“I don’t think anyone is going to call our names at all soon,” I said.
His arms folded, Stefan shook his head. He looked no more apprehensive than he had on the street, or back in Dreamland. Being stuck in a hot, foul room wasn’t a problem for him. It was the fact that we were here at all.
Perhaps a half hour crawled by. Our names were not called. Nearest us, a man in his middle years who seemed to be drunk kept repeating to an older man by his side, “I’ve got to get the money back. She tricked me. I’ve got to get it back.”
With a tense Stefan not terribly keen for conversation, my thoughts turned to what I knew about police and their investigations. It was knowledge gained from a distance. I read every article about the Triangle shirtwaist factory tragedy, of course. That case was pursued with laudable police vigor. The ongoing legal affair that most concerned my family, though, was the government’s vendetta against John D Rockefeller. Powerful officials accused him of secret deals and price fixing and far worse in creating Standard Oil. He was a “robber baron,” the newspaper headlines screamed. He might have been the richest man in the world, but Rockefeller had to go into hiding to avoid subpoenas. And this year, after relentless harassment, the government finally won; the court ruled that Standard Oil was a monopoly and must be broken up.
My uncles greeted this news with tremendous gloom. The American people hated robber barons, though every man dreamed of being one. Spurred on by muckraking journalists, the prosecutors and the police were out to get the rich as never before. My cousin Ben, who though he was still a student acted as if he were the leading lawyer in New York, approved of Rockefeller dodging the police. He recently pronounced, “No one should ever agree to an interview with the police. And if one does, remember that the police cannot detain without arrest, and to arrest they need proof.”
And here I was, pushing for an interview at a police station. Yet no one seemed to have the time. I could almost hear Ben mocking me: “What on earth do you think you’re doing, Peggy?” What was I doing? I mulled over how much longer we should wait before I suggested leaving the precinct.
“Batternberg! Chalakoski!”
The man standing in a doorway who called our last names was not the desk officer but younger and slimmer with auburn hair, light blue eyes, and a neatly trimmed mustache. Seeing me start toward him, he beckoned with a welcoming smile. Well, at least he didn’t possess the bullheaded sourness of Lieutenant Pellegrino. I glanced over at Stefan, but if he was put at ease by the friendliness of the police officer, he showed no sign of it.
“I’m Detective Sean Devlin,” he said when we reached him. “There’s a room for taking your statements.”
He ushered us past the desk. At the end of a short corridor, the detective opened a door. This small room, without a single window, was as hot as the waiting area, but at least it didn’t smell. A table stood in the center of the room. Stefan and I took the two chairs that faced the door, and the policeman lowered himself into the chair opposite, placing his notebook down on the table next to a brown folder. He was hardly an intimidating person. Although Detective Devlin must be old enough to serve as a police officer and grow a mustache, there was a smoothness to his skin, more like a boy’s than a grown man’s. He even had a sprinkle of freckles across his nose. Some women might envy him his delicately arched auburn eyebrows.
“So you read the newspaper and that made you decide to come in?” he asked encouragingly. “You bought the evening newspaper Sunday? Or did you read the stories that came out today?
“Sunday,” I said. “It wasn’t a full newspaper, though, it was one of those extra editions. The newsboys were selling them outside the Oriental Hotel.”
Detective Devlin wrote something in his notebook.
“And you, Sir?” he asked without looking up.
“I brought the newspaper to Stefan to show him today,” I said. “He hadn’t seen it, and he hadn’t heard anything about the young woman’s death.”
“I’d like to hear it from Mr. Chalakoski,” the detective said, tapping his pencil against the notebook. “If he speaks English.”
“I speak English.”
I snuck a sideways glance at Stefan, sitting erect in the chair, his hands folded in his lap, his jaw set. I couldn’t blame him for being annoyed. Stefan’s name was foreign, but why assume he couldn’t speak English? They should have assigned an older, more seasoned policeman to take our statement.
“You had no knowledge of the murder of Katherine O’Malley that occurred early in the morning of 4 July until Miss Batternberg informed you?” the police officer asked Stefan, abruptly using more formal phrasing than he had before.
“No.”
Detective Devlin said, “Tell me what you did see, Mr. Chalakoski.”
I waited several seconds, but when Stefan, who I feared was offended, didn’t say anything, I launched into the statement. “Stefan and I were sitting on the beach, the same spot on the beach where the girl was found, but it was the night before. It was about ten o’clock. Stefan saw a man acting… suspiciously. I didn’t see the man, my back was to him.”
“How suspicious?”
Stefan spoke up at last. “He was watching us. Behind another row of wood. He was …” Stefan struggled for the word, and finally said, “Squatting. Man was squatting. I saw only upper body.”
“There was no one else for him to be watching on that part of the beach?”
“No.”
“He was alone?” The questions were coming fast now.
“Yes.”
“Can you describe him?”
“Not well,” Stefan said. “He wore hat. Round hat with brim. But it was too dark to see face.” I held my breath, waiting to hear whether Stefan would say he saw the man earlier. He shifted in his chair, and said, “Possible I see same man before, walking behind Miss Batternberg and me on way to her hotel. Same hat. I see jacket, light jacket.”
