Murder, She Uncovered

by Peg Cochran

  “She never told me anything,” McGrath said, clutching the cross around his neck until his knuckles turned white. “I never knew.” He took a deep breath as if to calm himself. “I went to the Posts frequently. I got to know Noeleen…I mean Miss Donovan…quite well. This is just so hard to believe.”

  Kaminsky raised one of his hoary eyebrows. “You went to the Posts frequently?”

  McGrath looked down at his feet. “Yes. Mrs. Brown found prayer to be very comforting.”

  “Couldn’t Mrs. Brown go to church on Sunday like everybody else?”

  “Mrs. Brown did attend our Sunday services, but she has a difficult cross to bear. She found comfort in praying with me.”

  Kaminsky cocked his head. “Oh?”

  McGrath pleated the skirt of his cassock as if fingering the fabric soothed him. He wet his lips and looked from Kaminsky to Elizabeth and back again.

  “Mrs. Brown’s son…” He paused and took a deep breath. “Her son has…difficulties. Mrs. Brown has had trouble reconciling that with her faith and belief in the church.”

  Elizabeth could practically see Kaminsky’s nose quivering. He’d once told Elizabeth that there was always a story and it was the reporter’s job to find it. He looked like he was on the track of something right now.

  “What kind of difficulties?”

  McGrath raised his head and straightened his back. “It would be best if Mrs. Brown answered that herself.”

  “Why? It’s not confidential is it?”

  McGrath held his ground. “I’d be more comfortable if you asked Mrs. Brown about it.”

  Kaminsky sighed. “Fair enough.” He licked the end of his pencil. “Did you visit other members of the parish on a regular basis?”

  “Yes, of course. Many had been through a difficult time due to the Depression and needed the comfort that prayer can provide.”

  “To get back to Miss Donovan, when you say you got to know her quite well, what does that mean? You’re a priest and surely those kinds of relationships aren’t allowed.”

  McGrath looked horrified. “Our relationship was that of a parishioner and her priest.” He cleared his throat. “Noeleen was lonely. She was far away from home and her only relative in this country was a cousin who she saw only on her day off.” He plucked at his cassock. “She wasn’t the sort to make friends easily. And working for the Posts…” He spread his hands out. “She hardly had the opportunity to socialize.”

  “So along with visiting Mrs. Brown, you spent time with Miss Donovan. I imagine she looked forward to your visits,” Kaminsky said.

  “I suppose she did. Yes.” A look of alarm crossed McGrath’s face. “You won’t be printing this will you?”

  Kaminsky closed his notebook and stuffed it back in his pocket.

  “We only wanted to confirm what Mrs. Brown told us—about Miss Donovan going to church every day.”

  McGrath looked relieved. He stood.

  “I’d like to take your photograph, if I may,” Elizabeth said.

  She began to remove her camera from its case.

  “My picture? Why?”

  “To go with the story. It will lend credibility to the piece.”

  McGrath looked doubtful. He ran his hand through his hair, disheveling it more and making him look even younger.

  Elizabeth snapped several photographs of him standing next to the cross on the wall.

  “Thank you,” she said as she put her camera back in its case.

  McGrath looked relieved. “I’ll show you out.”

  “I’m starved,” Kaminsky said as he paused outside St. Vincent Ferrer’s priory to light a cigarette. “I see a hot dog vendor down the block. What do you say?”

  Elizabeth had never eaten a hot dog from a street cart before. She’d had it drilled into her from a young age that ladies didn’t eat on the street. But she was starving, too, and a hot dog sounded like a wonderful idea.

  “Okay.”

  They began walking toward the red umbrella down the block.

  “That was odd, don’t you think?” Kaminsky said.

  “What was odd?”

  “That whole conversation with the good Father. It’s not anything I can put my finger on—just a gut feeling. You know, sometimes you have to trust your gut, kid. Mine has never let me down.”

  “There was one thing I did notice that made me wonder.”

