Murder in Morningside Heights

by Victoria Thompson

  “I’m sure it would,” Frank said quite sincerely.

  Both men looked up when someone knocked on the door. Alice stuck her head in. “Excuse me, Mr. Hatch, but Tobias is here.”

  Hatch’s expression soured. “Send him in.”

  Frank managed to feel offended that Hatch would interrupt their meeting in the minute it took for an older Negro man in work clothes to step tentatively into Hatch’s office.

  Tobias’s apprehensive gaze darted between Frank and Hatch, finally settling on the president, who said, “Mr. Malloy, I’d like you to meet the man who killed Abigail Northrup.”

  2

  After Malloy left to visit the coroner, Sarah tried to go back to her novel, but her mind kept wandering. He had only been teasing about her being a lady of leisure, but she was finding that she missed many things about the life she had led before their marriage. Back then, she’d made her living as a midwife, and every knock at the door could mean the challenge of bringing a baby safely into the world. Now she had a maid to answer the door and nobody ever summoned her to do anything interesting.

  Malloy, too, had been chafing at his enforced retirement from the police department where he’d spent his entire adult life. Until he got this case, she hadn’t seen him this interested in anything since they’d returned from their honeymoon just before Christmas. Opening the detective agency had been a wonderful idea . . . for him. Sarah’s days still stretched out before her, full of deadly dull afternoons.

  A tap on the door put a merciful end to her depressing thoughts. “Come in.”

  Her new maid, Hattie, came in with an envelope. “This just come for you, Mrs. Frank, from the Mission.”

  A message from the Daughters of Hope Mission, which Sarah had helped support for several years, usually meant a problem of some kind, so Sarah felt guilty for the tremor of excitement she experienced at the prospect of something meaningful to fill her afternoon.

  She thanked Hattie and tore open the envelope. The note was from Mrs. Keller, the matron at the Mission. The Mission had been established years earlier as a refuge for girls who had been orphaned or abandoned by their families. It provided a safe place for them to live and get some education and training so they could make their way in the world.

  Mrs. Keller hated to bother Sarah, the note said, but she had just learned that one of the girls who had come to the Mission a little over a month ago was with child. They had a policy of never accepting a pregnant girl, although many had come to them for shelter through the years. Caring for a destitute expectant mother was the mission of other charities, and after giving these girls a hot meal, someone from the Mission would escort her to one of the places where she could find the help she needed.

  This situation was a little different in that the girl had already been living at the Mission and didn’t want to leave for a place she might not like as well. Sarah was only too glad to provide whatever assistance Mrs. Keller needed.

  * * *

  Tobias’s expression instantly changed from apprehensive to terrified. “I never done no such thing, Mr. Hatch, sir! I never would’ve touched a hair on that poor lady’s head!”

  From the way he looked at Frank, Tobias apparently thought he was here to take him into custody. Since Frank had instinctively jumped to his feet, he had silently confirmed this suspicion.

  “Of course you wouldn’t,” Hatch said angrily, “but admit it—if you hadn’t left your screwdriver behind, she’d still be alive.”

  Ah, so this was the janitor who had accidentally provided the murder weapon. Frank frowned, wondering why the cops hadn’t jumped on him immediately as the killer. He was the perfect scapegoat since he was colored and his tool had killed her. Tobias was very lucky he wasn’t sitting in a jail cell this very minute.

  “Maybe you could take me out and show me where Miss Northrup was killed,” Frank said.

  “Ain’t you here to arrest me?”

  “Mr. Malloy is not with the police, Tobias,” Hatch explained, still angry but not as much.

  “He’s a private detective investigating Miss Northrup’s death. Take him outside and show him where you found her.”

  So Tobias had found the body in addition to providing the weapon. How interesting. “I’ll have some questions, too.”

  “And answer Mr. Malloy’s questions,” Hatch added wearily.

  Frank turned back to Hatch. “I’ll need to see Miss Wilson and the others I mentioned.”

