“Why, nothing,” Adderly said cheerfully. “If she didn’t poison me, she probably didn’t poison Charles Oakes either. I should’ve known that.”
“I guess you should’ve. And I guess you’ll let me know if I can be of any more service to you,” Frank said.
“Yes, of course, although I can’t imagine what that might be. I owe you a debt, though, Malloy, so if there’s anything I can ever do for you, just let me know.”
Frank couldn’t imagine ever needing help from the likes of Adderly either. Besides, when he was finished dealing with him, Frank doubted Adderly would be quite as anxious to assist him.
• • •
Sarah had begun to wonder if she should send Zeller to find Malloy. He needed to know where she was and what had happened to Daisy. Maybe he could help her figure out what had happened here, too. Then she heard a familiar voice outside. She went to the still-open front door and looked down to see Malloy and Gino Donatelli standing in the street and looking around.
Gino saw her first. “Mrs. Brandt!” he called. “There she is.”
Malloy turned and saw her, then came bounding up the steps.
“How did you find me?” she asked when he reached the top.
“When we got home, Mrs. Ellsworth came over to tell me where you’d gone. It took us a while to find the church, and we had to stop on the way to get Wesley.”
“Who?”
“The undertaker who was testing Adderly’s whiskey. Too bad we didn’t know we’d need him again so soon. We’d just dropped him off at his shop on our way back from Adderly’s and had to go back and get him again.” Malloy stepped inside and stopped when he saw the Reverend Nicely.
Sarah introduced them. “And you already know Mr. Zeller. Reverend Nicely’s wife and Daisy have both passed away.”
“I’m sorry,” Malloy said. “This is a terrible thing. Your family shouldn’t’ve been harmed by it.”
Nicely nodded, but his expression was still wary. He’d been through so much, and now this strange white man had barged into his house.
“You weren’t poisoned, too?” Malloy asked him.
“No,” Sarah said, saving him from having to explain. “He wasn’t here, but his daughter Isabel was also poisoned. I’ve been doing what I can for her, but I haven’t been able to wake her up yet.”
“Maybe Wesley can do something,” Malloy said. “He’s a doctor,” he added to Nicely. “I’ll get him.”
Malloy went back down the stairs, and a few minutes later a tall, thin young man appeared in the doorway. His long face was suitably solemn, but his suit was a bit the worse for wear, and he carried no medical bag.
Sarah introduced herself and the others. “Mr. Malloy thought you might be able to help Miss Nicely.”
“I don’t know that I can do much,” he said, speaking to the Reverend Nicely. “By now the arsenic will have taken hold. Sometimes people recover and sometimes they don’t, and even if she survives, your daughter may have lingering effects from the damage the arsenic does to the body.”
The Reverend Nicely winced, but he said, “Anything you can do.”
Wesley nodded, and Sarah took him back to the room where the girl still lay, motionless. Using Sarah’s stethoscope, he listened to her chest and checked her pulse, eyes, and throat, as Sarah had done.
“We don’t really know why arsenic kills,” he said. “If we did, maybe we could figure out how to treat it. It’s funny how it works. If people are exposed to it over a long period of time, at less than a fatal dose, they can develop a tolerance for it. I had a patient once, his wife had been giving him arsenic for months in his morning coffee. He’d been really sick the whole time, too, but it wasn’t until I finally noticed his fingernails . . .”
“Fingernails?”
“Yes, long-term exposure to arsenic can cause white lines in the fingernails. As soon as I saw that, I knew what it was. He figured out it was his wife who was trying to kill him and had her arrested. When he wasn’t being poisoned anymore, he made a complete recovery. But another time, a young woman tried to kill herself, so she took a lot, all at once. Her family found her almost immediately, so I irrigated her stomach and even though she got really sick, she didn’t die. But she was never the same. Her hands and feet lost all feeling, and her heart was damaged. She only lived a few years after that.”
“So if Isabel survives, she might be damaged.”
“I’m afraid so, although that’s no reason to let her die.”
“Is there anything else I can do for her?”
“Arsenic causes dehydration, so keep trying to get her to swallow some liquids.”
“Milk? I read that binds the arsenic.”
“Nobody knows if that’s true or not, but it does soothe the throat and stomach, at least.”
“I’m going to stay with her, at least until I know if she’s going to survive. Besides, she’s the only one who could tell us what happened and how they got poisoned in the first place.”
“You don’t know?”
“No, Reverend Nicely wasn’t here when the women ate or drank whatever it was in, and we haven’t found anything that it could have been. I guess we’re really just assuming it was arsenic, since we can’t even know that for sure.”
“Well, then, I wish you luck.”
Malloy was waiting in the front room when they came out.
“Mrs. Brandt is doing all the right things,” Wesley told the Reverend Nicely. “But there really isn’t much we can do now except wait.”
“And pray,” the Reverend Nicely said.
“That’s probably the best thing you can do,” Wesley said.
“Dr. Wesley is also a coroner,” Malloy said to Zeller. “He has a wagon downstairs, and he can take Daisy’s body.”
“She’s colored,” Zeller said, obviously well aware that not all coroners were willing to bury Negroes.