  Kaminsky turned to look at Elizabeth. “Yeah? What was that?”

  “We both referred to the victim as Miss Donovan and so did Father McGrath. Except for the one time he called her Noeleen.”

  Kaminsky stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. “He did? I missed that.” He jingled the change in his pocket. “So maybe Father McGrath knew Noeleen better than he let on.”

  The smell of cooking frankfurters drifted toward Elizabeth and her stomach growled. By now they had reached the hot dog cart where several people were waiting.

  “What’ll you have, young lady?” the vendor said when it was Elizabeth’s turn. His hand hovered over the pan of boiling hot dogs.

  “I’ll have a hot dog with mustard and a lemonade, please.”

  The vendor swiftly retrieved a hot dog from the ones floating in the pan, slapped it in a bun, swabbed on some mustard and wrapped it in a piece of wax paper. He handed it to Elizabeth.

  She gave him a nickel and dug around in her change purse for three pennies.

  “Mmmm,” she said when she took her first bite. She closed her eyes in rapture. “This has got to be the best frankfurter I’ve ever had.”

  “They’re always best from the street vendors.” Kaminsky took a bite of his own hot dog. He looked at Elizabeth and laughed. “You have mustard on your chin.”

  Elizabeth felt her face flush. She looked around but obviously no one was looking at her. They were busy going about their own business.

  “Here.” Kaminsky dabbed at the spot with his napkin.

  “Thanks,” she mumbled around her last bite of hot dog.

  “I’d like to go back to the Posts’ and have another conversation with Mrs. Brown.” Kaminsky shoved the end of his frankfurter in his mouth and swiped his paper napkin across his lips.

  The sound of footsteps pounding down the sidewalk caught their attention. Elizabeth and Kaminsky both swiveled in the direction of the noise.

  “What the—” Kaminsky said as a young man in dark pants, a white shirt and a plaid newsboy cap ran past them.

  “Stop. Thief!” a feminine voice called out.

  Elizabeth stood frozen for a moment then sprang into action, yanking her camera from its case and focusing it on the young man as he got closer and closer. She clicked the shutter multiple times hoping that one of the photos would turn out.

  A woman came running down the pavement, her progress hampered by a pair of open-toed high heels. She was waving a hand furiously at the young man.

  “Thief!” she yelled again.

  People in the crowd were turning their heads in the direction of the commotion. A look of panic crossed the young man’s face. He increased his pace and continued running, retreating into the distance and blending with the crowd coming from the opposite direction.

  “Did you get a shot?” Kaminsky said.

  “I think so.” Elizabeth swiveled around and caught a snap of the woman as she headed toward them.

  “What’s wrong, ma’am?” Kaminsky said when the woman reached them.

  “That boy tried to steal my purse.” She gave a shuddering breath. “I felt it. I felt him touch my purse. He wanted to steal it.”

  Her face was red and the silk scarf around her neck was askew. She had pale blue eyes that bulged slightly and her rouge stood out in bright patches on her cheeks.

  A middle-aged man hustled toward them. “Mother,” he said in a loud voice.
/>   The woman turned around. “Did you see it? That young man tried to take my purse.”

  The man looked at Elizabeth and Kaminsky and winked.

  “He brushed against you accidentally, Mother. He wasn’t trying to steal your purse.”

  The woman opened her handbag, removed a monogrammed lace handkerchief and patted her forehead with it.

  “Are you okay?” Elizabeth said, putting her hand on the woman’s arm.

  “She’ll be fine, won’t you, Mother?” the gentleman said.

  The woman nodded. “I suppose so. I’ll make myself a cup of tea when I get home.”

  The man nodded at Elizabeth and Kaminsky, tucked a hand under his mother’s elbow and began to lead her away.

  “That young man—the one the woman claimed tried to steal her purse—looked very familiar, but I can’t think why,” Elizabeth said.

  Kaminsky grunted. “All young people look the same these days.”

  “No, I’m sure I’ve seen him before. I can’t remember where.”

