Murder on St. Nicholas Avenue

by Victoria Thompson

  “I’ll explain it to you later, my dear,” Mr. Decker said. “In the meantime, we have Mr. Yorke and his family to deal with.”

  “I don’t see why we have to deal with them at all,” Maeve said.

  “But if we can help them find out what happened to Cecelia, shouldn’t we do that?” Mrs. Decker asked.

  “I doubt we can help with that,” Gino said. “It happened in Chicago, after all. But if we can show that Pollock’s first wife disappeared under mysterious circumstances, we could make a case for self-defense if Una really did kill him.”

  “Do you think she did kill him?” Mrs. Decker asked.

  “If he was beating her, she might’ve fought back,” he said.

  “And she’s saying she still doesn’t remember what happened,” Maeve said. “I guess it’s possible she doesn’t, but if I’d killed my husband, I’d probably say I didn’t remember what happened, too. Just remember, we’re not supposed to know Pollock beat her or say anything about it.”

  “What are we going to do about Mr. Yorke?” Mrs. Decker asked.

  “Wait a minute,” Gino said, wondering why he hadn’t thought to ask this before. “Why did Yorke go to you in the first place?”

  “He went to Pollock’s house and asked to see him. The servants didn’t know what to do, so they sent him to Mrs. Decker,” Mr. Decker said.

  “He didn’t know Pollock was dead?” Gino asked.

  “No, he was very surprised when we told him,” Mr. Decker said. “Although . . .”

  “Although what?” Maeve asked.

  “He did say he’d been to see Pollock once already. Did he say exactly when he’d been there, Elizabeth?”

  “No, I don’t think he did.”

  “So he might’ve been there the day Pollock was killed,” Gino said. A frisson of excitement skittered across his nerve endings. “He might be the killer.”

  “But he didn’t even know Pollock was dead,” Mr. Decker said.

  “And he was very upset when we told him,” Mrs. Decker said. “Nearly in tears, in fact. You see, Mr. Pollock is the only one who knows what happened to Mr. Yorke’s sister. Now he’s afraid they’ll never find her.”

  “Or maybe he just acted like he didn’t know Pollock was dead,” Maeve said. “If he’d killed Pollock, that would be a good way to prove he had nothing to do with it. You two would make excellent witnesses about how surprised he was to hear the news.”

  “How very clever,” Mrs. Decker said. “I must remember that.”

  “Why?” her husband asked. “Are you planning to murder someone?”

  “One never knows what might happen, dear.”

  Gino had to cough to cover a laugh and Maeve covered her mouth with both hands, while poor Mr. Decker just stared at his wife, dumbfounded.

  Mrs. Decker acted like she didn’t notice their reactions. “On the other hand, if Mr. Yorke killed Mr. Pollock, why didn’t he just go back to Chicago? No one would have ever known he was here.”

  “Indeed,” Mr. Decker said, regaining his composure. “I suppose someone should go see Mr. Yorke, then, and ask him some pointed questions. Gino, perhaps you would be the best one for that.”

  “It would have to wait until I’m off work tomorrow evening.”

  “That should be fine,” Mr. Decker said. “He gave us the name of his hotel so we could contact him if we learned anything about his sister. You can find out from the servants when he actually visited Pollock before you see him.”

  “Is there anything else we need to know?” Gino asked.

  “Oh, I almost forgot,” Maeve said. “Una told me that Pollock had a special friend named Truett. She said he had other men come for dinner, but this Truett just came over to meet with Pollock and they didn’t socialize.”

  “Did she tell you his first name?” Mr. Decker asked.

  “She said she didn’t know it, but it sounds to me like he might be Pollock’s partner.”

  “So that’s something else to ask the servants about, Gino,” Mr. Decker said. “Is that all?”

  Everyone looked at everyone else, and no one had anything to add.

  “I’ll get the ledger and we can drink Mrs. Malloy’s coffee while we make copies of the names,” Maeve said.

