Murder on Amsterdam Avenue

by Victoria Thompson

  “I’ll pray for her,” he said, pulling out a well-used handkerchief to wipe his face.

  “Pray for me, too,” she said.

  • • •

  Mrs. Burgun had a key to the house, so they didn’t have to wait for someone to answer their knock. The house seemed very quiet as she led Frank upstairs to the bedrooms.

  “This is his room,” she told him when they stopped outside one of the doors. “I’ll check on Miss Adderly.”

  Frank knocked and a strange man opened the door. “Are you the doctor?”

  “Yes, and you must be Mr. Malloy. Mr. Adderly’s been asking for you.”

  Frank stepped into the room and wrinkled his nose at the stale odor of vomit. The well-furnished room appeared to have been the master’s, full of heavy mahogany pieces and papered in a dark maroon. Obviously, Adderly had chosen the best room in the house for himself. He lay in the imposing four-poster bed, looking awful.

  “You’re still alive,” Frank observed.

  “Just barely. Thank God Dr. Younger came when he did.”

  Frank turned to the doctor. “Did he tell you he’d been poisoned with arsenic?”

  “Yes. He claimed his cousin put it in his whiskey. I understand she’s not entirely herself.”

  “She’s not entirely anything,” Frank said, “although Adderly here went to great pains to get her declared sane so she’d be released from the Asylum.”

  “It’s a hospital,” Adderly said weakly.

  Frank ignored him. “What have you done for him?”

  “There’s not much you can do for arsenic once it takes hold. I pumped his stomach and gave him a purgative, in hopes of ridding his body of as much of it as possible.”

  Frank saw an empty glass on the bedside table with white residue at the bottom. “What’s that?”

  “Milk.”

  Frank thought of Charles and the milk he’d drunk the night he died. “What does the milk do?”

  “We think it binds the arsenic, and it does soothe the throat and stomach.”

  “Do you think it was really arsenic?”

  The doctor shrugged. “It could be that or gastric fever or any number of other things.”

  “And if it really was arsenic?”

  “I don’t have a lot of experience with arsenic. Not many people get poisoned, at least not that I’ve seen.”

  Frank had to agree. Most people avoided eating arsenic. It was the sensible thing to do. “I guess it’s promising that he’s still alive.”

  “Malloy,” Adderly said, “you have to do something about Ella.”

  “What would you like me to do?”

  “I . . . She tried to kill me.”

  “Are you sure? Because I thought she put the arsenic in the whiskey to kill Charles Oakes.”

  “Who is Charles Oakes?” the doctor asked.

  “A fellow who died from arsenic poisoning the other day,” Frank said.

  “Oh my.”

  “Yes, well, he’d just visited Ella and drank some of Adderly’s whiskey, and Ella was mad at him.”

  “Angry,” Adderly said.

  “Oh yes, sorry. She was angry. She doesn’t like to use the word mad because that also means crazy.”

  “I see,” said the doctor, although he didn’t seem to.

  “So we suspected she might have put arsenic in the whiskey that Charles Oakes drank.”

  “And then Mr. Adderly drank some of the whiskey, too,” Dr. Younger guessed.

  “Yes, he did,” Frank said.

  “You have to do something, Malloy,” Adderly said.

  Frank wasn’t too sure about that. “What do you want me to do? Take Ella back to the Asylum?”

  “No!” Adderly cried, confirming Frank’s suspicions.

  “But what if she really tried to kill you?” Frank asked as innocently as he could manage. “She’s dangerous. She might go after Mrs. Burgun or one of the servants next.”

  “I’m sure it was an accident that I drank the whiskey. She’s not violent,” Adderly insisted. “She’s just . . .”

  “Dangerous,” Frank repeated. “Is there some reason you don’t want to take her back to the . . . uh . . . hospital?”

  “I can’t put her back in that horrible place,” Adderly said.

  “But she’d be safe there,” Frank said. “You’d be safe, too.”

