A Curtain Falls (40 page)

I almost mentioned the two bodies onstage, but as I looked back at the raging fire, I realized it was too late. As Jack had planned, the stage had become a funeral pyre— but not for Miss Bell. Instead, for Louie, dead by Jack’s hand. And Jack himself, killed by my own.

In the street, passersby swarmed around my father and me.

“I’ve imagined my own death countless times,” he said in large, gasping breaths. “But never like this.”

I placed more pressure on his chest wound, attempting to stem the massive flow of blood. “Don’t give up yet,” I warned.

“It’s all right, Simon.” He smiled weakly. “Your mother would be proud.” His breaths were ragged. “I’m going out aces-up. It was my last hand . . . and I played a good turn.”

And so he had. He’d saved two lives tonight— Helen’s as well as my own.

And so I held him tightly until his ragged breaths stopped
altogether, and Mulvaney’s hands gently pried me away. Other men hoisted his body up onto a stretcher and into the coroner’s wagon, taking him to places I would not follow.

Watching him go, I felt emptiness no longer. Instead, I was conscious of a profound sadness for what was lost— which was really the promise of everything that might have been.

Sunday

April 1, 1906

Dobson, New York

“It’s a grand sight, isn’t it?” Mulvaney’s voice boomed from behind me. “Spectacular, in fact.”

I gazed out over the Hudson River, leaning forward against the iron railing so that the Conduit Cable Factory to our south would not obstruct my view. “You came all the way here to join me in admiring the scenery?”

“Dammit, Simon, you know I didn’t.” He pulled a cigarette from its tin and lit it, taking slow, deliberate puffs.

“It’s hard enough to admit I was wrong . . . or to apologize, say that I’m sorry,” he finally said. “It’s harder still to know that I made a terrible mistake. And that my mistake caused the death of your father.”

I turned to Mulvaney. His eyes were puffy circles with dark bags underneath. And it was the first time I’d seen him light a
cigarette in more than a year. “Only one person killed my father: the man who shot the gun. Jack Bogarty. Or Robert Coby. Or whoever he was in the end.”

Mulvaney nodded. “It’s what we say in order to live with ourselves: blame it on the bad guy. But it’s not always true. We make mistakes, too. And they have consequences. . . .” His voice choked up.

“I’m not minimizing the consequences.” I steadied my gaze when I looked at him. “But in this case, it was always going to be Jack’s fault. And the fault of those who had the ability to stop him, like Molly.”

He took several rapid puffs from his cigarette, then tossed it into the river. “I’m sorry, Simon. I should have listened to you. Or at least heard you out.”

“I expect you to remember that, next time,” I said with better humor. “Let’s walk.” I pointed toward the dirt path that followed the river.

“Has Poe been released?” I asked after we had continued for several minutes.

“I oversaw his release myself, Friday night. I think he’s left for Eu rope, already. Can’t blame him.” Mulvaney hung his head low. “I feel awful about it, but there’s nothing I can do. The fact is, he’ll never work here again.”

“Perhaps he’ll be happier. People are more tolerant on the continent. Or so I hear,” I said.

“Molly Hansen took Poe’s place in the Tombs. Your professor has been by several times to talk with her,” Mulvaney said. “I think he fancies her to be his next research subject— assuming she isn’t given the death sentence after her trial.”

But she wouldn’t be executed— at least, not if Alistair and
his connections were helping her. I didn’t mind; I had no death wish for Molly Hansen, so long as she remained in jail, unable to harm anyone else.

“So you have all the evidence you need?” I asked.

Mulvaney whistled. “You should have seen the mother-lode of evidence we found in Bogarty’s apartment. The man was addicted to his journal; he wrote
everything
down. In addition to the eyewitnesses from Friday night, there’s plenty to implicate Molly as well.”

We continued walking, watching the ferryboats, barges, and sailboats pass up and down the river. A peaceful April afternoon.

“Was there any truth to Jack’s claim that Frohman was actually his father?”

“Not that we can find,” Mulvaney said. “Who knows? It’s not as though Frohman would acknowledge it now, absent any proof to force his hand.”

“How is Detective Marwin doing?” I asked.

“Better,” Mulvaney replied. “They were eventually able to move him to a hospital; a few days ago, he went home.”

He shot me a sideways look. “He’s not coming back to the department, though. It means there’s an open spot, if you want it.” More humbly, he added, “I’d be honored to have you. And the top brass authorized a starting bonus— designed to cover what you spent on labor for hire and suffered in lost salary.”

I nodded, but said nothing.

He stopped short. “Speaking of that labor, I meant to tell you first thing— one of the men helping you, Isador, is going to make a full recovery. He was knocked unconscious Friday night, not killed.”

I looked at him sharply. “But I checked. He had no pulse.”

Mulvaney chuckled before saying good-naturedly, “I guess miracles can happen, Ziele. Or— given the circumstances that night— maybe you just didn’t give it enough time.”

Either way, I was glad to hear some positive news come out of that awful night.

“There’s one more thing, Ziele,” Mulvaney added, his voice sober. “There’s going to be an article in
The Times
tomorrow. I spoke with Ira Salzburg— and though they’re slightly embarrassed, they’re going to use it. It will sell them a lot of papers.”

I raised an eyebrow. “What is it?”

“They’re going to run a story by Jack Bogarty. Sort of an ‘in his own words’ feature.”

“But how?” I was dumbfounded.

“He wrote the article Friday, before the premiere. It’s an interview with the killer. A farce is what it is, but it’ll run all the same. No one else had the inside scoop.”

No one except us.