  “You’ll remember eventually.”

  “I have the feeling it’s important.”

  Kaminsky raised his eyebrows.

  Elizabeth shrugged. “You’re right. I’ll probably remember as soon as I stop thinking about it.”

  “For a minute I thought we had a story there,” Kaminsky said, pulling out his cigarettes. “But it looks like we’ll be going back to the office empty-handed.”

  * * *

  —

  The timer dinged and Elizabeth removed the film from the developer and slipped it into the stop bath. She couldn’t get the face of that young man out of her mind. She was positive she knew him from somewhere—but where? She moved the photograph to the fixer, waited thirty seconds and then rinsed it off under running water. Finally she clipped it to the carousel along with the others she had already developed.

  She’d managed to grab a good shot of him, his face a study in distress as he pounded down the sidewalk toward them. Elizabeth wondered—had he been trying to steal that woman’s purse?

  She’d also gotten a good photograph of the woman who claimed he tried to rob her. Her face was blotched with red and screwed up in fury as she ran toward them.

  The picture of the young man caught Elizabeth’s eye again and she studied it some more, trying to place him. Suddenly it came to her.

  She slipped out of the darkroom and stood for a moment blinking in the bright office lights. Kaminsky was at his desk, his feet up, his chair tilted back and his phone to his ear.

  Elizabeth hovered beside him, shifting from one foot to the other, unable to contain her excitement, until he finished his call.

  “What is it?” Kaminsky said. “You look like the cat that swallowed the canary.”

  “Do you remember I told you that that young man looked familiar but I couldn’t place him?”

  “Yes.”

  “It finally occurred to me where I’d seen him before.” Elizabeth paused.

  “Don’t keep me in suspense.” Kaminsky reached for his mug and took a glug of coffee.

  Elizabeth shuddered. The coffee had been sitting on his desk all day. It was undoubtedly stone cold by now.

  “I think he’s the same young man I saw sitting in the Posts’ kitchen.”

  Kaminsky let his chair drop back into position with a thud.

  “Are you sure?”

  Elizabeth bit her lip. “I’m not positive. I only caught a glimpse of the man at the Posts’. But I do think it’s him.”

  “What are the odds the kid really was trying to snatch that old lady’s purse?” Kaminsky said. “Grab the photograph, and let’s pay another visit to Mrs. Brown and see how she reacts.”

  Chapter 7

  Kaminsky pressed the button for the elevator. They could hear it descending from above them with its characteristic rattle. While they waited, Elizabeth twisted around and checked the seams of her stockings to be sure they were straight, then reached up to angle her hat slightly. She was wearing her new one and it made her feel grown up and serious. Of course at twenty-two she was already decidedly grown up. She lifted her chin slightly. She was a working woman now—a professional photographer for a New York newspaper. She had every right to enjoy the slight shiver of pride she felt at the thought.

  They exited the elevator on the first floor and Elizabeth followed Kaminsky across the lobby and through the revolving door to the outside.

  They strode down the sidewalk, Elizabeth nearly trotting to keep up with Kaminsky’s long strides. Her one leg had been more affected by polio than the other and she began to limp slightly. They’d already done a fair amount of walking that day, and even though several years had passed since she’d been stricken, she still tired more easily than she would have liked.

  She hated calling attention to her disability—in fact she refused to even acknowledge it as a disability—so she did her best to keep up. She was grateful when they reached the corner and had to wait briefly for the light at the crosswalk to turn green.

  “We can take the Lex to Sixty-Eighth Street,” Kaminsky said as he dug in his pocket for a nickel.

  Elizabeth followed him down the steps to the subway. She dug a nickel out of her change purse and dropped it into the slot in the turnstile. She’d learned a few tricks since she’d begun riding the subway for her job: where to stand so the doors would open in front of her; how to enter the car as close to the side of the door as possible (so as not to get caught in the clot of people all pushing through the center, thus making it easier to shimmy into a vacant seat before anyone else). It wasn’t a skill she’d ever expected to develop, but she was quite proud of it now that she had.

