds she could hear through the open kitchen doorway, she was sure she’d find most of them playing in the tiny yard behind the house. Probably, they’d been sent outside to escape the heat. “I’ll just take little Harry out for some air,” she offered, shifting the baby to her shoulder as she rose from the chair.

  The Higgins children were racing around out in the yard, along with several of the neighbor’s children, engaged in some game only they could understand. Drawn by the novelty of a visitor, they came to her immediately, circling around like shy fireflies. She called each of them by name and tousled a few heads before seating herself on the steps. The smaller ones claimed the seats nearest to her, snuggling up and preening, basking in the undivided attention of a stranger. Little Harry gurgled contentedly, squinting in the bright morning sunlight where he lay on Sarah’s lap.

  They chatted for a while, Sarah inquiring politely into their activities before bringing up the subject of bad dreams and bad men who came to get little children in the night. She hoped she wasn’t lying when she assured them the bad man who had hurt Alicia was gone and wouldn’t be back. At least she could be fairly certain he wouldn’t be back to the Higgins house. After a few minutes, the novelty of her presence wore off, and the younger children wandered away, back to their games. Sally and Mary Grace claimed the seats vacated by the little ones and asked what they perceived to be more grown-up questions, until Sally, too, grew bored. She took her doll back to the makeshift playhouse her father had built out of wood scraps in a comer of the yard, leaving Mary Grace alone with Sarah.

  Sarah smiled at Mary Grace as she bounced Harry gently in her lap, but the girl didn’t smile back. She wished Mary Grace didn’t look so old for her years. Sarah could almost believe she carried the weight of the world on her slender shoulders.

  “That black bag you carry, is that what you bring the babies in?” Mary Grace asked suddenly.

  Sarah bit back a smile, knowing if she showed amusement, she would damage Mary Grace’s fragile pride. “Is that what your mother says?”

  “She says it’s none of my business, and I’ll understand when I’m older.”

  She wouldn’t ever understand it if no one ever explained it to her, Sarah thought. “What do you think?”

  Mary Grace frowned thoughtfully and pulled on one of her pigtails. “I think the baby was in my mother’s stomach.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  “Because her stomach was big when we went to bed that night, and in the morning it was small again, and Harry was born.”

  “You’re very smart to figure that out, Mary Grace,” Sarah said, a little relieved that Mary Grace was so perceptive and Sarah wouldn’t have to risk telling her something her mother would be angry to hear about.

  “What I can’t figure out is how Harry got out of her stomach,” Mary Grace said, her small face pinched in frustration.

  Sarah wasn’t about to explain this to a girl of ten years. The actual mechanics of birth were still hard for Sarah to accept, even after all her years of experience. Explaining to a young girl how a baby could pass through an opening she probably didn’t yet know existed wasn’t something she was about to attempt on this spring morning.

  “That’s what the midwife does,” she said by way of compromise. “I help the baby come
out. Like your mother says, it’s something you’ll understand when you’re older, but you don’t have to worry about it right now. It will be a long time before you have to think about babies.” At least she hoped so, remembering how very young Alicia VanDamm had been.

  Sarah expected Mary Grace to wander off, too, now that their conversation was over, but she sat where she was, pretending to play with Harry, letting him grab her fingers with his tiny hands. Sarah sensed the girl had another question she wanted to ask and was just trying to work up the courage. She just hoped it was one she could answer honestly without incurring Mrs. Higgins’s wrath.

  Finally, she said, without looking up, “There was two of them.”

  “Two of who?” Sarah asked.

  “In Alice’s room that night.” She glanced up to see if she’d shocked Sarah. She had, of course, but Sarah managed to register only surprise. She didn’t want to frighten Mary Grace into silence.

  “You saw the men who went to Alicia’s—um, Alice’s room?” she asked.

  “Wasn’t men. It was a man and a woman.”

  A thousand questions swirled in Sarah’s mind, but she resisted the urge to throw all of them at the girl at once. If she was too eager or overanxious, Mary Grace might feel she was doing something wrong, and Sarah would learn nothing more. “Was it someone you knew? Ham Fisher, maybe?”

  Mary Grace shook her head. “He was there, but it wasn’t him. He let them in, I think. They come to the back door, and somebody let them in. Then Mr. Fisher goes out. He was carrying the bag he brought with him when he come. I guess it was his clothes, ’cause Mama said all his things was gone the next morning.”

  “The man and woman, what did they look like?”

  “I don’t know. It was dark,” she said simply.

  Of course it was. “But you recognized Ham Fisher,” Sarah reminded her, shifting Harry and bouncing him a little when he started to fuss.

  “I knowed the way he walks.”

  “Could you tell anything about the man and woman? Were they tall or short? Was there anything unusual or familiar about them?”

  “Tall and short. He was tall and straight up and down. She was short and round, like a ball. She walked slow. She had a stick in her hand, a cane, I think it was, like she was crippled or something. He had to help her up the steps.”

  “Why didn’t you tell anybody this before, Mary Grace?” Sarah asked.

  The girl smoothed the fabric of her skirt. As the oldest child, she never had to wear hand-me-downs, so the quality was still good. “Nobody asked me,” she said simply.

  Sarah would enjoy telling Malloy that he’d missed a good bet by not questioning the children. She wondered that they didn’t teach detectives how important that could be. “But I didn’t ask you either,” she pointed out.

  Mary Grace flashed her a look. Her eyes were still shadowed. “I thought if I told the policeman... You won’t tell my Mama, will you?”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I was supposed to be asleep. I like to sit up late, when everybody’s asleep and everything’s real quiet, but Mama yells at me. She says I need my rest. I think she just gets mad because I don’t wake up when she calls me in the morning.”

