Tell Me Pretty Maiden

by Rhys Bowen

  “I’ve got to know,” I said. “At least the police can give me the address.”

  “Molly, you are not going to the house of an Italian gang.”

  “It’s says this Don man, this gang leader, was taken into custody,” I replied. “At least I can find out if the police found a girl in the house when they raided it.”

  “I’d assume the gang had more than one house and a dozen places where they could have hidden her if they’d wanted to keep her alive,” Sid said. “But why would they want to keep her alive?”

  “Why would they want to kill her?”

  “They suspect she knows something, perhaps,” Gus said. “She saw something that night. They fear she could identify them if she regains her sanity.”

  I got up. “I have to go,” I said.

  “Molly, you cannot go looking for a violent Italian gang.” Sid held my arm. “For heaven’s sake, be sensible. Go and tell Captain Sullivan if you must and then let him deal with them for you.”

  “Daniel’s still away,” I said, feeling close to tears. “He went to his parents’ house and hasn’t yet returned. Mrs. Goodwin will help me, if I can find her. She’s probably still at work. She works a night shift. Thank you for the breakfast. Sorry, I’m not hungry.”

  After this torrent of words I fled, dashed home to get my cloak, and then took the trolley straight to police headquarters on Mulberry Street. There I found the officers to be as unhelpful as I always remembered them.

  “The matron, you mean?” one of them said. “Have you looked in the shelter next to the Tombs? That’s where you’d find her.”

  I’ve never been known for my patience and calm nature. I was about to explode when I saw someone I recognized coming down the stairs. It was Detective McIver, who had previously been partnered with the infamous Quigley and worked under Daniel. I hadn’t found him too helpful, either, but that was at a time when I was still suspicious of him.

  I saw him start when he recognized me. “Miss Murphy, is it not? Do you have news about Captain Sullivan?”

  “No good news,” I said. “The current commissioner won’t reconsider his case so he waits in limbo until a new commissioner is appointed in January.”

  “A nasty business,” he said. “If you see him, please tell him that I look forward to his return.”

  “I will. Thank you, Detective.”

  “So what brings you here today?” he asked.

  “I was looking for Mrs. Goodwin,” I said. “Would you happen to know where she might be found? I know that the police use her on special assignments and I need to talk to her urgently.”

  Detective McIver shook his head. “I’ve no idea. She comes and goes. I haven’t seen her today anyway.”

  “Then maybe you could help me,” I said. “I understand there was a raid on an Italian gang last night.”

  “You read about it in the paper this morning, I suppose.”

  “I did. And I have a particular reason for wanting to know more details on that raid. Can you tell me which officers were involved?”

  He looked at me and laughed gently. “I don’t think we’re about to give out information like that, Miss Murphy. For one thing, these Sicilians have a nasty habit of getting even. I don’t want one of our officers shot in the back. And why might you be interested?”

  “I believe they kidnapped a friend of mine,” I said. “A young girl. I need to know whether she was found at their house when the police raided.”

  “I know of no young girls,” McIver said. “Of course I wasn’t on the site, but . . . Was the kidnapping reported to police?”

  “No. I didn’t realize who these people were until I saw the newspaper this morning.” And I spilled out the whole story—the girl in the snowdrift, the hospital, the Hungarians, the theater, New Haven . . . I think it must have come out as a garbled mess. Anyway, by the end of it McIver nodded patiently. “If you give me a description of the young woman, I can ask questions for you.”

  “Thank you. You’re very kind.” I took out my notebook and wrote all the details I could think of.

  “I’ll do what I can,” he said. “But you’re not to think of going up to that neighborhood yourself. These are the most dangerous kind of thugs. And some of them have undoubtedly evaded our net and would be waiting for you.”

  “Very well,” I said. “I’ve put my address on the paper. You’ll let me know if you have any news, won’t you? And if you see Mrs. Goodwin, would you tell her that I need to speak to her?”

  I left then, having found out a vital clue. He had said “up to that neighborhood.” That meant not in the Italian neighborhood around police headquarters, that they were calling Little Italy. It meant another neighborhood in the city. Not Brooklyn or anywhere outside the city, because he’d have said, ‘over there.’ It shouldn’t be that hard to discover where Italians might have settled in upper Manhattan.

  I came out of police headquarters and immediately found an Italian café. They were most helpful. Apart from this area, the big concentration of Italians in the city was on the upper East Side, between 95th and 125th in an area they called Yorkville.

  I didn’t wait any longer. I made my way to the Second Avenue El station at City Hall and rode the train all the way up to 99th. Up here was a ramshackle area, still being built. Streets of tenements were interspersed with squatters’ shacks, tacked together from any materials they could find, and between them were unbuilt lots and even small market gardens. To my right I had views down to a narrow stretch of water, with more land on the far bank. I didn’t realize at the time that it was Ward’s Island. To my left was open land and I realized with a thrill that it must be the northern end of Central Park.