  Hatch sighed again. “I’ll let them know to expect you and encourage them to tell you whatever they may know, although I’m sure it won’t be much. Tomorrow is Saturday, so there are no classes. I’ll have Alice make up a list of the faculty members and their addresses and a list of Miss Northrup’s students. The students all live here in the dormitory wing. Men aren’t permitted in there, but I’m sure we can find a room where you can meet with anyone you need to speak with. You can stop by here when you’re finished outside and pick up the list.”

  Frank thought that questioning the students would be an excellent job for Gino. “Thank you for your help, Mr. Hatch.”

  Tobias, still looking terrified, stepped aside so Frank could precede him, but Hatch stopped him.

  “Oh, and Mr. Malloy? Please keep me informed about what you find out.”

  Frank nodded, figuring Hatch would take that as agreement, although he had no such intention. He went out into the front office, where Alice had stopped her typing to stare at him warily. “Thanks very much for your help, miss,” he said with what he hoped was a friendly smile. Sarah had told him that his friendly smiles weren’t all that reassuring, but he still tried.

  Alice didn’t say a word, but Tobias followed him obediently out. When they were at the top of the stairs, Frank turned to him and said, “Where are we going, Tobias?”

  Tobias swallowed nervously. “Is you sure you ain’t here to arrest me, Mr. Malloy?”

  “Absolutely. I couldn’t arrest you even if I wanted to, and I don’t. I would appreciate it if you’d show me where Miss Northrup was killed, though, and tell me everything you know about it.”

  This information didn’t seem to cheer him much, but he said, “Downstairs and out back. I’ll show you.”

  Tobias led the way down the massive staircase, moving slowly in the way old people did when their joints hurt. The short winter day was ending and the building was quiet.

  “Where is everyone?”

  “Classes is over for today, and a lot of the young ladies has gone home because of the trouble with Miss Northrup.”

  Hatch was right to be worried about the future of his school. “Tell me how you came to leave your screwdriver in the . . . what was it? A gazebo?”

  “Yes, sir, that’s what they calls it. Real nice place it is, too. The young ladies, they like to sit out there when the weather’s nice. But you know how girls can be, sir, about bugs and things. They’d get right scared if a bee flew in, so a few years back, Mr. Hatch had us put screens up and a door. It don’t keep the spiders out, but it works for most everything else.”

  “And you were working there on . . . What day was it?”

  “Wednesday, sir. Yes, sir. On Wednesday morning. We had some wind the other night, and it set the door flapping. Tore it near off its hinges, it did. So I was putting it back.”

  “I know the night you mean, but that was almost a week ago. Why did you wait until Wednesday to fix it?”

  Tobias looked at him in mild surprise. “Nobody else asked me that, Mr. Malloy. It was because that was the first nice day we’d had. The sun come out and it was warmer than it has been. My knees don’t like the cold weather too much, so I try and stay inside when I can.”

  Frank remembered how mild the weather had been that day. “Even still, was it warm enough for somebody to sit outside in the gazebo?”

  Tobias glanced up at where Frank stood above him
on the staircase. “I wouldn’t think so, no, sir.”

  That’s what Frank had been thinking, too. So why was Abigail in the gazebo in the first place? That might be a question only the killer could answer.

  “This way, sir,” Tobias said when they reached the bottom of the stairs. He led Frank through the lobby to the opposite side from where he’d entered. They passed more closed doors to classrooms or offices and finally came to an entrance door that was markedly less magnificent than the one in the front of the building. This one led to the courtyard formed by the sides of the U-shaped building.

  Shielded from the wind off the Hudson River, the courtyard would provide a pleasant gathering spot in nicer weather. Frank judged the buildings to be about as old as Hatch said the college was, and through the years, someone had taken pains to plant trees and bushes here. The winter-brown grass would spring to life in another month or two and turn the area into a verdant field where young women could play croquet or that new game of lawn tennis and whatever other games rich girls enjoyed.

