Murder on Amsterdam Avenue

Berkley Prime Crime titles by Victoria Thompson

MURDER ON ASTOR PLACE

MURDER ON ST. MARK'S PLACE

MURDER ON GRAMERCY PARK

MURDER ON WASHINGTON SQUARE

MURDER ON MULBERRY BEND

MURDER ON MARBLE ROW

MURDER ON LENOX HILL

MURDER IN LITTLE ITALY

MURDER IN CHINATOWN

MURDER ON BANK STREET

MURDER ON WAVERLY PLACE

MURDER ON LEXINGTON AVENUE

MURDER ON SISTERS' ROW

MURDER ON FIFTH AVENUE

MURDER IN CHELSEA

MURDER IN MURRAY HILL

MURDER ON AMSTERDAM AVENUE

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Copyright © 2015 by Victoria Thompson.

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eBook ISBN: 978-0-698-18375-9

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Thompson, Victoria (Victoria E.)

Murder on Amsterdam Avenue : a gaslight mystery / by Victoria Thompson.—First edition.

pages ; cm.—(Gaslight mystery ; 17)

ISBN 978-0-425-26047-0 (hardback)

1. Brandt, Sarah (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Malloy, Frank (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 3. Women detectives—New York (State)—New York—Fiction. 4. New York (N.Y.)—19th century—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3570.H6442M8656 2015

813'.54—dc23

2014045913

FIRST EDITION:
May 2015

Cover illustration by Karen Chandler.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

To my new editor, Michelle Vega.
Thanks for loving Frank and Sarah!

“C
harles Oakes is dead.”

Sarah looked up at her mother in surprise. They were sitting at her kitchen table, and Sarah had spent the last half hour bringing her mother up to date on the arrangements she and her fiancé, Frank Malloy, had decided upon for their wedding and their future life. She hadn't expected to hear about a death. “Is Charles the son? The one who was a few years older than I?”

“Sadly, yes.”

“Oh dear. I thought maybe you meant his father.”

“No, his father is Gerald.”

“How did he die? Was it an accident?”

“No, he was taken ill and . . .” Her mother shrugged. Sometimes people just died, and no one knew why. As a nurse, Sarah understood that even better than most.

“Was he married?” Sarah had lost touch with most of her
old friends when she'd eloped with her first husband, a lowly physician, and turned her back on her family's wealth and social position.

“Yes, just over a year, I believe. No children, though, which is sad because he was an only child.”

“It's always sad when a young person dies.” Neither of them spoke of Sarah's sister, who had died young, but Sarah could almost feel Maggie's presence in the room.

Her mother toyed with her empty coffee cup for a moment, carefully not meeting Sarah's eye.

“Mother, what is it?”

She sighed. “I have to pay a condolence call on the family. I was hoping you'd go with me.”

Sarah actually winced. She'd been afraid of this. Not of an old friend dying, but of being drawn back into her mother's world of high society with its strict and meaningless rules and obligations.

“I know you haven't seen them in years,” her mother hurried on before Sarah could protest. “But you and Mr. Malloy are going to have to find your place in society now, and starting with your old friends seems like a natural way to begin.”

“My
old friend
Charles is dead,” Sarah reminded her.

“You know what I mean. I know you think my life is silly—”

“Oh, Mother, I don't—”

“Don't bother denying it. And you're right, a lot of the things I do aren't very important, but you and Mr. Malloy will need friends when you marry. Maybe you think your life isn't going to change very much just because you'll be wealthy, but you'll see, Sarah. People you know now won't want to associate with you anymore. They'll either be jealous or they'll assume you think yourselves too good for them.”

“But we won't!”

“Of course you won't, but they'll think it anyway. You've seen it already. Mr. Malloy had to leave the police force, and his poor mother had to leave her old neighborhood.”

Once the story of Malloy's sudden change of fortune had appeared in the newspapers, the Malloys had indeed been forced to leave the neighborhood where they'd lived since Mrs. Malloy had come over from Ireland as a young girl. “But that was just because the reporters wouldn't leave them alone.”

“And because all her old friends wouldn't even speak to her anymore unless they were asking for money. Sarah, when you're . . .” She gestured vaguely.

“Rich?” Sarah supplied.

“I was going to say a member of the privileged classes, but yes,
wealthy
. When you're wealthy, the only people who feel comfortable with you are people just like you. Believe me, you will feel the same.”

As much as she hoped otherwise, Sarah was afraid her mother was right. “So paying a condolence call on the Oakes family is to be my first step back into your world?”