  * * *

  The Deckers had offered to take Gino to Pollock’s house in their carriage, but he had to go home and pack some things first. He could, he pointed out, travel faster on the elevated train in any case. The Deckers decided to drive up to Pollock’s house in the meantime and inform the servants in person that Gino would be guarding them for the next few days, until they could get things sorted out. He was glad he didn’t have to be present for that conversation. Dealing with the aftermath was going to be bad enough.

  Harlem had pretty much settled in for the night when he arrived at Pollock’s door, but lights still burned in the front hallway of this house, at least. Gino climbed the front steps and the door opened before he could knock. An anxious-looking female peered out at him.

  “Are you Officer Donatelli?”

  He’d decided to wear his uniform in hopes of reassuring them. “Yes. Did Mrs. Decker tell you I was coming?”

  “Oh yes, sir, she did.” She swung the door wide and welcomed him inside.

  He was surprised to see three other people in the hallway, obviously waiting for him. The woman who had admitted him appeared to be in her thirties and was dressed like a maid. The others were another woman, younger than the first and also dressed like a maid; an older, stouter woman in a plain dress and apron who must be the cook; and a skinny boy of about sixteen.

  “Sorry I’m so late,” Gino said. “I hope I didn’t keep you up.”

  “We couldn’t’ve slept a wink until you got here anyways,” the cook said. “Eddie, you take Officer Donatelli’s bag up to his room,” she added to the boy. “Officer, you come right on into the kitchen. I’ve made you some supper.”

  Gino had already had supper and then Mrs. Malloy had insisted he eat some pie while they were copying the names in the ledger, but he figured he could eat a little something more to please the cook. She might want to chat, and he figured eating her food might charm her, whatever that meant. He only wished Maeve was here to see it.

  To his surprise, the two maids followed them down the hallway and downstairs to the kitchen, while the boy carried Gino’s carpetbag to some destination upstairs. The boy was back by the time the cook had pulled a covered plate from the warming oven and set it before him. He joined the others in standing there, staring at him, although Gino thought he looked more angry than the others. Gino felt awkward eating while they watched him, wide-eyed.

  The room was warm from the stove, and except for his dishes, everything had been put to rights and scrubbed clean for the night. After he’d complimented the cook on the beef stew and the lightness of the biscuits, he said, “You folks can go on to bed, if you like, but at least sit down if you’re going to stay here.”

  “Sit, sit,” the cook said, motioning them to the other chairs at the table. “I’m Velvet, by the way. And that’s Hattie.” She pointed to the older maid. “And this here’s Jane. The boy’s name is Eddie.”

  “I’m pleased to meet all of you,” he said between bites. “How long have you worked for Mr. Pollock?”

  “We all started about six months ago, I reckon. When he first moved into the house. He got an agency to find him some staff, so we all started at the same time.”

  “Was he a good man to work for?”

  Silence greeted his question, and when he looked up, none of them would meet his eye.

  “Did he mistreat you?” he asked.

  “Oh no, sir, nothing like that,” Velvet said.

  “But maybe his wife wouldn’t say the same thing,” Gino tried.

  More silence and averted gazes.

  Velvet jumped up.
“Let me get you some more coffee.”

  As she refilled his cup, Jane said, “It was her own fault.”

  “You hush,” the boy snapped. “It wasn’t any such thing.”

  “It was,” Jane insisted. “He said so.”

  “Don’t pay her no mind,” Velvet said to Gino.

  Gino turned to Jane. “That was just an excuse. It wasn’t her fault that he hit her. It was his fault. He hit her because he wanted to be mean to her.”

  Jane looked like she wanted to argue.

  “Jane, you go on to bed now, you hear?” Velvet said.

  Jane pulled a face. “I don’t wanna go upstairs by myself.”

  “Eddie, you go with her.”

  When Gino looked at them, he saw Eddie and Hattie were no longer avoiding his gaze. Something had changed. Even the air in the room felt a little different. Jane rose slowly and headed for the stairway. “Come on, Eddie.”