  A blast of warm fetid air blew down the tunnel and into the station heralding the train’s imminent arrival. Elizabeth heard the clacking of the wheels against the rails and moments later the train rounded the bend and screeched to a stop in front of them. The doors opened and a crowd of people poured out.

  Kaminsky followed Elizabeth as she slipped through the open door and headed toward the right side of the car where she spied two empty seats.

  “You’re getting to be a real pro at this,” Kaminsky said, his knees making a creaking sound as he bent them and sat down.

  Elizabeth felt a small glow of pride. It was hard to imagine that her mother had never even been on the subway.

  Elizabeth noticed a man across the aisle from her. He was wearing an old-fashioned-looking black suit, broad-brimmed black hat and had long sideburns that curled past his chin and swayed with the movement of the train.

  Kaminsky must have noticed her looking at the man. “He’s a Hasidic Jew,” he said.

  Elizabeth marveled at the richness and diversity the city had to offer beyond the confines of the cocoon she’d lived in on the Upper East Side.

  The train rounded a bend, and Elizabeth was thrown against the woman sitting next to her. The wheels screamed as the motorman applied the brakes and steered the car into the Sixty-Eighth Street station.

  “This is our stop,” Kaminsky said, his knees creaking again as he stood up.

  The day had remained pleasant and Elizabeth enjoyed the short walk to the Posts’ townhouse. Kaminsky stopped briefly to light a cigarette, which he crushed out on the sidewalk before climbing the steps and ringing the Posts’ doorbell.

  The door opened almost immediately.

  “Oh,” the young woman said, her hand still on the doorknob. “You’re not Doris and Betty.”

  She was slim and athletic-looking with the slightest remnant of a tan. She was wearing a pleated skirt and a canary-yellow twinset, the cardigan of which was tied around her shoulders.

  “Can I help you?” She pushed her dark wavy hair off her face.

  “We’re from the Daily Trumpet,” Kaminsky said, proffering his press card.

 
“The papers. How dreadfully exciting.” She opened the door wider. “Won’t you come in?” She began leading them down the hall, the rubber soles of her saddle shoes silent against the marble floor. “We’ll sit in the conservatory, if you don’t mind.”

  Kaminsky and Elizabeth exchanged a glance. They’d been planning on talking to Mrs. Brown, but perhaps this young woman, whoever she was, would provide some useful information.

  The girl looked over her shoulder and smiled at them. “I’m Charlotte Post, by the way.”

  They followed her into a glass-enclosed room filled with lush green plants and miniature trees. The air was thick and humid.

  They took seats around a wrought-iron table and Charlotte smiled at them.

  “I’ve never talked to the press before. This is too, too exciting. I suppose you’ll want to know all about it.”

  Kaminsky raised his eyebrows.

  “My debut, of course. It’s in two weeks.” Charlotte suddenly seemed flustered. “Isn’t that what you’re here for?”

  “We came to talk to Mrs. Brown,” Elizabeth said quickly, “but perhaps you can help us.”

  Charlotte looked torn between two emotions—disappointment and curiosity. She sat with one leg tucked under her and was swinging the other one.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “We’re doing a story on the death of your family’s maid, Noeleen Donovan.”

  Charlotte made a sad face. “That was too terribly awful what happened.” She plucked at a piece of lint on her skirt.

  “Did you know Noeleen well?” Kaminsky said, pulling out his notebook and flipping through it till he found a blank page.

  “Not well, no. At first we used to chat occasionally, but Mother said that wasn’t done. Noeleen was the paid help and it would give her ideas.”

  Kaminsky made a noise that sounded like a stifled cough. Elizabeth glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. She knew what Charlotte meant. She spent many an evening sitting in the kitchen chatting with Mrs. Murphy while Mrs. Murphy peeled potatoes or shelled peas, but to become friendly with a servant her own age would have been frowned upon.