“It's your world, too, or at least it was for most of your life. And yes, it could be. Charles's widow will need friends.”

Sarah knew when she was beaten. “When did you want to go?”

“This afternoon if you're free. I need to go home and change, and I can send the carriage back for you.”

“That's not necessary. I'll change here and go home with you. At least I have some appropriate clothes now.” Sarah and her mother had started buying her trousseau. As a widowed midwife, her wardrobe had been much more practical and utilitarian than fashionable, so she'd been slowly adding new items.

Less than a half hour later, Sarah had changed into a stylish suit of myrtle green batiste in deference to the early fall weather. Since Sarah's daughter, Catherine, and her nursemaid, Maeve, were off visiting the park, they were able to get away without too much fuss.

“Do you think you'll keep a carriage when you're married?” her mother asked as her own carried them away from Sarah's Bank Street home.

“Our house has a mews, although the previous owners hadn't used the stables for a long time. Keeping horses in the city is such a lot of bother, though. Now tell me about Charles's family. I remember there's something unusual about his mother, but I can't remember what.”

“She's Southern.”

“Oh, that's right. Where is she from again?”

“Georgia, I think.”

“Now I remember. Charles was always ashamed of that, I think, or maybe just embarrassed. He was teased, I know.”

“Of course he was. After the war, people were angry and bitter. So many young men died or were maimed, and of course they blamed the South for starting it all.”

“Well, they did start it all by seceding from the Union.”

Her mother smiled sadly. “Gerald liked to remind them that
Jenny
didn't start it and that she was just as much a victim as they were. Even still, many people hated Jenny on principle, without ever bothering to meet her.”

“But how on earth did she ever get to New York in the first place?”

“Gerald sent her. Oh, it was all very romantic, although it was also very tragic.”

“Great romances are often tragic,” Sarah said. “Like Romeo and Juliet.”

“Fortunately, Gerald and Jenny's ended much better than that one.”

“So he must have met her when he was in the army.”

“I've been trying to remember the whole story, but it's been a long time since I heard it. Jenny's family owned a plantation. I'm sure of that, at least. Gerald was with General Sherman, and of course they were burning all the plantations as they marched to the sea, so it must have been Georgia. When they got to Jenny's home, she was the only one of her family left alive.”

“How awful! She must have been just a child.”

“Fifteen or sixteen, if I remember correctly.”

“And she was there all alone?”

“It was a plantation, so they had slaves. Some of them had stayed, but when our troops burned the house, they had no place to go, so they followed the Union army. I understand that a lot of slaves did that.”

“And Jenny went with them?”

“Apparently. I don't remember the details. Probably, she had no choice, and at some point, Gerald noticed her. She really was a beautiful young woman. He was smitten, and he must have understood that such a beauty wouldn't remain innocent for long when surrounded by thousands of soldiers, so he claimed her for himself.”

“Oh my, this
is
a romantic story. So he sent her North?”

“After he married her.”

“He married her? After just meeting her?”

“He had to, because it was the only way to ensure that his family would accept her, and even then . . . Well, as you can imagine, they were none too pleased, but what could they do? Gerald's father had to travel down into the South to fetch her home. You can't believe how dangerous that was
during the war. They may have hoped Gerald would come to his senses when the war ended and he finally got home, but she was already with child. So they pretended not to notice the social snubs, and eventually, people got used to her.”

“And Charles was their only child.”

“Yes. I expect Jenny will be devastated.”

“And you said he was married. His wife will be, too.”

“I'm sorry to drag you into this, Sarah, but I just couldn't bear to face it alone.”

“You could have just turned down the corner of your card and had your maid carry it in for you.” Such a gesture often replaced a visit when such a visit might be awkward or unpleasant.

Her mother's lovely face hardened for a moment. “I couldn't possibly do that. I know what it's like to lose a child.”

“Oh, Mother, I'm so sorry,” Sarah said. “I didn't think—”

“It's all right. But it's true. I always try to give comfort in situations like this. It's the least I can do, no matter how little I might enjoy it. Besides, Gerald and your father have been friends since childhood. And they both belong to the Knickerbocker Club, of course. So no matter what I think of Jenny—”

“Wait, you don't like Jenny either?”

“No, but not because she's a Southerner. I don't like her because I don't like her.”

“Oh. That makes sense.”

Her mother sighed. “She's a difficult person to know.”