  Adderly moaned.

  “I think my patient needs to rest now,” Dr. Younger said.

  “I had the whiskey tested,” Frank told the doctor. “I’ll be waiting downstairs for the results, if you need me.”

  Frank wandered around the house until he located a maid who showed him to the front parlor. Then he sent her in search of Mrs. Burgun.

  She arrived a few minutes later with the doctor in tow.

  “How is Miss Adderly doing?” Frank asked her.

  “She’s quiet, but she usually is this time of day. I didn’t tell her Mr. Adderly is sick.”

  “Didn’t she already know?”

  “She forgets things.”

  “So, Doc, what do you think?” Frank asked.

  “What do I think about what?”

  “Do you think Adderly will live? Do you think he was really poisoned?”

  “Like I said, there’s really no way to tell for sure unless Miss Adderly admits she put arsenic in his whiskey. Did she actually say that?”

  Frank glanced at Mrs. Burgun, who shook her head. “I guess not. I know a fellow who can test the stomach of a dead person to find out.”

  “I can’t imagine Mr. Adderly would allow you to do that test on him,” Dr. Younger said with some amusement.

  “I think you’re probably right.”

  “Do you suppose we could have something to eat?” the doctor asked Mrs. Burgun. “I never had any breakfast.”

  “Of course,” she said. “I’ll go speak to the cook.”

  “And in the meantime,” Dr. Younger said to Frank, “you can tell me about this fellow Charles who got himself poisoned.”

  • • •

  Isabel Nicely was barely conscious, so Sarah could only get a few drops of milk into her at a time. It certainly wouldn’t do to try to pour it down her throat and end up drowning her instead. She had, at least, stopped vomiting. Her poor body was exhausted, though, and Sarah didn’t know if she was resting and on her way to recovery or simply in the last stages of a coma before death. All she could do was keep trying to get her to swallow some milk, so that’s what she did.

  Isabel looked to be about sixteen, with perfect skin the color of coffee with cream. Under other circumstances, she was probably lovely. She had her whole life ahead of her, and Sarah was furious at whoever or whatever had tried to cut that life short.

  When she had finally succeeded in getting the entire glass of milk into the girl, she stepped back out into the front room to see how the Reverend Nicely was doing. He still sat in the chair where she’d placed him. Zeller sat at the kitchen table, his head in his hands. Both men scrambled to their feet when they saw her.

  “Isabel?” Nicely asked, fear and hope warring in his bloodshot eyes.

  “She’s resting.”

  “There’s some coffee if you’d like,” Zeller said.

  “Thank you.” She glanced at the kitchen area of the room.

  “I’ll get it,” Zeller said, hurrying to serve her. He was probably grateful for something to do.

  Sarah sat down at the table, and Nicely sank back down into his chair.

  “I’ve been trying to think what they could’ve eaten to make them sick,” he said, looking around the room. “But there’s nothing here that hasn’t been here all along.”

  “And nobody’s visited you recently?” Sarah asked.

  “No one in the past few days except Sister Daisy.”
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  That was it, then. “She must have brought something with her.” It was the only explanation that made sense. If someone wanted to poison Daisy . . . But why would anyone want to do that? Revenge for Charles, if Daisy had indeed poisoned him? Or something else? And how had they done it? “Did she bring something for your dinner? Or a gift perhaps?”

  “No . . . Oh, wait, a gift, yes! There was something! Now I remember. She said she had a treat for us.”

  “What kind of treat?”

  “She didn’t say. She just said it was for later, after we ate.”

  “And she didn’t give it to you?”

  “Not while I was here.”

  But she must have given it to the women after he left. Sarah tried to think what it could have been. Mrs. Ellsworth was always bringing her something, usually a pie or a cake, which would be a traditional offering if one were invited to dinner. But Daisy didn’t have access to the kitchen at the Oakes house. She couldn’t have brought them something she’d made herself. Had she purchased something? But what? And where would she have gotten it? And how would she have carried it here without Mr. Nicely noticing? And who would have poisoned it? And when and how? Too many questions and not a single answer.

