by Liz Freeland
“All right,” I said.
“Wonderful. Where shall I pick you up?”
It never occurred to me that my plan would meet with so much success so quickly. My mind reached for a fast dodge.
“That’s very kind of you, but my flat’s so far from Midtown— the back of beyond in Brooklyn. It would be easier for me to meet you after work. Say, at your hotel?”
“How did you know I was staying at a hotel?”
“Oh . . .” I swallowed, kicking myself. “Aren’t you? You said you were a salesman, so . . .”
“I’m at the Hotel McAlpin,” he said.
As we arranged to meet in the lobby the next evening, I couldn’t believe my good fortune. No girl had ever been happier to have procured a date with a man she suspected might be a murderer.
CHAPTER 12
When I met Gerald the following evening, he presented me with a corsage of flowers—an arrangement of hothouse rosebuds that must have cost him a pretty penny. He’d made reservations at the McAlpin’s grill, which would be quick, he said. As the white-coated waiter was pouring our wine, Gerald revealed why time was of the essence. He’d managed to procure a pair of opening-week tickets to Watch Your Step, the new Irving Berlin musical starring the ballroom dancers Vernon and Irene Castle.
I gasped. “How on earth did you manage it?” Callie would melt with envy.
He shrugged modestly, in a way that told me that it hadn’t been as easy as he wanted to let on.
In spite of myself, I began to look forward to the fun of the evening he’d planned. I hadn’t expected to like the man I was investigating. As we talked over dinner, I kept having to remind myself of Ruthie. The gentleman in front of me had known Ruthie Jones—possibly in the Biblical sense—and might even have been responsible for her death. That horrible scene from Hell’s Kitchen was hard to keep in mind, though, when the wine flowed so freely in such sumptuous surroundings. The grill was all dark paneling and walnut furniture, with attentive waiters ready to hop at the least sign of diner distress. Yet we were a mere ten minutes’ walk away from the flat where Ruthie had died.
I was here to find out things, not for pleasure. I asked Gerald about himself as often and discreetly as I could. He was the second of three sons of a physician, though neither of his parents were still living. He’d gone to good schools—sent away to boarding schools, of course—where he’d caused the usual amount of trouble. Then he joined the army. He didn’t want to talk about that, or the years directly after he returned home with the injury that had ended his military career. He loved books, some opera, and popular music, but he said he was starting to feel too last-century for modern times.
“That can’t be true,” I protested. I knew his age from the passport but feigned ignorance. “You can’t be much over thirty.”
“Bless you for that, dear girl, but I’m thirty-eight.” He winced. “Now you’ll think I’m entirely too long in the tooth to be seen out with.”
I lowered my voice sympathetically. “I could ask the waiter to bring you some soft foods and a push chair.”
We laughed and talked through the rest of dinner, and then laughed even more during Watch Your Step, which was such a wondrous confection I never wanted it to end. The Castles danced so energetically yet gracefully, they didn’t seem quite human. The story was the usual comedy fluff, but there were wonderful bits throughout, like Verdi protesting Rigoletto being done in ragtime. Throughout, I tried to remember songs for Otto, and bits of dialogue for Callie. When the show was over, I wanted nothing more than for it to begin again. I floated out of the theater humming, “Play a Simple Melody.”
“Did you like that song?” Gerald asked as we joined the hordes of just-released theater patrons hoping for taxicabs.
“I loved it,” I said. “I can’t wait to tell—” I didn’t say the name, but Gerald heard enough to know. I reddened at my mistake.
His face fell. “But surely . . . That’s over, isn’t it?”
Recovering from my blunder required Broadway-worthy theatrics. I wilted back a step, my hands fluttering toward my face. “I don’t know why I said that, or even thought it.”
He laid his hand on the shoulder of my coat, nodding in understanding, though it was obvious that my words had wounded him. “After three years, you can’t expect to forget someone in a single day.” His lips turned down. “I know that better than anyone.”
That last statement made me bird-dog alert. “Have you had a . . . disappointment?”