  The boy followed with obvious reluctance, and he paused at the foot of the stairs. “What’s going to happen to Mrs. Pollock?”

  “I don’t know, but we’re trying to get her out of jail on bail.”

  “Will she come back here then?”

  Gino didn’t think so, but he said, “That’s up to her.”

  That seemed to please him. “Will you be here in the morning?”

  “I’ll have breakfast, but then I have to go to work. I’ll be back tomorrow night, though.”

  Jane took Eddie by the ear and gave him a tug.

  “Ouch! I’m coming,” he snapped and followed her up the stairs.

  When their footsteps had died away, Velvet said, “He’s right fond of Mrs. Pollock.”

  Gino nodded. That would be understandable. He started eating again. “How long have the Pollocks been married?” he asked, trying to make it sound like idle curiosity.

  “About three months, I’d say,” Velvet said.

  “Going on four now,” Hattie corrected her.

  “Is it? Time does fly.”

  So Pollock had moved to New York, gotten himself a nice house, and then within just a few months had gotten himself a pretty wife, too. She wasn’t a society girl, but no society girl would’ve married him on such a brief acquaintance, especially since he was new in town and no one knew who his people were. Gino would never be in society himself, but he’d learned a lot about it from working with the Deckers and their daughter, Mrs. Brandt. Or Mrs. Malloy now. Would a society girl have put up with being beaten? Would her family have tolerated being shut out of her life? Cecelia Yorke had endured both of those things and had even disappeared without notice. But she probably wasn’t a society girl either.

  “Would you like some more, Officer?” Velvet asked, bringing Gino back to the present. “There’s plenty. Or I’ve got some white cake you might enjoy.”

  “The cake sounds good,” he said with a smile. “That was delicious, ma’am. Thank you. What’s Mrs. Pollock like?” he asked while Velvet cut him some cake.

  “She’s all right,” Hattie said after Velvet offered no opinion.

  “Don’t know nothing about running a house, poor thing,” Velvet said.

  Gino didn’t expect she did. “She was working in a cigar store when they met, I heard.”

  “Is that so?” Velvet said with interest, setting the generous slice of cake down in front of him.

  “We knew she wasn’t quality,” Hattie said. “You could tell that right off.”

  “She tried real hard, though,” Velvet said. “She did everything Mr. Pollock told her.”

  Hattie sniffed derisively. “She never pleased him, though. She just wasn’t quite good enough for him.”

  “Nobody was good enough for that man.”

  Gino finished up his cake without comment, giving the women every opportunity to continue, but they’d exhausted their gossip for the moment. “Thank you for the supper, Miss Velvet. It was delicious.”

  “It’s a pleasure to cook for a man who enjoys good food,” she said with a grin. She cleared the dishes and dropped them into the pan of soapy water she’d prepared for them.

  “If you don’t mind, I’d like to take a look around and check the house before I go to bed,” he said.

  “Hattie, you show the officer around while I clean up. Soon as he’s done, take him to his room, and you can go to bed yourself.”

  Hattie didn’t look too pleased at this assignment, but she said, “Where do you want to start?”

  “Let’s start in the basement, where the burglar got in last night.”

  Like most basements, this one was dark and dreary. The house was wired for electricity, and a lone bulb hanging in the center of the space cast dark shadows in the corners. The area was oddly empty, though. A few boxes were stacked against one wall, but the place had a deserted feel to it. Gino supposed Pollock hadn’t lived here long enough to accumulate a lot of stuff.

  “This here’s the window where he came in,” Hattie said, pointing. “Broke the glass. We cleaned it up and nailed the board over it as best we could.”

  They’d done a good job. The board seemed secure, although there were other windows that could be broken. High up near the ceiling, the windows were at ground level outside and easily accessed. A grown man would have no trouble lowering himself to the floor. When they’d climbed back up the stairs, Gino checked the door at the head of the stairs. It had no lock.

