Murder on Amsterdam Avenue

by Victoria Thompson

  Oakes frowned. “But no one lives here except our family and our servants.”

  “And if your son really was poisoned, it’s very likely one of them did it, because only people in the house had access to the glass of milk.”

  Frank watched the emotions play across his face. The horror of thinking someone in his own house had killed his son, the reluctance to believe such a thing, and finally, a resolve Frank hadn’t expected to see.

  “I need to know why my son died, Mr. Malloy, and I’m willing to deal with any consequences that knowledge may bring. Will you help me?”

  How could he refuse? “Of course.”

  “Then where will you start?”

  “Do you have the glass the milk was in?”

  “Yes, but it’s been washed and put away.”

  “And I suppose you had your son’s body embalmed.”

  “Yes. Everyone does nowadays.”

  Frank sighed. Only one thing left. “Then what became of the cat?”

  2

  The storefront gave little indication of the business being conducted inside, Frank noticed. Just a modest sign, slightly faded, that said: TITUS WESLEY, CORONER.

  Frank wasn’t sure what he expected, but it was certainly not the young man who emerged from a back room when the bell over the door announced his arrival in the shop. Wearing a stained leather apron over his clothes, he was wiping his hands on a filthy towel. Tall, scrawny, and horse-faced, he grinned at the way Frank was holding the odiferous sack out at arm’s length.

  “What have you brought me?” he asked pleasantly. “Something dead, by the smell of it.”

  “A cat,” Frank said, setting the sack on the floor and stepping away, although the shop was much too small for him to escape the stench, short of leaving entirely.

  The young man raised his eyebrows. “I don’t handle animals. Usually people just throw them in the river or the street cleaners pick them up.”

  “It’s evidence in a murder investigation,” he said. “Doc Haynes told me you could help me determine if the cat was poisoned.”

  The young man laid the towel he’d been using on the counter that ran along one side wall. “Why didn’t Haynes do it himself, then?”

  “It’s not an official police investigation, so I asked him to recommend someone as good as he is.”

  The young man straightened at the compliment. New York had dozens of men who called themselves coroners and who took care of the thousands of people who died each year in the city. Most of them had no medical training at all, and they would determine any cause of death their clients requested for the right price, no matter what the condition of the body indicated. Frank had always requested Doc Haynes for murder investigations because he knew Doc would give him an accurate cause of death.

  “You’re not a copper, then,” he said, looking Frank over. Not many cops could afford the suit Frank wore.

  “Not anymore.”

  “So you want to find out who murdered this cat?” he asked with some amusement.

  “A man died after drinking a glass of milk. The cat lapped up what was left and then it died, too.”

  “Ah, I see! This sounds like an interesting case, Mr. . . . ?”

  “Malloy. I’m a private investigator.” Frank liked the way that title rolled off his tongue. He no longer inspired fear, as he had when he’d been a detective sergeant with the New York Police, but he also no longer inspired contempt for being part of the police force either.

  “Titus Wesley, at your service, Mr. Malloy.”

  Frank was relieved he didn’t offer to shake hands. “I know this is out of your usual line, but my client is willing to pay for your services, the same as if it was human.”

  “Why don’t you just let me examine the dead man?”

  “He’s been embalmed.”

  Wesley shrugged. “I still might be able to tell something. If they didn’t discard his organs, I’d like to have a look at them, too.”

  “I’ll write down the name of the undertaker for you.”

  “And you’d better have someone from the family tell them it’s all right for me to see him. Undertakers can be a possessive lot.”

  “I’ll do that.” Frank pulled a small notebook and a pencil from his coat pocket and scribbled down the information, then tore out the page and handed it to Wesley.

  Wesley eyed the sack. “How long has the cat been dead?”

  “A couple days. They’d buried it in the yard.”

  “Good thing or we might never be able to prove the poisoning.”

  Frank gave him one of the calling cards Sarah had ordered for him. At the time, he hadn’t been able to imagine using them, but now . . . “How long until you’ll know something?”

  “Tomorrow evening.”

  “I’ll come back then. If you need me before, that’s where you’ll find me.”

  • • •

  “You’re getting an autopsy on a cat?” Sarah asked when Malloy had finished telling her about his afternoon.

  They were sitting at her kitchen table as they had been doing every weekday evening since the Malloys had moved into the house down the street where they would all live together when Sarah and Malloy married. Malloy would have dinner with his family, and Sarah with hers. After his mother put Brian to bed and Sarah’s daughter, Catherine, was asleep, he’d walk down to visit with her for a few hours. It was a strange courtship, but Sarah cherished their time alone.

  “You should have seen the coroner’s face when I told him.”

  “I’m sure Dr. Haynes was thrilled.”

  “He would have been, but he couldn’t do it. Too busy. He sent me to a fellow named Titus Wesley.”

  “He’s a coroner?” she asked with a frown.

  “Doc Haynes says he’s a real doctor, and he knows what he’s doing.”

  “Too bad he can’t look at Charles’s body.”