  Zeller set a cup of coffee down in front of her. She thanked him. “What was Daisy carrying when she came?”

  “I didn’t pay any attention.”

  Sarah glanced around. “Do you see anything that you don’t recognize that might have been hers?”

  The Reverend Nicely glanced around. He could easily see every corner of the room from where he sat, and after a moment he said, “There, by the door.”

  A worn carpetbag sat forgotten against the wall. Zeller snatched it up. “Yes, this was hers. Mrs. Gerald gave it to her.”

  “What’s in it?” Sarah asked. Zeller brought it to her and gently laid it on the table, making her remember that he had cared for Daisy. Sarah opened it with the same gentle care and rummaged through it, finding nothing but a few odds and ends, a bit of knitting, and a handkerchief. If she’d carried something with her that had brought death to her and her friend, no trace of it remained. “It must be here someplace, though,” Sarah said. “Reverend Nicely, can you help me look?”

  They made short work of the front room. The kitchen area provided the only storage space, and they found nothing but the remains from the dinner Mrs. Nicely had cooked herself and the Reverend Nicely had obligingly eaten of without any ill effects. Mrs. Nicely’s and Daisy’s bodies were in the Nicelys’ bedroom. They’d moved Daisy in there after Mrs. Nicely passed, he explained. They searched in silence out of respect for the dead, but found nothing.

  Nicely stopped by his wife’s body, which lay on the bed, wrapped in a sheet, and touched her head tenderly. “I guess I should call the undertaker,” he said after a moment. “I just hate to let her go.”

  “Mrs. Gerald will take care of Daisy,” Zeller said from the doorway. “She told me specially to bring her home.” His voice broke on the last word, and he turned away.

  “That’s kind of her,” Nicely said. “But I suppose it’s only right, since they were sisters.”

  • • •

  Frank had long since finished telling Dr. Younger all he knew about Charles Oakes and his mysterious death, but the good doctor was still trying to puzzle out what could have happened. They agreed Ella Adderly could have poisoned him the first time with her cousin’s whiskey, but how could she have managed it the second time, and it was impossible for her to have given him a third dose that evening at his home.

  Tired of discussing it, Frank decided to change the subject. “Doc, what do you know about insanity?”

  “About as much as anyone knows, I guess.”

  “Do you see a lot of it?”

  “More than I’d like. Melancholia mostly.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The patient falls into a depressive state and is unable to bring himself out of it. He takes no pleasure in anything, even things that would normally bring him pleasure. He often will take to his bed and be unable to eat or even rise and dress himself. I say ‘him,’ but it’s mostly females who are prone to this malady, I’m afraid. It seems more prevalent among the poor, too, although they often have good reason to be depressed.”

  “And when you have a patient like this, what do you do with them?”

  “There’s not much I can do. In particularly severe cases, people sometimes take their own lives, but usually, if they are able to rest and have someone to look after them, they eventually come out of it.”

  “I guess poor people don’t have the chance to rest, though.”

  “Not usually, no.”

  “Do you ever send someone to the Asylum?”

  “I thought it was a hospital,” Dr. Younger said with a small smile.

  “I guess they changed the name of it, didn’t they? Hospital sounds much nicer.”

  “Yes, it does. I’ve only sent someone there a time or two, when I felt they were a danger to others or they had no one to care for them.”

  “Are you the one who sent Miss Adderly there?”

  He frowned. “I’m afraid I had to. After her parents died, she suffered a complete breakdown, and she had no one here to look after her.”

  “I guess you were glad to hear she was released, then.”

  “Yes, I was, but . . .”

  “But what?”

  “Mr. Malloy, you’re a man of the world, so I know it won’t shock you when I say that I don’t believe Miss Adderly should ever have been released.”