He shook his head. “Never mind. I need to get you home.”
This was the awkward bit I’d been dreading. “Please don’t feel you have to bother. I just need to take the subway.”
“At this hour? Nonsense. We’ll hire a taxi.”
Even if I had been an honest-to-goodness resident of far-flung Brooklyn, I wouldn’t have let him escort me all the way there in a cab. Going there and back again would have taken him an hour. Convincing him of the folly of this—and the waste of time—took precious minutes of arguing on the emptying sidewalk in the cold. I was already later for work than I’d ever been.
Relenting at last, Gerald waved down a cab, handed me in, and paid the driver handsomely in advance to take me where I needed to go in Brooklyn. With a gentle squeeze of my hand, he bade me good night.
The cab driver was bemused but very happy when he discovered he only had to drive me fifteen blocks, not to Canarsie. I was probably his most profitable fare of the week.
“Just drop me near the police station,” I said when we were approaching Thirtieth Street, then added quickly, “but not too close.”
“You in some kind of trouble?” he asked.
“It’s where I work. I’m a policewoman.”
He twisted to gape at me, and for a moment I worried he might wreck the car. “Honest?”
I dug in my purse, leaned forward, and showed him my badge.
“I’ve never seen a police lady dolled up before.” His brow furrowed as he pulled to the curb. “You want I should split the difference with you for the cab fare? I don’t want you to think I was trying to chisel your boyfriend.”
“What I most want is for you to forget you dropped me here should you ever see that man again. Understand?”
He nodded and winked as if we were in cahoots, which I supposed we were.
I scooted into the station, self-conscious in my finery. Luckily, the place was having a moment of quiet for that time of night. Someone on one of the long wooden waiting benches whistled, though, which caught the attention of Jenks, who—just my luck—was at the desk. “Your highness!” he said. “You deigned to join us this evening.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m late.”
“Don’t apologize to me. Save it for Schultzie, who’s downstairs watching over your loyal subjects.”
So Fiona, who’d had the shift before mine, had left. That was good. Schultzie was probably napping on a bench.
“Being late’s no joke, Two.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Do you want to be a police officer or a debutante?”
I didn’t dignify that question with a response.
“I’ll have to tell Captain McMartin about this.” His gaze raked up and down my body. “Unless you want to give me a little incentive not to.”
The blood flowed into my cheeks, but I didn’t care. I kept a hard, even stare on him.
He lowered his voice. “I know corners of this station nobody else ever goes to.”
I couldn’t hide my disgust. “Tell Captain McMartin I’m very sorry and that it won’t happen again.”
His lips turned down. “I might do that, unless you change your mind.”
“I won’t, so you can write up the memo now.”
As I stomped down the stairs, he called after me, “It was just a joke, Two. Don’t you have a sense of humor?”
I yanked off my coat, and checking that Schultzie really was napping on a bench—he was—I placed it and my nice skirt int
o the upright locker where we policewomen stowed our things. I put on my blue wool uniform jacket and skirt. I didn’t have a spare pair of shoes or boots, so my nice slip-on heels would have to remain on my feet. Once I roused Schultzie, thanking him profusely for covering for me, I was able to sit down myself and calm my buzzing nerves. A fine world when policemen were more predatory and insulting than the man I was investigating as a possible murderer. The evening’s music and laughter went mute then, and I tried to concentrate on the female prisoners and their needs, and the chores I was expected to do every night shift. Half of my job was being a custodian, which was tedious but at least it helped the hours pass.
As the night dragged on, remembered snippets of Watch Your Step would pop into my head, bringing a smile that would buoy me. When my shift was over, I opened my locker again and the fragrance of rose wafted toward me. I hadn’t received a corsage since my high school graduation, and that one had come from Uncle Luddie, so it really hadn’t counted.
This one didn’t count either, I reminded myself.
* * *
My aunt needed to know that Gerald Hughes might call her house looking for me.