  Had Jessie been brought here once before and somehow escaped into the park? Was I finally on the right track? I wandered aimlessly northward until I heard Italian spoken. The streets leading off Second Avenue became full of life. Women carried on shrill conversations from upstairs windows as they aired out their bedding, or hauled in laundry. Children ran around, shouting to each other in high, melodious voices that mingled with the sounds of the pushcart men, calling out their wares. It was rather like the Lower East Side transplanted northward.

  On the corner of 115th Street, a man was standing on a stool, trying to fix a broken window.

  “Excuse me,” I called. “But can you tell me if any Sicilians live on this street?”

  “Sicilianos? Pah.” He spat onto the sidewalk. “We don’t need them no-good sons-of-bitches. They’re not Italians. They’re dogs. Cut their grandmother’s throats for a dime, they would.”

  I waited for this outburst to subside. “So where might they be found?”

  “I think you find them on One Hundred Twentieth, but I’d stay away if I was you. Nothing but trouble those Sicilianos.”

  I ignored the second warning that day. What harm could come to me walking down a street in daylight, especially an Italian street, with so much life going on. I walked until I came to 120th Street. It seemed quieter here. Two old women dressed head to toe in black were walking together, heads down, carrying shopping baskets. A group of men stood on a stoop in animated conversation, expressing themselves with their hands as much as their mouths. From their raised voices, I expected them to break into a fight at any moment, but then one of them laughed, so I supposed the discussion had been good-natured after all.

  I didn’t feel like approaching them with my question—after all, they might have been involved with the Sicilian gang themselves. And the old women obviously didn’t speak English. Then I saw a figure I could approach—a young Catholic priest, his long cassock swishing along the ground as he walked.

  I crossed the road to speak to him.

  “Sicilians? Yes, it’s mainly Sicilians on this street,” he said, “all the way down to the corner grocery. After that it’s Milanese.”

  “I read in the papers that there was a raid on a house around here last night,” I said.

  He frowned. “And what inter
est might you have in that? Just morbid curiosity? Not wise in neighborhoods like this.”

  “I have a personal interest,” I said. “I believe this gang kidnapped a friend of mine. I wanted to know whether a young girl was found in the house when the police raided it.”

  He looked grave now. “I survive well with these people because I don’t go sticking my nose into their business,” he said. “This is a serious charge you’re making.”

  “I’m not making it up. It’s true. They came to my house and took her away. They claimed they were her relatives. I’ve been so worried about her.”

  “You should ask the police who conducted the raid what they found,” he said. Clearly he wasn’t going to be of any help.

  “Can you at least tell me which house it was?”

  “I believe it was number twenty-nine. On the next street,” he said. “There’s nobody there now. The place is empty. They carted off the lot of them. But they’ll be out right away. They’re wily, these Sicilians. And they’d never get anybody to testify against them—nobody who wants to stay alive, that is.”

  I thanked him and made my way to the next street. The whole street had an empty air to it after the noise and bustle of Second Avenue. Twenty-nine looked like any other house in the row—newish red brick with white trim around the windows. I stood gazing up at it, wondering what to do next. Then farther down the street I saw a door open and a woman came out to shake out a cloth. I ran over to her.

  “That house.” I pointed. “The police come last night?”

  She frowned. I couldn’t tell if she didn’t understand me or didn’t want to talk.

  Then a male voice from inside yelled something and a big man in undershirt and braces stood beside her in the doorway.

  “What you want?” he demanded.

  “I’m asking about the house over there. The police came and took the men away.”

  “Stupido,” he muttered. “The polizia—they can’t do nothing. What they think they can do, huh? These men are Cosa Nostra. The police—they no touch them.”

  “We’ll see,” I said. “Did you see the raid yourselves? There was a young girl. Did the police find a young girl?”

  The man directed rapid-fire questions at his wife. She responded and then put her hand to her forehead in an international symbol meaning crazy. I looked at the man, waiting for an explanation.

  “She say young girl—they come and take her before. To the crazy house. The crazy wagon come.”

  “The crazy house? You mean the insane asylum?” Hope surged through me. She wasn’t dead. She was probably in the safest place in the country right now.

  “Si. One, two days before.”

  “Thank you.” I shook his hand, then his wife’s.

  I knew where at least one asylum was, and that was on Ward’s Island. Now all I had to do was find out exactly where Ward’s Island was and how to get to it. I made my way down to the dock on 125th where I knew that ferries docked.

  “Ward’s Island?”

  The sailor I asked laughed. “You’re looking at it. If the water wasn’t so cold, you could swim across. There’s a little ferry, down a ways. Keep walking and you’ll see the sign.”

  I did as he suggested and found the ferry was no bigger than a large row boat. The old man who ferried me grinned as he handed me ashore. “Make sure they don’t lock you up and keep you here,” he said. “It’s a terrible place, right enough. You should hear the cries and the groans sometimes. You can hear them in Manhattan when the wind’s in the right direction.”

  I tried not to think about his warning as I marched up to the front entrance of a grim brick building. I couldn’t help noticing the bars on the windows. Inside I was met by a nurse in a crisply starched uniform. “Did you not read the sign?” She tapped at the wall. “Visiting days are the first Saturday of every month, but only for those patients deemed suitable to receive visitors.”