  “He’s going to try. He said he still might find something.”

  “I hope he finds nothing,” Sarah said. “I just hate the idea that poor Charles was poisoned. Who would do such a horrible thing?”

  “A woman.”

  “What?”

  “Poison is a woman’s weapon.”

  Sarah glared at him. “That’s unfair.”

  “Maybe, but it’s also true. Women aren’t usually strong enough to kill with their hands, like men can, or with a weapon like a knife or a club, and women hardly ever know how to shoot a gun. They also don’t usually kill in the heat of passion unless it’s self-defense or they’re defending a child or someone weaker.”

  “So you’re saying women take their time and plan murders.”

  “As a general rule. They also don’t like to make a mess.”

  Sarah had to smile at that. “Of course not! They’re the ones who’d have to clean it up.”

  “Poison is a great equalizer. A tiny woman can bring down a man twice her size with very little effort at all.”

  “I’d never thought of it that way before, but I suppose you’re right. So who do you think killed Charles? Assuming he really was poisoned, of course.”

  “I won’t know that until I know more about who lives in the house. What can you tell me about the family?”

  “Oh, it’s a wonderful story of how his parents met.” She told him what her mother had said about the two and their wartime romance.

  Malloy leaned back in his chair when she’d finished, frowning. “I guess you think it was all very romantic.”

  “And you don’t?”

  “I can see it might have seemed that way from the girl’s side. She’d lost her home and her family and everything she’d ever known. Then a handsome young soldier saves her.”

  “I know. It’s like a fairy tale from her point of view, but are you saying it’s not the same from his?”
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  “I don’t know. Maybe it was. Maybe rich young men like the idea of saving a young girl in trouble.”

  “A damsel in distress,” Sarah said.

  “And she was certainly that. I’ve never been a rich young man, but I wouldn’t want a wife who only married me because she didn’t have any other choice.”

  “I can’t imagine they saw it that way. Surely they were in love.”

  “If she was pretty, he probably thought he was. I wonder what she thought.”

  Sarah smiled again. “I do know that young men can be as silly as young girls about love.”

  “So maybe they were in love, but you said his family wasn’t happy about it.”

  “How could they be? They didn’t know anything about her, and she probably came to them with little more than the clothes on her back. They may have even suspected that she tricked him somehow.”

  “Maybe she did. She had a baby right away, after all. You’ve met her. What do you think?”

  “It’s funny you should ask. I thought she was remarkably composed for a woman who had lost her only child. Of course, I was taught from birth not to let my emotions get the better of me in public. No one wants to see a woman cry.”

  “That’s true enough, but do you think she was just being proper or do you think she didn’t love her son?”

  “I can’t imagine a mother not loving her son.”

  Malloy gave her a crooked smile. “I’m sure you can’t. You even love my son.”

  “He’s very lovable. But you love my daughter, so we’re even.”

  “Yes, we are, but no closer to knowing who might have poisoned Charles Oakes. What about his wife?”

  “She’s a piece of work. All she could talk about was how angry she was that Charles wouldn’t take her to Newport this past summer and now she’s in mourning and won’t be able to go anywhere at all.”

  “Why wouldn’t he take her to Newport?”

  “Because he couldn’t leave his job.”

  Malloy blinked in surprise. “He had a job?”

  “Yes, he’d been appointed as superintendent of the Manhattan State Hospital.”

  “The Asylum? Oh, that’s right. I read about him in the newspapers when it happened. So that was Charles Oakes. But why would he want a job like that?”

  Sarah had to think about that for a minute. “I imagine he needed the income.”

  “I thought his family was rich.”

  “His family is old, and they once were wealthy, but sometimes . . . Well, we don’t talk about it, but sometimes the family money runs out or is lost in bad investments or what have you. A lot of families were hurt in the financial panic in ninety-three. Why do you think Theodore took a position as police commissioner?”

  “You mean he’d lost his fortune?”

  “The Roosevelts—at least his branch of the family—have to earn their keep, yes.”

  “Is that what happened to the Oakes family?”

  “I don’t know for sure, and I would never be so rude as to ask them,” she added before he could suggest it. “But now that you mention it, I did notice that Mrs. Oakes’s mourning gown was past its prime. And maybe Charles didn’t take his wife to Newport because he couldn’t afford to.”

  “So Charles decided to run the Asylum. That’s an odd choice.”

  “I doubt he had a choice. Young men like him often don’t have any skills when it comes to earning a living, so they ask their friends for help finding something. If you’re asking for a favor from your friends, you have to take what’s available.”

  “Oh, like when Tammany Hall gets jobs for the people who do them favors.”

  “Exactly, except I’m sure Charles went to his Republican friends instead of Boss Croker.”

  “And now the family has lost its wage earner. That’s a pity.”

  “And it also means his family didn’t have much reason to want him dead.”

  “Unless his wife was a lot madder about not going to Newport than he expected.”

  “Ordinarily, I’d take you to task for saying something like that about a poor widow, but in this case . . .”