I hadn’t wanted to give my address to Gerald, of course, but it was necessary to provide someplace where he could reach me. Obviously the police station wouldn’t do. I wove an elaborate fiction of an inconvenient boarding house that was both time-consuming to reach by car and without a telephone. When I saw that he was about to ask how to telephone me at work, I waylaid the question by giving him Aunt Irene’s phone number instead.
I arrived at East Fifty-Third Street around noon. Right away, I sensed something was afoot. Walter opened the door wearing a full pinafore apron over his immaculately pressed suit. In his right hand he held a baby bottle.
“Don’t just stand there gaping,” he said. “You’re letting the cold in.”
As soon as I was whisked inside, he shut the door. The place could have used some cold air, in my opinion. National Geographic magazine had once featured a story on Indian sweat lodges. I no longer needed the descriptive powers of journalism to imagine how it felt inside one. Just the effort of taking off my coat, hat, and gloves made me break out in a sweat. If only I could have shed my wool dress, as well.
Hammering came from upstairs.
“What’s happening?” I asked.
“Little visitor, big changes,” Walter said.
The parlor had been transformed since my last visit. The rocking horse was still near the now-roaring fire in the hearth, where Trollope and Dickens were lying side by side like two baking bricks. A crib stood in the center of the room. Inside it Eddie lay on his tummy, his head up and alert. My aunt stood over him, her green silk crepe de chine dress covered by a pinafore like Walter’s, only with more ruffles. Her fretful expression changed to relief when she saw Walter.
“Oh good—the bottle.” As an afterthought, she greeted me, “Hello, Louise.” Taking the bottle from Walter, she dashed a little on her wrist. “Is that too hot?”
She passed the bottle back and Walter repeated the experiment on his own skin. “It seems just right to me.”
“The book says milk shouldn’t be too hot. Or too cold. It’s supposed to be just the temperature it would be if it came from”—she lowered her voice—“the bosom.”
Walter and I exchanged a perplexed look.
“Body temperature,” my aunt explained. “Or the same temperature cow’s milk would be fresh from a cow’s udder.”
“I know nothing of cows,” he said. “My father was a blacksmith.”
Hearing my aunt and Walter discuss bosoms and udders was a diverting novelty, but I sensed they could dither over milk temperature all day. Meanwhile, the temperature in that room was causing me to feel like a damp rag. “Speaking of blacksmiths, if I were metal, I’d be ready for smelting.”
“Eddie needs warmth,” my aunt explained.
“He’s a baby, not an egg. He’s already been incubated.”
My aunt ignored the comment. Evidently it was my turn for the bottle. “Try this, Louise. Does it seem right?”
“She doesn’t know,” Walter said in disgust. “The longer we stand around debating, the colder it will become.”
“I wouldn’t bet on that.” I plucked a copy of The New York Times off a side table and fanned myself.
“We don’t want Eddie to get indigestion,” my aunt said.
All this while, Eddie was tracking the bottle intently. My aunt finally picked him up, and after much fussing with various blankets, towels, and bibs, the baby was finally allowed to take some nourishment. If the temperature was off by a few degrees, he didn’t seem to mind.
“Isn’t he enchanting?” Aunt Irene said, staring down at him.
“How did you manage to wrest him from the nuns?” I envisioned Aunt Irene snatching the baby from his crib and making a run for it.
“Didn’t you hear?” My aunt’s eyes widened. “There’s flu at the foundling hospital. Several children were hospitalized, so I asked if I could bring Eddie home with me—through the holiday season, at least. And they agreed.”
“Just like that?” I asked.
And Irene shifted. “Well, a substantial financial contribution smoothed the way. But they needed the money, and poor Eddie needed out of there. It was the perfect solution for everyone.”
The sound of hammering upstairs crescendoed until it was so loud that the pendant fixture hanging from a medallion in the center of the ceiling started to sway.
“What’s going on up there?” I asked.
“I hired some men to build shelves for the nursery.”
“Nursery?”
“Well, it’s the guest room, and Eddie’s a guest, isn’t he? I couldn’t have him sleeping in the big bed that you usually sleep in.”