  “Can you get me some pots?” he asked Hattie.

  “What you need pots for?” Velvet asked. She was drying his dishes and putting them away for the night.

  “I’m going to put a chair under the handle on this door, in case somebody tries to get in again. It won’t stop a burglar, but it’ll slow him down. If we stack some pots on the chair and he does force the door open, the pots will fall over and I’ll hear them.”

  The two women looked at him like they thought he’d hung the moon, and he wondered if they thought he was charming or just smart. Maybe he should ask them.

  When they’d fixed up the basement door, he checked the bolt on the back door and found it adequate. Then he made sure all the downstairs windows were locked, particularly the one in Pollock’s office. They hadn’t cleaned up the mess, just in case they decided to call in the police, so Gino could easily see what had happened.

  When they reached the front parlor, he pulled the door open without thinking, and only when he found the light switch and illuminated the electric chandelier hanging in the center of the room did he realize the women had stopped halfway down the hall and let him go on alone. Of course. He should have remembered this was where Pollock was killed.

  The place looked harmless enough and perfectly ordinary except that the carpet had been rolled up and lay in front of the door. “Is this where you found him?” he asked the women.

  “I found him,” Hattie said. “Them, I mean. She was here, too, with him.”

  “Can you tell me how it was?”

  She came forward slowly, every step a silent protest that radiated through her body. She stopped in the doorway, obviously unwilling to go any farther. “They was over there.” She pointed to the left-hand wall.

  “Can you tell me how they were when you found them? Sitting, standing, or what?”

  “He was laying down. He was already dead. Anybody could see that. So much blood . . .” She shuddered.

  “I’m sorry to make you remember it, but it’s important.”

  She glanced back at Velvet, who said, “Tell him, Hattie. The truth never hurt nobody.”

  Gino wasn’t sure about that, but he didn’t contradict her. “What was Mrs. Pollock doing?”

  “She was sitting there.” With a resigned sigh, she lifted her skirt and stepped over the rolled carpet, then walked to the spot she’d pointed to before. “She was sitting right here, her legs straight out, and she had his head . . .” Her
voice broke, but she cleared her throat. “She had his head in her lap, even though it was all busted and bleeding. She had blood all over her dress.”

  “What was she doing?”

  “Doing?”

  “Yes, was she crying and upset or—”

  “She was humming.”

  “Humming?”

  “I think, or maybe singing real soft-like. And rocking a little. Back and forth like this.” She moved the upper part of her body forward and back. “Like he was a baby and she was trying to soothe him or something.”

  This was good to know, because this was not at all a typical reaction. Surely, Mrs. Pollock had been in shock. Shock would be the natural reaction of a female to finding her husband bludgeoned to death on her parlor floor. “Was anybody else in the room?”

  “Oh no, just the two of them.”

  “And the parlor door was open?”

  “Yes, sir. About like it is now.”

  The door hung wide, as if someone had opened it and left. But it wasn’t pushed up against the wall, the way it would have been if someone had just intended to leave the room open.

  “What did you do when you saw them?” he asked.

  “Oh, Lordy, I screamed something awful. Jane and Velvet come running.”

  “What about Eddie?”

  “He was out, running an errand for Mr. Pollock.”

  “And then what happened? Did Mrs. Pollock say anything?”

  “Oh no, sir. She didn’t say a word. She just kept singing. Didn’t even act like she heard me screaming or even notice I was there.”

  “What did you do when you saw him?” he asked Velvet.

  “I sent Jane out to find the police. We know where they go.”

  Gino didn’t question her about that. She probably meant they knew where the beat cops went to catch a nap or cadge a drink. “And she brought back Officer Broghan?”

  “How did you know that?” Velvet asked.

  “I know his cousin. What did he do?”

  “He took one look around and ran off to find a call box. Then the rest of the police come, and they took Mrs. Pollock away, and they took Mr. Pollock’s body away, and they didn’t tell us anything.”