“Of course he will,” White said, although Bruno shifted uneasily, Frank noticed.
“That’s funny, because he just told me this morning that your little arrangement had ended.”
White frowned and glanced at Bruno, who flinched slightly. When he turned back to Frank, he said, “I’m sure you misunderstood him.”
“And Harvey will confirm that his father knew about it, too?”
“I can’t speak for what Harvey knows, but I assure you, Mr. Pritchard was well aware of our partnership.”
“Your partnership?” Frank said with interest. “Does that mean you’re the one in charge of this enterprise?”
Frank could see White struggling with his answer. He wouldn’t want to admit to being second fiddle, but he also wouldn’t want word to get back to his employer—if his employer really was who Frank thought he was—that he was claiming to be in charge. “I manage this enterprise, as you call it,” he finally said.
Frank nodded as if he were satisfied with that answer. “Fair enough. But could I ask you a favor?”
“You can ask. I make no promises,” White said, obviously relieved to be back on firmer ground.
“Would you tell Lou Lawson that I’d like to verify all of this with him?”
* * *
• • •
And what did he say to that?” Sarah asked. She’d waited up for him, too worried to sleep until she knew he’d gotten home safely.
“Not much. He tried to laugh it off, like it was a joke, but he turned a little green when he realized I knew Lawson was behind all of it.” She’d been sitting up in their private parlor but now they’d moved into the bedroom so he could start getting ready for bed. He shrugged out of his suit coat and started removing his shirt.
“You don’t really think you’ll hear from Lawson, do you?”
“Who knows? I can’t imagine his little deal with Pritchard’s dairy is all that important to a man who controls half the crime in New York City.”
“Does he really?” Sarah asked in amazement.
“I don’t know. That’s probably an exaggeration, but he controls a lot of it. How much stolen merchandise can he be moving in a few milk wagons?”
“I suppose that would depend on what he was moving.”
Malloy paused in the process of unbuttoning his pants. “What do you mean?”
“I mean you could fit a lot of diamonds in a milk wagon. Or jewelry. Even bolts of silk and other fine fabrics. Small things that are very valuable. And who would think to look in a milk wagon?”
“Not many, and no one if they’ve been paid to look the other way.”
“Exactly.”
“Then maybe I will hear from Lou Lawson.”
Sarah removed her warm robe and quickly slipped into bed. “So if this is your last night on earth, we should probably make the most of it,” she said with a coy smile.
As she had expected, he needed no further invitation.
* * *
• • •
The next morning, Malloy went to his office to meet Gino. Since Sarah wouldn’t hear of him going to see Lou Lawson and having nothing else in particular scheduled for the day, he thought perhaps he and Gino might go over everything they knew once more to see if they’d missed anything. Maeve had gone shopping, and Sarah was preparing to go to the clinic. She knew two of the residents were due to give birth any day, so she was hoping to be there for a delivery. She also needed to check with Jocelyn to make sure she had gotten the message Sarah had sent and was prepared to meet with Jack Robinson tomorrow. She was almost ready when Hattie came in to tell her Mrs. Pritchard had come to call.
Since it was much too early for “morning calls,” which took place in the afternoon, Sarah was consumed with curiosity and hurried down to the parlor to greet her guest.
“Mrs. Pritchard, what a pleasant surprise. I hope nothing is wrong.”
Mrs. Pritchard wore her severest widow’s weeds, her cheeks rosy from the wintery winds, and she didn’t smile. “I beg you to forgive me for calling at such an unfashionable hour, Mrs. Malloy, but Theda came to see me yesterday afternoon, and I felt I should speak with you privately.”
“Of course. I’ve asked my maid to bring us some tea or would you prefer coffee?”
“Tea is fine, thank you.”
Sarah seated her in front of the fireplace. Hattie had laid a fire, but it wasn’t lit since Sarah was going out and the central heat kept the house comfortably warm without it. Sarah struck a match and touched it to the kindling. A blaze would be cheerful, at least. She took a chair opposite her guest and gave her an encouraging smile, which Mrs. Pritchard still did not return.
“Theda told me what you said when you called on her yesterday.”
Sarah tried to remember what she might have said that could have alarmed Mrs. Pritchard. “Yes, I knew Theda would be anxious to find out what we’d learned about her father’s death.”
“She said you had more questions than answers, though.”
“That’s probably true, since we’re still trying to piece everything together.”
Mrs. Pritchard drew what sounded like a fortifying breath, and Sarah suddenly realized that her grim expression concealed anger, not concern. “Mrs. Malloy, I will thank you to leave my children out of your investigation.” She said the word as if it left a bad taste in her mouth.
Sarah let a few moments go by before replying to that remarkable statement while she tried to decide what was really behind Mrs. Pritchard’s ire. “I’m sorry if Theda was upset. She certainly didn’t seem to be, and she didn’t say—”
“If she wasn’t upset, she should have been. Mrs. Malloy, I assure you, my children had nothing to do with my husband’s unfortunate death. It’s bad enough that he was murdered in such a . . . such an unseemly way that it must necessarily reflect badly on all of us who survive, but I will not have them suspected of having a hand in it. Is that understood?”