  Sarah could believe this. She could also imagine how a girl like Mary Grace might treasure a few minutes of solitude in a house so full of people. But she couldn’t spend too much time worrying about Mary Grace’s sleeping habits. She had a job to do, one Malloy would probably do much better since he was trained to do it. But Malloy wasn’t here, and Sarah would have to manage somehow on her own. What would Malloy ask if he were here? What else would be important to know?

  “Did you... did you hear anything that night? Any noise from Alice’s room or people talking in there?”

  “Her room’s too far away, and I fell asleep. For a while, anyways.”

  “What woke you up?”

  “I guess it was the back door opening. My bed’s right by the window. I saw the man leaving.”

  “The man and woman, you mean.”

  “No, just the man. And he was hurrying, like something was chasing him, only nothing was.”

  “But you didn’t see the woman?”

  “No, she never come out, not that I saw. You won’t tell my Mama, will you?” she asked anxiously.

  “No, I won’t tell her a thing. But I’m glad you told me. This might help the police catch whoever hurt Alice.”

  “I want you to catch him,” Mary Grace said earnestly. “I dream he’s coming back for me. I dream he’s coming right through the window to get me, and when I wake up, I’m shaking.”

  “Oh, dear,” Sarah exclaimed, sliding her free arm around the girl’s slender body and pulling her close. “You don’t have to be afraid. He doesn’t know you saw him, so he wouldn’t have any reason to come back for you, and besides, he’s going to stay as far away from this house as he can.”

  “Do you think so?” she asked doubtfully.

  “I know so,” Sarah replied, holding her close. She just wished Mary Grace looked a little more convinced.

  EVEN THOUGH SARAH had wanted to go see Malloy at once, she headed home instead. After all, she couldn’t go to him with every single clue. The people at Headquarters would get suspicious, and if they figured out that Malloy had put her on the case, he might be in terrible trouble. Besides, he’d said he’d check in with her every few days to see if she’d learned anything, so she would just have to wait until he showed up at her office again. It wasn’t as if she’d discovered the killer’s name or anything. She just knew that a man and a woman had gone into Alicia’s room that night. The woman might have been an abortionist, and if she was, the description might identify her to Malloy, who had interviewed a goodly selection of them. But who was the man? She wished she knew more than that he was tall and straight. She supposed Mary Grace had meant he wasn’t fat, but that could describe half the men in New York. It most certainly described Mr. VanDamm, Sylvester Mattingly, and probably even the groom, Harvey.

  But if the woman was the abortionist, and they could find her, she could identify the man for them. If she would, that is. Sarah had little reason to hope the woman would betray someone who had probably paid her for her silence and who was already a murderer. Unless, perhaps, she feared for her life if she didn’t betray him. Well, Malloy had much more experience at this than she did. He’d know what to do next.

  Sarah was in her kitchen, braving the heat to bake some cookies for the Higgins children as a reward for Mary Grace’s information, when someone rang her bell. She opened her door to find one of the dirty, shoeless boys known as street Arabs who made their precarious living any way they could.

  “Mrs. Yardley, she says to come quick. Her baby’s real sick,” he told her anxiously, hopping from one bare foot to the other in his urgency to be off again.

  Remembering young Dolly and the babies she had already lost, Sarah hurried. On her way out, she captured one of the freshly baked cookies for the boy, who gobbled it up without a word of thanks. The afternoon heat was oppressive, and Sarah took her parasol along with her bag.

  Although Sarah was technically a midwife, she was also a trained nurse and was often called upon to treat illnesses as well as childbirth. New mothers always seemed to think of her first if their babies became ill.

  “What’s wrong with the baby, do you know?” she asked the boy, who had to slow down so he wouldn’t outpace her. He wouldn’t get paid until she appeared, so he was sticking close to her.

  “I don’t know nothing. I was just to fetch you is all.”

  Sarah quickened her pace, even though she could already feel the sweat forming beneath her clothes. Maybe she should consider a bicycle, so at times like this she could move more quickly through the city streets. They were all the rage, and even the police used bicycles now. They were one of Commissioner Roosevelt’s innovations, and just the other day she’d seen an article in the Times that the bicycle force was being expanded. Every now and then she
saw a story about a “wheel man” stopping a runaway horse and wagon from the seat of his cycle, even though that hardly seemed possible. Somehow she couldn’t imagine herself on one of the comic contraptions, however. Perhaps if she were younger and not so worried about her dignity.

  At last she reached the tenement building on First Avenue where the Yardleys lived. Will Yardley stood on the front stoop, apparently watching for her. He shouted something when he saw her and the boy approaching and hurried to meet her. He even took her bag, carrying it the last few paces and up the stairs. Sarah could hear the baby’s cries even out on the street. At least she was still alive and fairly strong, if the volume of her wailing was any indication.

  “I told Dolly to send for a doctor, but she wouldn’t have none of it,” he was saying. “She only wanted you. Said you was the one kept this one from dying when it was born, and you’d keep her alive now.”

  Sarah was gratified to see that he seemed genuinely distressed by his daughter’s illness. Perhaps he’d finally reconciled himself to the child after all. She would have asked him what was wrong with the baby, but by then they were on the stoop, and it was only a step into the Yardley’s flat.

  Sarah found Dolly walking the floor with the screaming baby over her shoulder. Her face was pale, her hair a mess, and she looked near exhaustion. “Oh, thank heaven you’re here, Missus,” she said. “My girl is that sick, she is.”

  “What seems to be the trouble?” Sarah asked, taking the squalling infant from her mother’s arms.

  “She’s been up all night long, crying, and I can’t figure out what’s the matter!” They had to shout to be heard over Rosy’s cries.