  The gazebo was larger than Frank had envisioned and sat in the middle of the courtyard. A gravel path led from the door directly to it. Tobias didn’t exactly drag his heels, but he couldn’t have been more reluctant to go out there. Frank pitied him, but he needed information.

  “Do you often leave your tools lying around?”

  “Oh no, sir! I never . . .” He shook his head. “Well, I’ve done it a time or two lately. I’m getting forgetful in my old age. And . . .”

  Frank looked more closely at the man walking beside him. “And you probably don’t see as well as you used to.”

  “Please, sir, don’t say nothing to Mr. Hatch. After all this, I reckon he’s going to fire me anyways, but just in case . . .”

  “I won’t say a word. I don’t intend to report anything at all to him, in fact.”

  “But you promised!”

  Frank grinned. “No, I didn’t. And Mr. Hatch didn’t hire me. Miss Northrup’s parents did. I report to them.”

  Tobias’s eyes rounded in amazement. “You is a man to be reckoned with, Mr. Malloy.”

  Frank hoped so. “Did you see Miss Northrup that morning when you were fixing the door?”

  “No, sir, I didn’t see nobody. All the young ladies was in classes, and it was too cold to be out here for fun. I had the place all to myself.”

  “Any idea why she might’ve come out here?”

  “No, sir. I been studying on it myself, and it just don’t make no sense. If she was meeting somebody, why didn’t she meet them inside where it was warm? There’s always plenty of rooms empty, and usually nobody’s in the library when the young ladies is in classes. Miss Northrup even had her own office where she could be private. She shared it with Professor Pelletier, but he would’ve let her talk private with somebody if she asked.”

  “Who’s this Pelletier?”

  “He’s the French teacher, head of the department. Miss Northrup, she work under him.”

  “Did they get along well?”

  Tobias looked up in surprise. “Far as I know. That ain’t none of my business.”

  Of course it wasn’t. Frank was being unfair to ask someone in Tobias’s position to judge the professors. They’d reached the gazebo, and Frank saw it was just as Tobias had described. The original structure had been open to catch the breeze, but they’d installed screens. In this last month of winter, the screens were dirty and a bit rusty. Frank realized he couldn’t really see inside even this close. “Hatch said you found her.”

  Tobias caught his breath at the memory. “Yes, sir, I did.”

  “Why did you come back?”

  “Well, now, I noticed my screwdriver was missing. I recollected I probably left it here, so I come to get it.”

  “Did you notice anybody else around when you came back?”

  “Oh no. It was just as quiet as it is now. A little earlier in the day, but still nobody was around.”

  “So you opened the door and what did you see?”

  His breath caught again. “I didn’t know what I seen at first. I thought maybe it was a bundle of rags or something. Not a person, not at first. Then I saw the blood. It was almost black by then. Dried up, it was, so I didn’t even know it was blood. My mind just couldn’t make sense of it. Then I saw my screwdriver and it was sticking out of her poor face . . .”

  Tears flooded his eyes and he covered his face with both hands. “It’s all right, Tobias. I’m sorry you had to see that.” Frank clapped his hand on the smaller man’s shoulder. “You wait here. I want to take a look inside.”

  Frank pulled the door open, noticing it apparently worked fine now. Inside, the floor was weathered a dull gray, but he could see the stains from the blood that someone had scrubbed away. A bench seat ran all the way around the inside, providing seating for fifteen or twenty people. “Do they ever have classes in here?”

  “Sometimes, in the spring when it gets real hot,” he called from outside.

  “I hate to ask, but can you show me how she was laying when you found her?”

  To his credit, Tobias didn’t hesitate, although he stopped short of actually entering the gazebo. He held the door open and stood just on the threshold. “Her head was there, where the stains are. She was on her back. There was blood on the bench there beside her, finger marks like she tried to grab hold and pull herself up. Probably wanted to go for help or something.”