Sarah began to think she did understand. “Does that mean you know more about your husband’s death than you’ve told us?”
Her eyes widened. “What?”
Sarah feigned her own surprise. “You just assured me that your children had nothing to do with your husband’s death. Naturally, that made me think you know who did.”
“Of course I don’t know. I have no idea!”
“Forgive me, then, but if you don’t know who is guilty, how can you be certain who is innocent?”
“I . . .” She gaped at Sarah for a moment and then burst into tears.
Sarah knew a moment of guilt herself for having distressed the poor woman, but she had no idea how she could have avoided it.
Just then Hattie came to the door with the tea tray. Sarah jumped up and took it from her, telling her to shut the door behind her to spare Mrs. Pritchard any more embarrassment. She set the tray down on a low table and proceeded to pour a cup for her guest while Mrs. Pritchard fished out her black-bordered handkerchief and blotted her tears.
When she finished, Sarah handed her the cup. “I put extra sugar in it. That helps with shock.”
Mrs. Pritchard took it gratefully and sipped carefully while Sarah prepared her own tea.
“I know this is a very difficult time for you, Mrs. Pritchard,” Sarah said, giving her guest time to compose herself. “And of course we don’t suspect Theda of anything since she is the one who hired Malloy in the first place.”
Mrs. Pritchard cleared her throat. “But you do suspect Harvey.”
Oh dear, how to get around that one? “We suspect everyone connected with your husband, Mrs. Pritchard. And of course we have to consider that Mr. Pritchard might have been killed by a stranger, too.”
“But you saw that argument between Harvey and his father, of course, and that has made you especially suspicious of him. That argument doesn’t mean
anything at all, though. Fathers and sons argue all the time.”
“Yes, they do, and very few fathers get murdered as a result. We know all that, but when a man is killed, we do have to at least consider everyone. Tell me, Mrs. Pritchard, do you know why Harvey and his father were at odds?”
“At odds? What do you mean?”
“I mean that they hadn’t been getting along for some time, according to what we’ve learned.”
“Did Theda tell you that?” she asked with a frown.
“Theda said she hasn’t lived at home since her marriage and for several months prior to her wedding, she was distracted with her own concerns, so she didn’t notice anything unusual.”
All of which was true, as far as it went, but Mrs. Pritchard seemed oddly relieved. “I see.”
“So do you know why Harvey and his father were arguing?”
Mrs. Pritchard didn’t answer right away, telling Sarah she knew perfectly well and was trying to frame an answer that would satisfy Sarah but not incriminate her son. “Harvey is . . . Do you have brothers, Mrs. Malloy?”
“No, I don’t.”
“I didn’t either, so raising a boy was a rather new experience for me. Boys aren’t . . . Well, they aren’t as governable as girls.”
Sarah remembered her sister, Maggie. Her parents would have said Maggie had not been governable at all, but Sarah simply nodded encouragingly.
“Harvey has . . . He hasn’t met his father’s expectations.”
“Theda said he was sent home from college last fall,” Sarah said to test the waters.
Mrs. Pritchard winced at that. Plainly, she did not think it appropriate to tell a virtual stranger something so unflattering about one’s family. “That was the disappointment. His father never had the opportunity for an education, and he wanted his son to have every advantage.”
“I understand he was gambling,” Sarah tried, although no one had actually said this was the reason he was sent home from school.
Color flooded Mrs. Pritchard’s lovely face. “How dare you?” she asked, nearly breathless with fury.
“Theda doesn’t know,” Sarah added quickly. “I practically begged her to tell me the reason Harvey was sent home, but she truly has no idea. I don’t think she really wants to know, quite frankly.”
“Then how did you find out?” she demanded.
Sarah debated for a moment and decided to test Mrs. Pritchard further. “I didn’t. It was just a guess, because Mr. Malloy recently learned that Harvey had incurred gambling debts here in the city.”
“Oh,” she said in dismay, her eyes filling with tears again.
“I’m so sorry,” Sarah said quite sincerely. “I can’t imagine how difficult this must be for you.”
“No, you can’t. First Harvey returned home after being expelled, or whatever they call it, from college and then we learned he’s been gambling at some notorious house here in the city and has lost thousands.”
“So you knew about his debts?”
“Not at first. And not about the gambling either, or at least not that he was doing it here. He swore he would stop when he came home from school. He was like a little boy who has been caught stealing cookies from the kitchen. He begged us to forgive him. He even wept. I truly believed he was too ashamed to ever go back to it.”
“I’m told it’s quite thrilling. Some people find it impossible to resist.”
“How could losing thousands of dollars be thrilling?” Mrs. Pritchard scoffed.
“I understand that they let people win for a time, at least at first, to draw them in, and then occasionally, to give them hope.”
“You mean . . . ? I thought they were games of chance. Are you saying those places control who wins and loses?”
“The people who operate gambling dens control every aspect. No one ever comes out ahead except the owner.”
“How horrible! Someone should do something,” she cried.
“They did do something,” Sarah said. “They made gambling illegal.”