“Did you see the man’s face that time?”
“It was almost dark then, he was about twenty feet back, so not too well.”
“Was he tall?”
“No.”
“Thin? Fat?”
“Not thin, not fat,” Stefan said thoughtfully. “Average. But young. The way he walks, young. No beard, no mustache.”
The detective wrote some more in his notebook before putting down his pencil.
“Your opinion is that the man followed you?” he asked, but he squinted a little and tilted his head as if he were having a hard time believing it.
“I don’t know,” said Stefan. “Maybe. I notice him twice behind us, same man, alone. Not too close, but close enough to follow.”
“But there were a lot of folks walking near the shore on a Saturday night before ten.” The police detective sounded incredulous. “Why would this young man be following the two of you?”
“I don’t know,” Stefan repeated.
“Did you have words with someone? Was there a fight? Do you know of anybody who’s got a grudge against you?”
This conversation was taking a strange turn.
“This isn’t about us, Sir,” I interjected. “It’s about the man we saw who may have killed that poor girl.”
“Detective.”
“Pardon?”
“Detective Devlin.” He leaned back in his chair. His light blue eyes no longer danced with friendliness. “But according to what you just said, Miss Batternberg, it is about you. He was following you, then when you left the boardwalk to sit and talk, this man snuck off to watch you. Nothing about this connects to Katherine O’Malley. At least not yet.”
The neckline of my dress was damp and my chemise was dripping with perspiration, making it difficult to concentrate, while Detective Devlin didn’t appear the least bit discomfited.
“What happened Sunday night after you say you saw this man spying on you?” he asked.
“Stefan and I said good night, and I went up to my room in the hotel,” I said faintly.
�
�You speak to anyone upstairs? Anyone in your family who can vouch for you?”
“Yes, my Aunt Helen.” My bafflement over the detective’s line of questioning hardened to resentment, and with that, my thoughts sharpened. “What on earth do you mean by vouch? What do my activities later that night, or at any time, have to do with anything? You are behaving very strangely toward two people who volunteered to help!”
With that, his smile reappeared. “Yes, we appreciate your help, Miss Batternberg. Because you’ve helped us answer some questions. Nothing to do with your mystery spy on the beach, the man squatting behind some wood pilings. Let me see here…” He turned toward the brown file, unopened until this moment. I saw that the young detective with the cherub’s face and beautifully trimmed mustache possessed hideous hands: his knuckles were thick, and blue veins crisscrossed his freckled skin.
He withdrew a paper, covered with writing. “We asked the Pinkerton guards for observations on Saturday night at the checkpoints leading to the east side, and in one of their logs they wrote this: ‘Peggy Batternberg, claimed to be guest at Oriental, admitted at nine thirty. Accompanied by man unknown. Foreign accent. Surly in manner.’” Detective Devlin chuckled. “That sums it all up pretty good, right? OK, but that wasn’t much to go on. Nobody followed it up, didn’t seem too important. But then we have this other statement…”
As he slowly ruffled the papers in his folder, dread gathered in my throat. I glanced over at Stefan, who sat like a statue, his lips pressed together.
“Yes, here it is. You’re not the only ones who came forward, you know. This morning, first thing, some helpful people told us they witnessed a young couple having an argument on the boardwalk, a short distance from the place on the beach where the body was found. The woman shouted the man’s name – ‘Stefan’ – but he walked away from her. Didn’t turn around. She seemed upset. We been busy here trying to follow up, searching our arrest records and any other records for a man with first name of Stefan. No breaks. And then lo and behold, the man in question walks right through the door.”
Now I was like a statue, motionless. How could this be going so wrong?
“You are mistaken, Sir,” Stefan said. They were his first words in a while, and I was proud of his calm dignity.
But the detective acted as if he hadn’t spoken at all and returned to his hateful notebook. Pencil in his fingers, he said, “Why don’t you tell me where you went after you argued with the young lady that night, Mr. Chalakoski?”
“It wasn’t really an argument,” I insisted. “As you can see, we aren’t angry with each other in the least.”
He pointed at Stefan. “Mr. Chalakoski? Your movements?”
“I go home.”
“Which way? There’s no record from any of the Pinkertons of your leaving the east end before midnight.”
“Same way I came. No one ask me questions going west. When I am back at Coney Island, I take streetcar to home.”
The detective leaned forward. “Did you speak to anyone at all that night after leaving Miss Batternberg?”
Stefan shifted in his chair and said, “I say goodnight to landlady on way upstairs. She owns rooming house.”
“Her name?”
“Mrs. Betty Simon.”
“What time was that?”
Stefan said after some consideration, “Around eleven thirty.”
“Address?”
Stefan gave one, and the detective leaped to his feet and knocked on the door twice. Another young police officer, this one wiry and blond, opened it five seconds later. Detective Devlin muttered to him for a moment and handed him a piece of paper. The only words I could make out were “alibi” and “before midnight.”