  “I’ve come to reclaim a young woman who was admitted here by mistake,” I said. “She would have been brought here within the last three or four days.”

  “By mistake, you say?”

  “Yes. She was being looked after by myself and treated by an eminent doctor of the mind. She should never have been brought here and I’m here to take her home.”

  “I see.” She regarded me coldly. “And the name?”

  “I’m not sure under what name she would have been admitted. Probably Anya something.”

  “You say you don’t know the person’s name?”

  “I know her real name. It’s Jessie Edwards. But I fear she was admitted under a false name or no name at all. Now, can you look in your records and see if a girl was brought here in the past few days?”

  “I can do no such thing,” she said. “Our records are confidential.”

  “Even if a mistake has been made?”

  She glanced down at a book on her desk. “The only person admitted here recently who matches your description was admitted by her family. I take it you are not a family member?”

  I was so tempted to lie and say that I was, but I decided this might complicate things even further. “No, I’m not, and neither were they. They had kidnapped her.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “You can prove this?”

  “No, I’m afraid I can’t.”

  “Then what exactly is your interest in this case?”

  “I’m a friend of the young woman. I was looking after her until she was kidnapped.”

  She frowned at me as if trying to read my mind.

  “What was the name of these people who committed a young woman against her will?”

  “I don’t know what name they would have used,” I said. “They are really Sicilian gang members. They may have claimed to be Hungarian.”

  “Really.” She shook her head in disbelief. “And do you not think that our staff would be aware if a perfectly sane individual was brought here against her will? This is not the dark ages, you know.”

  “Unfortunately she is not in her right mind at the moment,” I said. “She has lost her memory and her power of speech.”

  “Which would indicate that she actually belongs here, would you not say?”

  “She needs treatment, but she was getting good care from me and from a doctor who is a friend of mine.”

  She regarded me for a long while then she sniffed and said, “Young woman, you are wasting my time. If you really believe an injustice has happened then come back to me with the authorities and with proof. Personally I think everything you’ve said is a load of baloney.”

  “It’s not. They really did kidnap her.”

  “Someone whose name you don’t know was brought here by relatives, who are not relatives but you don’t know their names, either, and she really is in a current catatonic state. I don’t think you’re going to find anyone who takes you seriously, miss. I don’t know what your game is, but I suggest you leave.”

  “Let me talk to someone in charge,” I begged.

  “Until you can show me that the people who signed her over to this institution were not her family members, I am not prepared to mention this to any of my superiors. Until then you have no right to be here. Good day to you.”

  “If I could just see her,” I said. “I know she’d want to see me. She’d want to know that something is being done on her behalf.”

  “Good day to you, miss.” She deliberately turned her back on me.

  “Now look here,” I said angrily. “I’m not leaving until I see someone who will at least listen to me.”

  The nurse rang a little bell on her desk. Two large men appeared. “Have this young woman escorted out, please,” she said. “She is trying to make trouble.”

  FORTY

  I stood on the Manhattan shore and looked across at Ward’s Island, overwhelmed with anger and frustration. To know that my girl was in that terrible place and that I had no way of rescuing her was driving me crazy. What could I do? If Daniel had returned he might know how to approach this. But then h
e might also tell me that it was none of my business. The girl had been destined for that very asylum when I kidnapped her myself. And who knows—in spite of the reputation and the moans and the groans, maybe she would receive some treatment there that could help her.

  Of course that’s when I thought of Dr. Birnbaum. He was well known in his field. He could probably gain entrance to such an institution and he could see if Jessie was all right and being cared for. Feeling much better, I hurried to the nearest El station, and sat impatiently while the train crawled slowly southward through Manhattan until it reached Eighth Street. Soon I found myself at the Hotel Lafayette. I hardly expected Dr. Birnbaum to be in his rooms in the middle of the day, but I could leave a note for him, and by the end of the day I’d have an ally who could save Jessie for me.

  “Dr. Birnbaum?” the man at the reception desk said. “I’m afraid he’s not here.”

  “I realize that,” I said, trying to sound calm, “but I wish to leave a note for him to be delivered the moment he returns. It’s urgent.”

  “If it’s urgent, I’m afraid that’s not going to do much good,” he said. “The doctor was called out of town unexpectedly this morning.”

  “How long will he be away?”

  “I couldn’t tell you but he did take quite an amount of baggage with him.”

  “You don’t happen to know where he went?”

  “It is not my job to ask the guests where they are going, miss,” he said solemnly. “It could have been back to Europe, I suppose. He did tell us to retain his room, so I expect he’ll return in good time. If you care to write the note, I’ll see that he gets it as soon as he returns.”

  I wrote on hotel stationery, but my heart just wasn’t in it. How could I possibly wait to see when Dr. Birnbaum might return, knowing Jessie was in that place? Then I decided I wasn’t going to wait. Mrs. Goodwin would probably be home in bed by now and I was going to risk waking her.

  I hurried to Tompkins Square, hammered on Mrs. Goodwin’s door, and was finally rewarded by slow footsteps coming toward me. It was clear she had been in a deep sleep.

  “Oh Molly, it’s you,” she said. “What drama do we have today?”