Mrs. Pritchard’s color blossomed again as she realized the irony. “Oh.”
“Yes, but of course there are still hundreds of places in the city where you can play any possible game of chance, as you call it, and thousands of people still frequent them. But we aren’t worried about them. We’re only worried about Harvey.”
“Clarence was furious when he found out Harvey was still gambling, and that he’d lost so much money.”
“Did your husband refuse to pay Harvey’s debts?”
Mrs. Pritchard set down her now-empty cup. “He threatened to, I know. He would have liked to teach Harvey a lesson, but he also realized the men he was dealing with were dangerous. They wouldn’t stop at hurting Harvey.”
“So he did pay the debts?”
She started to reply, but stopped herself.
“What is it?” Sarah asked.
“I just realized I’m not sure.”
“What do you mean, you’re not sure?”
Mrs. Pritchard shook her head. “I don’t really know what happened. I mean, I know the debts were settled. Clarence told me that much, but . . . He seemed angry about it. I supposed he was angry about throwing money away on something like that. Maybe that’s why he was even angrier at Harvey afterward.”
“And when did all this start? His anger toward Harvey, I mean.”
“Just a few weeks ago, right before Christmas. That was when . . . Well, I don’t know exactly what happened, but suddenly Clarence was furious and berating Harvey for his gambling debts every time they were in the same room. That was the first time I knew anything about the debts, and I’m sure it was the first time Clarence did because he probably would have been angry earlier if he’d known.”
“When they argued, what did they say?”
“Clarence would accuse Harvey of ruining everything Clarence had worked all of his life to build and destroying his reputation, although I can’t see how a few gambling debts could do that.”
“If they were high enough, it might,” Sarah suggested.
“I suppose. But neither of them would discuss it with me. I just had to try to calm them both down so we could eat the occasional meal in peace.”
“Mrs. Pritchard, where were you on New Year’s Eve?”
She looked up in surprise at the sudden change of topic and grew instantly uneasy. “I . . . I told you. I was at home in bed.”
“No, you weren’t. We know you went out somewhere. Perhaps you went to a private party or to visit some friends. They could vouch for you.”
“Vouch for me? Why do I need anyone to vouch for me?” she asked, angry again.
“As I explained earlier, we have to be suspicious of everyone.”
“You can’t think I followed Clarence downtown and murdered him!” she insisted. “I was at home, asleep.”
But Sarah shook her head. “It’s actually better if you tell us where you really were. Mrs. Pritchard, we know about Mr. Bergman.”
“Of course you do. I introduced you to him.”
“No, I mean we know you and Mr. Bergman have been . . . in love for a long time.”
This time her face turned scarlet. “I don’t know where you got an idea like that! How dare you!”
“And we suspect that you and Mr. Bergman were together on New Year’s Eve. We have no desire to embarrass you or judge you. If the two of you were together, you can vouch for each other.”
“Why would Otto need anyone to vouch for him?” she asked, trying to be outraged.
“Because the two of you have been lovers for years, and if your husband had finally found out, he might have put a stop to your assignations, which would give Mr. Bergman a reason to kill him.”
“I . . . I . . .” She snatched up her handkerchief and pressed it to her lips while she squeezed her eyes shut against
a fresh onslaught of tears.
“I’m terribly sorry. I know this must be embarrassing for you, Mrs. Pritchard,” Sarah said, “but no one else needs to know you were together that night. No one needs to know anything at all about your private affairs.”
“Affairs,” she snapped. “You know nothing about it.”
“I don’t pretend to.”
“We should have been married. Otto and I. We’d decided that when we were twelve years old, but my parents . . .” She had to apply the handkerchief again.
“I’m sure they thought they were doing what was best for you.”
“Of course they did. Clarence had his own business. He was already a success. Otto was still a boy.”
“But he proved himself in the end.”
“Yes.” She dabbed at new tears. “But Clarence would never have given me a divorce. Not that I ever dared ask for one, but he was outspoken on the subject. I knew what he thought of women who divorced their husbands. He would have blackened my name and taken my children and made sure I never saw them again. Otto wouldn’t ask me to make a sacrifice like that, even if I’d been willing.”
And if she’d simply deserted her husband and lived in sin, the scandal would have ruined her children’s chances of making a decent marriage. Women really had no options for ending an unhappy union. “So you were with Mr. Bergman that night?”
“Of course I was. I knew Clarence would be out for hours trying to convince people of his ridiculous theories, so he’d never miss me. I’d just have to return before he did. Sometimes I came in later, by accident, but he never knew. We’d had separate rooms for years, and he wouldn’t pay any attention to whether I was home or not. He was so sure of me, he never even thought to suspect me.”
“Where did you go that night?”
She winced again. “I’d like to tell you we went to some restaurant and enjoyed a lovely evening out, but we couldn’t ever be seen in public. We didn’t dare go to his house either. Servants gossip and neighbors do, too, you know.”
How well Sarah knew that.
“Surely, you didn’t go to a hotel,” Sarah said, wondering what kind of place would allow such goings-on.
Murder on Trinity Place Page 16