“That’s all right,” Wesley said. He turned to the Reverend Nicely. “I can take your wife as well, Reverend Nicely, or if you’ve got someone you’d rather send her to, I can take her there.”
Nicely shook his head. “Thank you, sir, but I don’t know when I’d be able to pay you.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Malloy said. “The Oakes family will take care of it.”
Sarah doubted the truth of that. More likely, Malloy would take care of it, but she didn’t say a word.
Wesley gave the Reverend Nicely his card and told him to let him know when he wanted to have the funeral.
Gino helped Wesley with the grim task of carrying the two women’s bodies down the narrow stairs. When they were finished, Malloy told Zeller to return home. Now that Daisy’s body was gone, he had nothing else to keep him there, so he gratefully accepted the suggestion. Then Malloy sent Gino back to Bank Street.
“Let Maeve and my mother know that we’ll be staying here, at least for a while.”
“What should I do then?”
“Go back to Amsterdam Avenue and start visiting all the druggists to see if anybody from the Oakes house bought any arsenic in the past month or so.”
“Will they remember something like that?”
“No, but when you buy a poison, you have to sign a book. Just check the books for familiar names. Start with the shops closest to the house and work your way out.”
“How far should I go?”
“Until you run out of time or you find something. If it was a servant or one of the women, they probably walked. A servant would have to, and the family wouldn’t want anyone else to know where they’d gone, so I’m thinking they didn’t go far.”
“And what about tomorrow?”
“Come to my house in the morning, and if I’m back by then, we’ll figure out what to do next. If I’m not back, come here to find me.”
When Gino and Zeller were gone, Malloy turne
d to Nicely. “Sir, why don’t you try to get some rest. Mrs. Brandt will look after your daughter, and I’ll be here if she needs anything. You won’t be any good to your daughter if you get sick yourself.”
He argued a bit, but he was too exhausted to put up much of a fight. Sarah was sorry she had to send him to the bed where his wife had died, but if that thought occurred to him, he didn’t mention it. After she’d spent a few minutes with Isabel, trying with some success to get her to swallow some more milk, she came back out into the front room, leaving the door ajar in case Isabel stirred.
Malloy met her halfway across the room and enfolded her in his arms. She hugged him back, savoring the feel of his strength surrounding her. She’d seen too much death today.
“How are you doing?” he asked into her hair, not letting her go.
“I’m fine now. I just needed this.”
He kissed her and then led her over to the table where he’d set out a cup for her. Then he poured the fresh coffee that he’d made.
When he’d taken a seat, she asked, “What were you doing today?”
“Virgil Adderly sent me word that he’d been sick all night, just like Charles. I sent Gino to find out if Wesley had checked the whiskey for arsenic yet, and I went to the Adderly house to see what was going on.”
“Had he really been poisoned?”
“No.”
Sarah almost laughed out loud. “But you said he was sick.”
“Apparently, he got so scared when he thought Ella had poisoned him that he made himself sick. As soon as Wesley told him there was nothing in the whiskey, he made a complete recovery.”
“Does this mean that Ella Adderly didn’t poison Charles either?”
“It’s seeming much less likely. She still could have, of course, if she only put it in the glass he drank out of that day, but there’s still no explanation for how she could’ve poisoned him a second and third time.”
“That really does seem impossible, so we still don’t know who poisoned Charles, and now we have the question of who poisoned Daisy and the Nicely women.”
“How did it happen?”
Sarah told him what she knew.
Malloy sipped his coffee and considered what she’d told him. “They ate or drank something that Daisy had brought with her then.”
“They must have. There’s no other explanation. It must have been something the killer had given her, probably intending that she’d be the only one who ate or drank it. At least I’d like to think so.”
“Who would want to poison Daisy, though?”
“And most of all, why?” Sarah added.
“Maybe Daisy knew who had poisoned Charles.”
“Why didn’t she just tell someone then? Gino gave her every opportunity.”
“Maybe because it’s someone she wants to protect.”
“Like her sister.”
Malloy straightened in surprise. “What sister?”
“Jenny Oakes is Daisy’s sister, or was, I mean.”
“Who told you that?”
“Reverend Nicely. When she first came to New York, Daisy told him she was trying to find her sister. Well, her half sister, I guess. It seems some slave owners fathered children with their slaves as well as with their lawful wives.”
“So Jenny was his daughter by his wife, and Daisy was his daughter by a slave.”
“Which would make them half sisters.”
“And when Jenny married Gerald Oakes, she left her sister behind.” Malloy shook his head in wonder.
“We already suspected Daisy was bitter about being left when we thought she was just Jenny’s servant. But if they were sisters . . .”
“She must’ve been really angry about that.”
“I don’t know if she was or not. Would a slave expect her mistress to take her North with her, even if they were related? She was apparently very certain Jenny would take her in when she got to New York, though.”
“And she was right about that. But could she really forgive Jenny for leaving her behind?”
Sarah sighed. “I don’t think I could, especially if my own sister did it, and if she still hated Jenny, Daisy had a good reason for killing Charles.”