Shutting the door behind him, the detective did not sit down again but stood, looking down on us with a tinge of triumph. And with that, I’d had enough.
“When can we leave?” I asked. “We’ve given you a statement, doing our part to help, and it is not appreciated. You are pursuing an inquiry into our personal lives, which is misguided. It’s ridiculous to speculate that Stefan was involved in any way. I see no reason to continue this conversation.”
“Just a few more questions, Miss,” he said holding up one hand. He turned to Stefan. “So, I take it you are gainfully employed here on Coney Island, Mr. Chalakoski?”
Stefan folded his arms and said shortly, “Feltman’s. I work pushcart out of pier.”
“Oh yeah? I love the taste of hot dogs, I really do.” He chuckled and turned to me, that smile I knew to be false, lighting up his face. I can only imagine what my face looked like, the loathing he must see there.
“Miss Batternberg, I got a question for you,” said Detective Devlin, toying with his pencil. “How do your parents feel about you going to bed with a foreigner who pushes a hotdog cart along the water in Coney Island?”
I was as shocked as if he had slapped me across the face. No one, and I mean no one, had ever spoken to me like that in my life.
Stefan leaped to his feet, sending the chair back with a crash. “You will apologize to her, Police Man!” he shouted. “Your filthy words are outrage – outrage.”
The detective was completely unaffected by Stefan’s anger. He did nothing but smile as he stepped back toward the door, reached behind him, and knocked twice. It opened immediately. There was no young blond police officer there this time.
The man standing in the hall, looking straight at me, was Lieutenant Pellegrino.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Everything happened at once.
Detective Devlin walked around the table, saying, “Mr. Chalakoski, come with me please,” while Stefan, not moving an inch, repeated, “You will apologize to her for your filth!”
I leaped to my feet, grabbing Stefan’s arm and shouting, “He’s not going anywhere!”
By now Lieutenant Pellegrino was all the way inside the room and saying something that no one listened to until he thundered, “We will have calm.”
Everyone shut up, and only then did Lieutenant Pellegrino explain that the police just wanted to interview Stefan and me separately, and that this was standard police practice. “You’ll not arrest him,” I said, still holding Stefan’s arm. “You haven’t any reason to suspect him of this murder – it’s absurd.”
Lieutenant Pellegrino said firmly, “Mr. Chalakoski is not under arrest.”
Stefan turned to me, and I saw that his first concern was for me. “I will go with them, Peggy,” he said. “Do not upset yourself.” Seconds later he was on the move, out of the room, escorted by Detective Devlin who, I noted with a shudder, put his hand on Stefan’s shoulder as if he were steering him out. I would have pushed him away. But Stefan submitted to his offensive touch.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” Lieutenant Pellegrino informed me, closing the door behind him. It seemed he would be the one I’d be talking to after all.
Once more, I sat at the wooden table, a piece of furniture I had begun to hate with all my heart. For the first time I studied its surface, the scratches that were softened but not removed by cheap polish and what looked like cigarette burn marks bordering the edge. How many others had suffered in this room?
Admittedly, my sense of time might not have functioned at its best, but as I sat there fuming, it seemed as if one minute must have passed, then another, and yet another. The lieutenant said we would be interviewed separately, but that, it dawned on me, might very well not happen. Perhaps I’d been told a lie to calm me sufficiently so that Stefan could be removed. And this was how the police treated people who came in of their own free will to help!
I strode to the door and turned the handle, but the knob barely moved a half-inch. I didn’t believe it at first and stupidly kept turning the knob. I was locked in.
“This is an outrage,” Stefan had cried – and how right he was. I knocked on the door, not two raps as the despicable lieutenant had done, but five, six times. I heard men’s voices outside the door – I could almost distinguish word
s – but no one unlocked it.
“I want out of here immediately,” I shouted. “I demand that you unlock the door.”
With that, the men on the other side went silent. I resumed knocking, so hard that my knuckles stung. At long last, the doorknob clicked, it swung open, and I was once more face to face with Lieutenant Pellegrino, now holding a glass of water.
“Have a seat,” he said.
“Where is Stefan?” I demanded.
“Down the hall. He’s doing fine. But you look as if you could use some water.”
I drew up to every inch of my height and said, as haughtily as I was capable of, “I don’t need water. I do need to leave, and I will leave – with Stefan Chalakoski.”
To make my intentions plain, I tried to edge my way past Lieutenant Pellegrino to reach the hallway. He blocked my path, shifting over so smoothly that he didn’t spill a drop of water.
“You like to go places where you’re not supposed to be, don’t you?” he observed.
“We’re told in school this is a free country,” I said. “Perhaps I should arrange a tour for my school teachers of the Coney Island police precinct. To enlighten them.”
The faintest of smiles appeared on his stern bearded face.
“Please have a seat, Miss Batternberg,” he said. “I’m tired of holding this water.”
“I do not wish to talk to you,” I said. “You forcibly removed Mr. Chalakoski, intimating that he is suspected of something, which is ridiculous.”
“You’re not concerned that we intimate something of you?”
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