  Judging from the size of the stain, she’d bled too fast for that. “Did you see anything else?”

  “No, sir. I didn’t stay long enough. Once I realized what I saw, I took off running. Well, walking as fast as I can, I guess I should say. Went straight to Mr. Hatch’s office and told him. I figured he’d know what to do.”

  “Thank you, Tobias.” When Tobias stepped aside, Frank left the gazebo. He took a minute to look around, making note of how many windows overlooked this courtyard. The question was, had anyone been looking out any of them when Abigail Northrup was killed? And even if they had been, they probably couldn’t have seen the crime itself through the dirty screens. At most, they might have seen Abigail and her killer arrive and the killer leave, but would anyone remember such a thing, even if someone had witnessed it?

  “Let’s go back inside where it’s warm,” Frank said, remembering what Tobias had said about his knees.

  As they crunched along the gravel path, Frank said, “Why is it the police didn’t arrest you for killing her?”

  It was a fair question. Both of them knew that colored men were arrested every day in New York City simply for the crime of being unemployed and standing on a street corner. Tobias was actually involved to some extent in the murder of a white woman.

  “Mr. Hatch wouldn’t let them.”

  Frank didn’t even try to hide his astonishment. Maybe he’d misjudged Hatch. “Why not?”

  “First off, there wasn’t no way I could’ve done it. Miss Northrup, she was teaching her classes until eleven o’clock. I finished up out here before that, and one of the maids comes to tell me the toilets was clogged up in the dormitory, on the second floor. I went up there and was working on them until nearly two o’clock. Lots of the young ladies saw me. They was all put out because they had to go to another floor to use the lavatory. It was when I was packing up from that when I noticed my screwdriver was missing, so I went back to get it. By then, Miss Northrup had been dead a long time, they said, an hour or more.”

  That was, Frank had to agree, an excellent alibi, but excellent alibis had never stopped the police from arresting someone if they saw an easy way to close a case. “And Mr. Hatch stood up for you and wouldn’t let them arrest you?”

  “Yes, sir. I was mighty proud of that.”

  Frank was sure he was. Poor Tobias probably thought Hatch did it out of gratitude to a longtime employee. Frank doubted that. He thought Hatch realized how
bad it would look if one of his trusted employees, a man who worked right in the girls’ dormitory at times, was charged with murder. No wonder he was so willing to blame a stranger.

  They stepped into the building and took a minute to savor the warmth. “Can you show me Miss Northrup’s office?”

  “I can, but Professor Pelletier’ll be gone by now, and he keeps it locked up. You’ll have to get him to let you in.”

  “I don’t suppose he lives in the building.”

  “Oh no, sir. No mens live here. He got his own place somewhere.”

  Frank thanked Tobias for his help and sent him on his way. Then he went back upstairs to see if Alice had the list prepared for him.

  * * *

  Mulberry Street ran through one of the worst slums in New York, even though Police Headquarters sat squarely on it as well. Sarah always made a point of noticing the filth and despair as she strode purposefully down this street, so she wouldn’t forget how fortunate she was. How many of the children running barefoot along the sidewalk, in spite of the cold, had a real home and family? How many of them would be huddled together for warmth in a stairwell or doorway when night fell? The size of the problem would overwhelm her if she let herself think about it too long. She could not save them all, so she had to focus on the ones she could help.

  Just up the street from Police Headquarters lay the Daughters of Hope Mission. The ramshackle house was usually crammed with girls who had no safe place to go. The child who was now Sarah’s own daughter, Catherine, had once found shelter here, and Sarah had hired another of the girls, Maeve, as Catherine’s nursemaid. Many others had found refuge and a new life at the Mission. She could take some pride in that.

  One of the girls answered Sarah’s knock, smiling in recognition. “Mrs. Brandt . . . I mean Mrs. Malloy! So sorry! Please, come in.” She wore a simple black skirt and shirtwaist, which had probably been made right there at the Mission by girls learning to use a sewing machine.