“But who had a good reason for killing Daisy?”
Sarah had to think about this for a minute. “We’re back to the same old theory: Maybe Jenny figured out what she’d done to Charles and took some revenge of her own.”
“But why not just turn Daisy over to the police for killing Charles?”
Sarah instantly knew the answer to that. “Because a case like this would be a sensational story for the newspapers, and she didn’t want people to find out that she had a colored half sister.”
“If Daisy killed Charles, that explains why she was so scared when Gino questioned her, too.”
“Yes, it does.” Sarah sipped her coffee and considered all the facts again. “Except . . .”
“Except what?”
“Except how did she poison Charles the first two times, when he was away from home?”
This time Malloy considered. “Maybe she gave him something to eat that he took with him when he left the house.”
“The same thing Daisy brought with her today?”
Malloy frowned. “That doesn’t make sense, does it? Unless Daisy wanted to commit suicide.”
“And even if she did, why would she poison her friends, too?”
“You’re right, that doesn’t make sense. But maybe somebody figured out how Daisy had poisoned Charles and played the same trick on Daisy.”
“That seems possible,” Sarah agreed. “Maybe someone at the Oakes house will know what Charles was likely to have taken with him.”
“Of course, we’re just assuming that Daisy and the Nicely women were poisoned with arsenic.”
“Can we find out for sure?”
“Yes, we can. That’s the main reason I brought Wesley here. He’s going to check Daisy’s body for evidence of arsenic poisoning.”
Sarah glanced at the door behind which the Reverend Nicely slept and lowered her voice. “What about Mrs. Nicely?”
“He’ll check her body, too. I told him the Oakes family wanted Daisy embalmed, so he’ll do the same for Mrs. Nicely.”
“Did the Oakes family really say they’d pay for Mrs. Nicely’s funeral?”
“No, but I’ll put it on their bill.”
Sarah thought that was probably fair. Mrs. Nicely wouldn’t have died if someone hadn’t killed Charles in the first place. “How on earth are we going to figure out who is responsible for all of this?”
“One way is to find out how Daisy and the Nicely women were poisoned. Could someone else have visited the Nicelys while Reverend Nicely was out?”
“I don’t know. They do have a lot of friends. Mr. Zeller said the house was full of women helping when he got here this morning. All but one of them had left by the time I arrived, though.”
“If there were a lot of women here, then that explains it.”
“Explains what?”
“What happened to the poison or whatever the poison was in. The one thing women can’t resist doing is cleaning up.”
“Oh my, I didn’t think of that! Of course. They would have washed up any dishes and cleared away any trash.”
“Can we find out who was here? Somebody will remember.”
Sarah glanced at the bedroom door again. “Reverend Nicely probably could, but I couldn’t bear to disturb him.”
“I suppose it can wait until he wakes up.”
Sarah went back in to tend to Isabel, and when she was finished, she found Malloy facing off three women. One of them was the woman who had been there earlier when Sarah had first arrived. She recognized Sarah, and nodded. They were all carrying plates covered with cloths, obviously supper for the Reverend Nicely.
“She’s a nurse,” the woman she recognized said to the others, nodding to indicate Sarah. “Where’s Reverend Nicely?”
“He’s resting,” Sarah said.
“Who’s he?” one of them asked, nodding at Malloy.
“This is Mr. Malloy, my fiancé,” Sarah said.
“He looks like police,” the woman said.
“I’m not with the police,” he assured them. They didn’t look like they believed him.
“How’s Isabel doing?” the first woman asked.
“She’s still unconscious, but I’ve been giving her milk. The doctor was here, and he said it’s important to give her liquids.”
“We can do that now. You don’t need to stay.”
The message was plain. Sarah and Malloy were unwelcome here. Or perhaps they were simply not trusted. No one in this neighborhood had any reason to trust white people, least of all one who looked like he might be with the police.
“May I show you how to give Isabel the liquids without choking her?” Sarah asked.
The three women exchanged glances and some silent communication, and then the first woman said, “I suppose that’d be all right.”
“I’ll wait outside,” Malloy said, and Sarah bit back a smile at his cowardice.
Sarah gave the woman a quick lesson, then collected her things. The women had already set out the supper they had prepared for the Reverend Nicely. She only hoped they wouldn’t wake him up to feed him. She was at the door before she remembered what she and Frank had wanted to know. “Were any of you ladies here earlier, helping out?”
None of them answered. Their dark eyes simply stared at her suspiciously.
She tried again. “We were wondering if anyone noticed anything strange, something that didn’t belong here.” The question sounded odd even to Sarah, and the women acted like they hadn’t even heard it. She gave up and said, “Please tell Reverend Nicely to send for me if he needs anything.” She offered her calling card to the women, but none of them would accept it, so she left it lying on the table.
Malloy was waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs. He took her medical bag, gave her his arm, and they started down the street. They were the only white people visible in any direction. People stared at them from windows and doorways, and children stopped their play to watch them walk by. Malloy waited until they were a block away from the church building before he asked, “Why do people always think I’m a policeman?”
Murder on Amsterdam Avenue Page 19