“I'm sure she is, and is it any wonder? She lost her entire family and moved to a city she'd never seen before with people she'd never met who hated her on sight.”

“Southerners are supposed to be charming. She didn't have to make it more difficult by being aloof.”

“Maybe she was just shy. Or terrified. She was still a child.”

“That was over thirty years ago. She's no longer a child, and she can't still be terrified.”

Sarah wondered if that were true.

•   •   •

T
he Oakes family lived on Amsterdam Avenue, just a few blocks from Sarah's parents. The neighborhood was quietly prosperous. Understated town houses crowded the sidewalks with their marble steps before rising in stately elegance. These weren't the monstrous mansions of the Vanderbilts or the Astors on Fifth Avenue. These were homes in which families lived for generations with the dignity, modesty, and money inherited from their thrifty Dutch ancestors.

A black wreath on the front door told the world that the Oakes family was in mourning. The maid admitted them, and after a perfunctory inquiry to see if Mrs. Oakes was “at home,” Sarah and her mother followed the maid upstairs to the formal parlor.

Not everyone could wear black well, but Sarah decided that Jenny Oakes could probably wear anything well. She must be nearing fifty, but her skin was still flawless and her melted-chocolate eyes revealed no trace of her age. Her raven hair lay completely tamed against her well-shaped head, showing no betraying gray. Sarah would have guessed her to be at least ten years younger than she must be. If Mrs. Oakes plucked the gray hairs to maintain that fiction, who could blame her?

“Jenny,” her mother was saying. “I'm so very sorry.”

Mrs. Oakes rose from where she'd been perched on the sofa in this perfectly appointed room. She wore a gown of unrelieved black, a black handkerchief clutched in one hand.
She offered her cheek for Mrs. Decker's kiss and said, “Thank you for coming, Elizabeth.”

Sarah heard just the slightest trace of the South in Mrs. Oakes's voice. Thirty years in the North had almost worn it away.

“I've brought Sarah with me,” her mother said. “You remember her, don't you?”

“Of course, although it's been a long time, I think.”

“Yes, it has,” Sarah acknowledged, giving Mrs. Oakes her hand. The woman was a bit taller than she and held herself like a queen, although Sarah noticed in passing that her dress wasn't new or anywhere close to it. Every society woman had a good, black dress in her wardrobe for mourning emergencies. Death struck with alarming frequency and often without warning, so one had to be prepared. Obviously, Mrs. Oakes hadn't needed her mourning dress in quite a while. “I'm so sorry to hear about Charles. I remember him well.”

Mrs. Oakes invited them to sit down and offered them tea.

When the maid had come with it and gone again, Sarah said, “I understand Charles had been ill.”

“Not really. He . . . he thought he'd eaten something that didn't agree with him at first, especially when he was better the next day. By the time we realized how ill he really was and sent for the doctor . . .”

Sarah watched the woman's face for any sign of grief and saw none. If she felt the pain of her only son's loss, she hid it well. Of course, her mother would remind her of the lessons of her youth when she was taught it was unseemly to show emotions.

Her mother was murmuring something sympathetic when the parlor doors opened. A young woman wearing a very new and stylish black gown stepped into the room. The widow, Sarah guessed, although she didn't look particularly
grief stricken. She seemed pretty enough, although her petulant expression made it hard to really tell.

“Elizabeth, you remember my daughter-in-law, Hannah, don't you? She was a Kingsley.”

Sarah had almost forgotten the habit the old families had of giving a person's pedigree.

Jenny introduced her guests. Hannah nodded stiffly at Elizabeth, then glanced at Sarah before silently dismissing her as someone of no importance. Then she made her way over and dutifully sat down on the sofa beside her mother-in-law. She was at least five years younger than Sarah, so their paths would never have crossed growing up. If she had been weeping for her dead husband, her eyes gave no indication of it.

Sarah's mother offered her condolences, but Hannah hadn't quite mastered her mother-in-law's restraint.

“Someone should be sorry for me,” she snapped. “It's all so unfair.”

Jenny gave her a sharp glance but Hannah never saw it.

“We were invited to go to Newport this summer,” she continued, “but Charles said we couldn't go. Now we're in mourning, and I won't be able to go anyplace at all for a whole year.”

“Charles didn't die just to inconvenience you, my dear,” Jenny said with the barest trace of venom.

Sarah glanced at her mother, whose wide eyes betrayed her shock at such inappropriate behavior. She tried to smooth things over. “I'm sure not going to Newport was a disappointment.”