Bernice came in, wiping her brow with a handkerchief. “You’re going to need to keep giving that poor child bottles all day long, he’ll be sweating so much.”
I could have used a bottle myself. A bottle of ice.
“Nonsense. He’s done, and now he’ll be fine for two hours and forty minutes.” She looked at me. “That’s how long Mrs. Toomey says they should go between feedings.”
Whoever Mrs. Toomey was, Bernice didn’t look impressed. “He’s not going to be fine if you just sit there dandling him after all that milk and don’t burp him.”
She extracted the baby from my aunt’s lap, cradled him against her shoulder without the benefit of even one towel, and patted his back until he emitted a loud belch.
“Good heavens!” Aunt Irene said.
Bernice laughed. “That’s nothing. I had a baby brother who could almost make the earth shake.”
It was gratifying to know that there was at least one person in this house who knew something about taking care of an infant. “Don’t you think it would be a good idea to open a window?”
Aunt Irene and Walter gasped. “And let in a draft?” he asked.
“If the draft saves him from suffocating . . .”
Bernice nodded. “That’s what I’ve been saying.”
“How many books have you read on the subject of babies, Louise?” my aunt asked.
“None,” I confessed.
“Well, there you are.” My aunt pointed to a fat volume on the bar nearby. “Mrs. Toomey’s Guide for Modern Mothers tells me everything I could possibly need to know.”
I doubted even Mrs. Toomey advocated saunas for three-month-olds. But, since my aunt was clearly a true believer in Mrs. Toomey’s modern methods, I decided to withdraw from the argument and leave the battle to Bernice.
“I actually came to ask a favor.” I told them about following Gerald Hughes, our “accidental” meeting at the tearoom, and our date last night. Walter and my aunt were riveted. Bernice, predictably, was less so.
“You mean you didn’t want to let a murderer know your address,” the latter said, “so you gave him this one.”
“I doubt very much he’s a murderer, and I only gave him
the phone exchange and number,” I said. “If someone calls to leave a message for Miss Frobisher, that’s him.”
Aunt Irene threaded her fingers together. “And how should we relay messages to you?”
“I’ll telephone every day to check.”
“How many times do you intend to meet with this killer?” Bernice asked.
“I’m not sure. The more time I spend with him, the less I suspect him.”
Bernice handed the baby back to my aunt. “But you don’t know.”
“He certainly doesn’t sound like a murderer,” my aunt said. She wrote murder mysteries—often rather similar to real-life cases I’d been involved in—so she considered herself an authority on homicide. “In fact, he seems quite civilized. A gallant war hero, wishing he could join up again. And giving that corsage to Louise was a sweet gesture.”
“I just need to talk to Gerald Hughes a few more times. He’s already started to trust me and tell me things.”
Walter frowned. “He’s not likely to confess that he murdered a woman, especially not to someone he’s sweet on.”
Before I could respond, the phone rang in the front hallway, and Walter hurried to answer it. A few moments later he was back. “Call for Miss Frobisher.”
I stilled. “He knows I’m here?”
“Did you expect Walter to lie, too?” Bernice asked.
Frowning, I hurried out, trying to come up with some excuse for not being at work in the middle of the day. I decided to use my aunt. “Aunt Irene has a child who’s . . . getting over influenza,” I explained after we’d exchanged greetings. “I wanted to check on him.”
Gerald sounded genuinely concerned. “I hope the poor thing’s better.”
“Much better, thank you.”
“Well, since you’ve slipped your traces for the time being, perhaps I can persuade you to go out and enjoy a sunny day. We could take a carriage drive in the park.”
“No,” I said. Too quickly. “I mean, that wouldn’t be a good idea today. My aunt’s house is at sixes and sevens, and I do have to return to work.”
We decided, though, that we would meet again at his hotel that evening. Remembering my encounter with Jenks last night, I told him, “I can’t make it a very late night tonight. I was so tired today I nearly fell asleep at my typewriter.”