Sunday

May 13, 1906

Six weeks later

Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx, New York

I stood quietly under the silver linden tree at Woodlawn Cemetery, looking down upon my father’s grave.

The coroner’s office had taken several weeks to release his body, due to the ongoing murder investigation. But now, finally, he lay at peace in the ground.

There’d been no funeral, for who would have grieved for him but me?

Not my mother, who was in the ground herself— at a distance several plots over, for she would have objected to spending eternity by his side.

Certainly not my sister. I had finally located her in Milwaukee and sent a cable with news of his death. Her reply had been one of polite words, nothing more.

And not Molly, who was imprisoned at Auburn prison for
life, having avoided the electric chair thanks to Alistair’s expert legal maneuvering. Mulvaney had been right: Alistair planned to interview her as part of his research into the criminal mind.

So it was only me.

He was out of my life— forever, this time. And I had nothing to say.

A priest who’d just finished a funeral nearby noticed, came over, and offered his help. He was a young man, lanky and awkward, no doubt fresh from the seminary.

I smiled my thanks. “But he wasn’t Catholic.”

“It’s all right,” he said, adding in a conspiratorial voice, “I know others disagree— but I believe God’s mercy knows no denomination.”

And so I’d accepted— feeling guilty because I had no words of my own.

My father wouldn’t have cared. “Funerals are for the living,” he’d always said. “The dead pay no mind.”

That meant this funeral was for me, and so I let the priest’s words wash over me. They were standard prayers, only half familiar to me from other funerals I’d attended.

Words only. What gave them meaning was the priest’s kindness in saying them.

He came to his last prayer, intoning the words I knew to be final.

“We therefore commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in the sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life.”

“I’m sorry for your troubles, my friend,” he said, placing a warm hand on my shoulder.

Then he was gone.

I looked down at the freshly dug earth below me, whispered a goodbye, and walked once more past the linden tree and down the hill to the cemetery entrance.

There, waiting for me next to Alistair’s Ford Model B motorcar, were two figures in black. They’d respected my wish to go to the grave site alone. But Alistair and Isabella had insisted on waiting nearby. “No one should bury a father alone,” they had said.

I rejoined them, noticing for the first time that Isabella held a small package— a book perhaps— in a brown paper wrapper.

“We weren’t sure whether to give you this,” Isabella added nervously.

“What is it?”

“A condolence card and gift from Mrs. Vandergriff,” she said automatically. “It’s kindly meant, but . . .” She trailed off awkwardly.

“She gave it to me when I returned her daughter’s ring. She had read about your father’s passing, and . . .” Alistair explained. But he likewise broke off, refusing to finish what he had wanted to say.

Shaking my head at their reticence, I took the parcel from Isabella and ripped it open.

A Prayer for Francine. A Volume of Poems and Verses,
by Robert A. Coby.

“Why?” was all I could manage.

“Mrs. Vandergriff has read the papers,” Alistair said, “but she remains in denial. She simply cannot accept that Robert Coby was her daughter’s killer. So she has published his poetry at her own expense. I might add, it’s being received with great critical acclaim. It’s spawning all kinds of wild speculation
about Jack Bogarty’s true identity. No one believes he and Robert Coby were one and the same.”

I stared in disgust at the bound book of verse in my hand.

“Why not?”

He gave me a wry look. “Because no one can believe a vicious killer— a madman— could have composed verses of such beauty and style.”

Jack’s body had been burned beyond recognition in the fire at the Lyceum and eventually buried in Potter’s Field. His aunt had refused to claim his body; she maintained that it was a case of mistaken identity, and that her nephew Robert was still alive, perhaps gone fishing on some distant trawler boat. Even though the bones of three female victims— including Francine Vandergriff— had been found in the woods adjacent to the Layton property.

“I suppose there’s nothing that will convince the skeptics otherwise.”

“No. What some cannot understand is that the potential for greatness— or evil— exists in all of us,” he said with a shrug. “In Jack’s case, he inclined to both.”

Isabella’s expression was distant and thoughtful. “It reminds me of the Egyptian legend of the lotus flower,” she said. “Its grotesque roots thrive in muddy swampland, yet when it blooms above water once a day, it is among the most exquisite and beautiful of all plants. You would think such ugliness and loveliness couldn’t coexist within the same plant— but they do.”

“If you were able to read these poems without knowing their author, you’d probably enjoy them,” Alistair added. “They’re quite good.”

“But I’ll never be able to do that,” I said, and meant it. I’d
never be able to appreciate anything associated with a man who had done so much evil. The same man I had killed by my own hand.

I returned the book to its wrapper and handed it to Alistair. “For your research?”

He beamed. “Now there’s an idea, Ziele. A capital idea.”

Alistair approached the hand crank to restart his automobile. Now that it was springtime, he was enjoying driving it once again.

“So what’s it to be this evening?” he called out. “Home to Dobson? Or will you join us in the city?”

I glanced at Isabella, her brown eyes hopeful as she looked up at me.

“Join us,” she said softly. “It’s not a time to be alone.”

I gazed back toward the crest of the hill behind us, where my father lay at rest. What ever else might be said of him, he had always been a risk taker. Always striving for something better. I liked to think that was why, after a lifetime of failings, he had chosen a hero’s death.

“You know,” I said, taking Isabella’s hand and helping her into the automobile, “I heard there’s a great new Italian place on Forty-ninth Street. Maybe we could try it.”

And so we made our way south through the Bronx, past rising buildings and vacant farmland and the new factories that had sprung up near the rail lines. The Bronx, like the city, was growing rapidly— and with the planned subway expansion north, that trend was sure to continue.