In the Shadow of Gotham (40 page)

Alistair’s response was immediate. “It was being caught unawares that stings most deeply. I suppose the experience offers a valuable reminder of how truly difficult it is ever to know and understand another person.”

We were silent.

“Isabella, I have a gift for you.” I reached my hand into my pocket and pulled out the ruby and gold earring we had found at Horace’s apartment. “It’s yours, I believe,” I added gently.

She took it and looked at me in amazement. “How did you—I mean where?”

“We found it at Horace’s apartment. It’s what tipped us off that you had to be nearby.”

Her fingers closed around it and she murmured something to herself. It sounded like “for luck.”

“Excuse me?” I asked.

For the briefest of moments, her expression was one of intense sadness. But then she smiled and spoke with an air of nostalgia. “Teddy gave these to me when we were first married. For good luck, because red is the color of happiness and good fortune.”

“Perhaps he was right,” I said lightly. “You survived a very close call Sunday night.”

Alistair looked at his watch. “We should go.”

“Of course,” I replied. Alistair and I planned to attend a memorial service that morning for Stella Gibson.

Isabella gave me her hand, pressing it into mine warmly. “Simon, you must keep in touch. Perhaps you’ll come to see us? You could even join us for Thanksgiving.”

As she waited for my response, I noticed Alistair looking at us oddly. Embarrassed, I stammered some sort of noncommittal reply before making an awkward exit.

She was a widow of not two years—and Alistair’s only son’s widow at that. It would be unseemly to strike up too close a friendship with her. And yet as I thought of her deep brown
eyes and infectious smile, I was well aware of how easy that would be to do.

The sky outside was starkly gray with the promise of snow—the season’s first. As I walked with Alistair down Central Park West, he began to speak in fits and starts. His basic point was to ask whether I would join him at his research center. “I have a couple of openings now,” he said with a rueful smile, “and you could finish your degree.”

It was a generous offer, and for a moment I was tempted by the thoughts of what I’d once wanted—a college diploma, then on to a law degree. But my answer came with sudden clarity, for those dreams had long passed. It wasn’t that I was too old, though at thirty I was no longer young by the standards of the day. But time and experience had changed me. There was no going back to the man I once was, even if I wanted to.

Alistair seemed to understand, though he still handed me a bag containing three books.

“What’s this?” I didn’t look as we continued to walk.

“Three books you should read: a translation of Enrico Ferri’s
Criminal Sociology,
W. D. Morrison’s
Crime and Its Causes,
and Hans Gross’s
Manual for Examining Justice
.”

Hans Gross had been Alistair’s former mentor, I recalled.

“I don’t think further reading will change my mind,” I answered him as I accepted the books.

“That’s not why I’m lending them to you,” Alistair said, stopping to allow a carriage to pass before we crossed Columbus Circle. “You have a gift for reading people and understanding their behavior. If I didn’t know it before, I saw it clearly Sunday night when you managed both Fred and Horace. I know you’ll say it’s only a matter of understanding basic motives, but
believe me—it’s something more. You should develop it, and these books may help you. And besides, you will need knowledge to advance your career in the city.”

“I have a new career in Dobson, in case you’ve forgotten,” I said.

He grinned. “I don’t think you were made for life outside the city, Ziele. This present case excepted, I’m not sure Dobson will offer you the sort of challenge upon which you thrive.”

We turned left toward the Church of St. Ignatius and he continued talking. “We need more police officers like you. Just as we need better educated lawyers and judges, sociologists and psychologists. Our knowledge of the criminal mind lags sorely behind where it should be. Because people consider criminals, especially murderers, to be so vile, it is almost impossible to overcome their moral concerns to do what we need to do toward real scientific achievement.”

“But all the same, you won’t stop trying,” I said.

He looked at me with a wry expression and laughed. “Very true, Ziele. Very true.”

Guilt was paramount in my mind when I walked slowly up the gray stone steps to the small midtown chapel where Stella’s memorial service was held. Light snow now fell steadily; it collected on the grass and trees, though the streets were kept clear for now by passing cars and carriages. Alistair and I brushed the snow off our hats and coats before taking a seat in a pew toward the back of the sanctuary.

The memorial was surprisingly well attended, with at least forty people filling the room. We had not expected a memorial service at all, but Cora Czerne had insisted and, together with the elder Mrs. Wingate, had made all the arrangements and
covered the cost. It was odd seeing such an eclectic group of people gathered together. Mrs. Wingate was seated between Abigail and Cora in the first row, appearing fragile but sitting up straight. All of those from Stella’s past jobs were in attendance, too—from Maud, Mrs. Wingate’s cook and housekeeper, to a group of young women idly chatting toward the back, whom I took to be from Mamie Durant’s. To an outside observer, however, they would have raised no eyebrows; in the uniform of black mourner’s garb, they appeared the epitome of respectability.

The service proceeded smoothly, with the priest making the usual remarks: Stella would be missed tremendously by those who had known her; it was a tragedy that her life had been cut short while she was so young; and yet, none of us here should despair, as Stella had found peace in a better place now. It was the sort of thing people said to make those of us still living feel better, but such platitudes seemed insufficient to assuage the dark emotions stirred by a vicious murder like Stella’s. I looked around the room and wondered if the priest’s words really imparted meaning to anyone listening. Were they insincere and hollow only to me? Perhaps I was the only one in the room who was forever haunted by thoughts of the dead. I could never seem to let go of what might have been, if only the story of their final days could be rewritten.

I noted Mamie Durant’s arrival some twenty minutes late. Dressed all in black, save for a red scarf that poked out from beneath the collar of her woolen coat, she attracted no one’s attention. She sat silently until the service concluded, and no doubt would have preferred to leave without saying a word to anyone.