  Before Frank could respond, the parlor door opened, startling them both. Mrs. Burgun came in. “That young man is here,” she told Frank.

  The young man in question hadn’t waited to be announced. Gino followed her in and brought Titus Wesley with him. Frank introduced them to Dr. Younger.

  “Are you the one who can find out if someone was poisoned by looking in their stomach?” Younger asked.

  “Yes, I am. I can also tell if somebody put poison in your whiskey.”

  “And did they?” Frank asked.

  “No,” Wesley said with a satisfied smile. “There wasn’t a speck of arsenic in any of the whiskey you brought me.”

  11

  “Sisters?” Sarah echoed. “What do you mean, they were sisters?”

  Nicely snatched his hand away from his wife’s body and stared back at Sarah guiltily. “I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry.”

  “Were Daisy and Jenny Oakes sisters?” she asked again, turning to Zeller to see his reaction. Oddly enough, he also looked guilty, and not a bit surprised. “You knew, too, didn’t you?”

  “It doesn’t matter now,” Zeller said.

  Sarah returned to the front room where Zeller stood. Nicely followed her.

  “You have to understand,” Nicely said. “Things in the South were different when they had slavery. The women had no choice.”

  Sarah had heard stories, of course, and everyone knew why some Negroes had lighter skin than others. She hadn’t met Daisy, but maybe if she had, she might have guessed the truth herself.

  “Daisy’s mother was a house servant,” Zeller said. “Apparently, it was quite common for the master to have his way with the servant girls.”

  And that would explain why Jenny and Daisy were together when they fled the plantation, and why Daisy had sought Jenny out after so many years, certain Jenny would take her in. “Then Charles was her nephew.”

  “Mr. Charles didn’t know, of course,” Zeller said. “Daisy would never tell him such a thing, but she said he reminded her so much of her own son who died.”

  “Then she really cared for him?” Sarah asked.

  “Oh yes. She blamed herself when he died, too. Thought she should’ve done more, although I guess there was nothing anybody could’ve done.”

&nb
sp; But she also might have harbored a grudge against Jenny for all those thirty years while Jenny lived in luxury after leaving her poor sister behind to fend for herself. But if so, and if she’d killed Charles in revenge, who had killed her?

  Someone who wanted revenge of her own, of course.

  Sarah didn’t have time to think about it now, though. “I should check on Isabel.”

  She found the girl much the same, although Sarah thought her breathing might be a bit easier. Sarah sent up a silent prayer for her. Not only did she want the girl to live for her own sake but because she was the only one who might give them a clue as to who had caused all this death and destruction.

  • • •

  “You didn’t find any poison at all?” Frank asked Wesley.

  “Not a bit. And if you don’t mind, I’ll keep what’s left of the whiskey. It’s fine stuff. There was bourbon and Scotch and—”

  “Then what’s wrong with Adderly?” Frank asked the doctor.

  “I told you, it could be anything. It could even be . . .”

  “What?”

  The doctor shrugged apologetically. “It could even be that he made himself sick just thinking he’d been poisoned.”

  “Is that possible?” Gino asked.

  “It sure is,” Titus Wesley said with a grin.

  “How would we know?” Frank asked.

  “Why don’t we tell him there wasn’t any poison in his whiskey and see what happens?” Wesley said.

  Frank thought that was a brilliant idea, so he and Dr. Younger went upstairs and did just that.

  “Then what made me sick?” Adderly demanded when he’d heard them out.

  “It could’ve been anything,” Dr. Younger said. “Sometimes people get sick like that just because they’re frightened.”

  Adderly laid a hand on his abdomen. “I’ve always had a nervous stomach.”

  “How do you feel now?” Younger asked.

  “I . . . Better, I think. It’s like the sickness just suddenly went away. A pain I had right here”—he pointed to the center of his chest—“is gone.”

  The doctor gave Frank a knowing smile.

  “What do you want me to do with Miss Adderly?” Frank asked.