  He perked up at that. “Do you think she really might’ve killed him?”

  “You always tell me not to decide someone is innocent just because I like them, so I’m not going to decide she’s a killer just because I don’t like her.”

  “Ah, but you’re not saying she couldn’t possibly have done it either.”

  “No, I’m not, but good heavens, they’ve only been married a year. She’s hardly had time to grow to hate him that much.”

  “How long do you think it takes?” he asked with interest.

  “I have no idea.”

  That made him grin. “So who else lives in the house who might’ve learned to hate poor Charles?”

  “Besides the servants and his parents, I don’t know.”

  “Are Gerald’s parents still alive?”

  Sarah tried to remember. “I haven’t really kept track of my parents’ friends, but I think his mother is.”

  “You didn’t see her when you were there?”

  “No, she probably isn’t receiving visitors. I was surprised Jenny Oakes was, in fact. Most of the time when there’s a death, the family just lets people drop off their cards and doesn’t see anyone at all except at the funeral. I suppose we should attend, shouldn’t we?”

  “I suppose we should. It’s day after tomorrow, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. You’ll have an opportunity to see the family for yourself.”

  “I can hardly wait. Now come over here and sit on my lap for a while before I have to go home.”

  • • •

  Frank was starting to wish he’d made arrangements to visit Charles Oakes’s body along with the coroner Wesley. The day had been a series of construction disasters as the workmen installed a second bathroom upstairs in the suite of rooms Sarah and Frank had claimed for their own. He was just about to lose his temper completely and order all of them out of the house when someone knocked on the front door, reminding him again about the broken doorbell.

  Ready to shout at some nosy reporter or some bum looking for a handout, he found a soldier on his doorstep instead. He needed a moment to recognize him.

  “Gino! I didn’t know you were back from Cuba,” he said, absurdly happy to see the young man.

  Gino grinned. “We’ve been back for a few weeks. They kept us out on Long Island for a while before we got discharged.” He’d resigned from the police department several months ago to fight with Theodore Roosevelt’s Rough Riders in the war with Spain. Mercifully, the combat had only lasted a few weeks before the Spanish had been soundly beaten, at least according to the newspapers.

  “Come in. Don’t mind the mess. We’ve got workmen fixing the place up. How’d you find me?”

  “They told me at Police Headquarters. Everybody knows where you live now.”

  Frank led him into his mother’s parlor. “Are you back on the force again, then?”

  “No, I . . . Not yet.”

  Frank motioned for him to sit down on the sofa. “I hardly knew you in your uniform, and you’re awfully brown.”

  “I got sunburned. All the Rough Riders did. Cuba is . . . Well, it’s not like anything I’ve ever seen before. If hell is any hotter, I’ll be surprised.”

  “You look good,” Frank said, exaggerating a little. Gino looked thinner and tired. “Your mother told me you came through without a scratch.”

  “I was lucky.” The boy’s dark eyes clouded. Many of the Rough Riders had not come back from Cuba.

  “We all read about your charge up San Juan Hill,” Frank said, hoping to lighten the mood a bit.

  “It was really Kettle Hill. Colonel Roosevelt said San Juan Hill sounded better, so that’s what the newspapers called it. It was the ne
xt hill over, so we figured it didn’t matter.”

  “Whatever it was, it made Roosevelt a hero. They’re talking to him about running for governor.”

  “He’ll be good at it. I thought he did some stupid things when he was police commissioner, but he was a good soldier. He took care of his men and kept us out of trouble whenever he could.”

  “Are you glad you left the police and joined up?”

  Gino met Frank’s gaze directly for the first time. “I am. When the colonel said he wanted policemen and athletes in his regiment, well, I figured I could qualify. I didn’t know who else would be there, though. Mr. Malloy, I served with the sons of millionaires from Fifth Avenue and cowboys from Texas. We even had some Indians. But Colonel Roosevelt, he treated us all the same, and we treated each other all the same, too. All that mattered was if you could fight.”

  “I’m sure you did well, Gino. And you beat the Spanish.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know that the Cubans even noticed. They didn’t even seem grateful that we came. I never saw people so poor. I thought things were bad in Mulberry Bend and places like that, but you’ve never seen anything like the way those people live. They didn’t have anything at all. They’d follow the army around and steal whatever we set down. They took our food and our equipment and our clothes, whatever they could carry away. I’m not sure they even cared who was ruling them.”

  Frank didn’t know what to say to that. The newspapers hadn’t mentioned anything about the Cubans or how they lived. All the stories had been about the bravery of the American forces and how quickly they’d beaten the Spanish army. “But you said you’re glad you went.”

  Gino nodded. “I learned a lot, but . . . I’d never seen a man die before. That may sound funny, because we’ve seen lots of dead people, but I never saw someone actually die.”

  “You lost a lot of good men.”

  Gino looked away, and Frank thought he must be remembering those men. After a moment, though, he forced a grin. “So, what have you been doing while I was gone?”

  “Trying to stay out of sight. You wouldn’t believe how many people have asked me for money.”