But after a hasty good-bye to Alistair, I managed to buttonhole Mamie as she was leaving. “Mrs. Durant? Might I have a word with you?”

“Why, if it isn’t the detective,” she said. “I can talk for a minute or two, but I don’t see how I can help you. Stella is dead, and from what I read in the newspapers, her murderer was someone entirely different from the suspect you were originally looking for. Too bad you weren’t faster on the uptake, or perhaps Stella would still be alive.” It was an insult meant to serve as a warning; clearly she did not want to entertain too personal a conversation.

“I just have one question. A loose end, so to speak,” I began.

“Go on,” she said, though she looked at me with a guarded expression as she directed me away from the main throng of mourners toward an area of the churchyard where we might find greater privacy.

“There was a girl called Moira Shea. She was probably murdered by Michael Fromley in August 1902. I saw her autopsy report in the course of my own investigation and something puzzled me. Just before her body was to be released for pauper’s burial, a woman claiming to be her mother came to retrieve it. That woman was you.” I paused to catch my breath, but not for too long, lest she interrupt me before I finished. “What was your relationship to Moira Shea that you couldn’t bear having her sent to Potter’s Field?”

When she didn’t answer, I went on to explain, saying, “I’m asking this personally. Your answer will not go any further. I give you my word.”

The pause that followed seemed interminable.

“Give me one good reason why I should tell you, Detective,” she said, challenging me in a dubious tone.

I smiled, trying to appear friendly. “A detective’s compulsion to tie up loose ends?”

She snorted. “You’ve got a lot of loose ends, from what I’ve seen. I’ll chalk it up to pure curiosity. You detectives don’t like it when there’s something you can’t figure out.” She looked at me hard. “Anything I say stays between you and me?”

I nodded in the affirmative.

She walked even farther away from the area where other mourners had clustered, wanting to ensure we would not be overheard.

“Moira
was
my daughter,” she offered, “at least—the closest thing to it I will see in my lifetime. Her mother worked for me before she got sick; she died of tuberculosis when Moira was just three years old. I was her guardian, though I never got around to adopting her formally. I guess I felt I didn’t need to—it wouldn’t have changed the way I felt about her.” She shrugged. “You see, we all make our own families, Detective. However we see fit.”

Her breath caught sharply. “While she was alive, I lived with her across town where no one knew me. I wanted the best for her. Better than what I had; better than what her mother had had.” Her voice began to shake, charged with a fury that seemed undiminished by three years’ passage of time. “What right did
he
have to take her from me? From everyone. And your police made a royal mess of it; they never even managed to put together enough evidence to arrest him. Their failure made it seem Moira died for nothing at all.”

I waited a moment. “How did you become suspicious of Michael Fromley? The police never suspected him with respect to Moira’s murder.”

“Blundering idiots,” she said. “I hired my own private investigators. They came to the same conclusion in Moira’s case that the police did in the Smedley girl’s case: There was plenty of
suspicion but not enough proof. So I kept them on payroll to watch him.” Her eyes narrowed as she looked at me. “It wouldn’t have mattered what your professor did or didn’t do. If that researcher of his hadn’t murdered Fromley, in due time I’d have arranged it myself. That brute had no right—no right whatsoever—to keep breathing after my Moira was gone.”

Yet Mamie had helped Fromley evade justice after he attacked Stella—persuading the girl not to pursue charges, once again allowing Fromley to walk away from his crime scot-free.

I challenged her. “Then why didn’t you?”

Her response was as cool as ice. “I did arrange it, actually. Fromley was on the verge of getting exactly what he deserved when he was arrested for Catherine Smedley’s attempted murder, and your professor entered the picture with his strange desire to study that creature. That’s when I called it off.” She laughed, and it was a harsh, guttural sound. “Your professor thinks it was all his doing that he got Fromley in his clutches. He thinks someone like me can’t pay a bribe, call in a favor? Pay off a judge?”

She stood up straighter, speaking with fierce pride. “It cost me $500 to deliver Fromley to Alistair, free and clear of the jail-house and the electric chair. You see, above all, I wanted to know
why
 . . . some explanation as to why he killed my Moira. And I thought maybe your professor could give me that, if I gave him the chance.” She added darkly, “I could always have Fromley killed later, which was to my advantage anyway. Too soon after Moira’s murder, suspicion might have fallen my way. But after a few years? By then, my relation to Moira would have been all but forgotten.”

So Alistair was cleared—or was he? The fact that Mamie had intervened didn’t necessarily exculpate Alistair from blame.
And even if Mamie was solely responsible, I was certain that I would never tell Alistair—for his own sake, as well as my promise to Mamie. I didn’t want Alistair to feel absolution for his part in all that had happened. He needed something on his conscience to counterbalance his near-blind devotion to his research.

Disappointing, too, that Alistair had kept his relationship with Mamie from me. “I’m an open book,” he had lied.

“Did you ever get the answers you wanted from Alistair?” I asked.

“Oh, I spoke with the professor often enough, all right.” She made a noise of disgust. “I must say, I expected more for my money. He learned nothing at all that I could tell. He didn’t know why the lout picked Moira. He couldn’t even adequately explain why Fromley was driven to do the things he did.”

But I knew that no answer Alistair could have found would satisfy her. Knowledge could fill many voids, but not a loss such as hers.

She paused a moment before drawing herself up as she prepared to leave. “Good day, Detective. I hope our paths do not cross again.” And she was gone, her black coat and umbrella disappearing into the thickening snow and the jostling crowds along Broadway.

It was time to go home. A somber mood had taken hold of me following Stella’s memorial service, and I keenly felt an empty sense of purpose. Snow was now falling fast, with a couple of inches on the ground and more expected tonight. On impulse, I ducked into a coffee shop that was bright and warm, its aroma of freshly ground beans pleasurably inviting.