Murder on Mulberry Bend (25 page)

“All that in addition to looking after Aggie,” Sarah said in amazement. “That’s a lot of responsibility. And now you do it all, Maeve?”

Somewhat mollified by the implied respect, Maeve said, “Yes, ma’am, I do everything.”

“So now all the girls hate her instead of Emilia,” Gina said smugly.

Wanting to head off another argument, Sarah said, “You said Emilia was stupid, Maeve. It sounds like she had to be smart to do all those jobs, though.”

“She went places she shouldn’t go,” Maeve said. “Like that park where she got killed. That was stupid.”

“City Hall Park isn’t really a bad place,” Sarah said. “In fact, it’s a very nice park. Courting couples meet there all the time. But of course we don’t know why she went there that morning. Did she say anything to either of you about it?”

“She was always doing things she shouldn’t do,” Maeve insisted. Her eyes narrowed. “And she was stupid with men. That’s why she got herself killed.”

“Was she going to meet a man that morning?” Sarah asked, remembering Mrs. Wells had said one of the girls heard Emilia say she wanted Ugo to see how nice she looked. Perhaps Emilia had said more than that.

“No, she was going to get a job,” Gina said. “She told everybody who would listen. We was sick of hearing about it.”

“That and her new dress,” Maeve recalled with a frown. “It wasn’t new at all. Somebody gave it for charity, and it was an ugly old thing! Mrs. Wells offered it to me first, but I wouldn’t take it.”

“She did not,” Gina said. “You’re a liar! Everybody knows she always gave the best things to Emilia. And I heard you begging Mrs. Wells for that hat Emilia was wearing.”

“So you don’t think Emilia was going to meet a lover that morning?” Sarah pressed, trying not to remember the hat and dress in question had been hers.

“Not likely,” Gina said, taking a bite of caviar then quickly spitting it out. “Ew, what was that awful stuff?”

“Fish eggs,” Sarah said with a smile. “I’ve never cared for them either.”

Gina looked more closely at the brown glop. “Fish don’t lay eggs,” she informed Sarah.
“Chickens
lay eggs. You’re teasing me.”

Sarah could have argued, but she didn’t want to get distracted. “You’re right, I am,” she agreed. “Why wouldn’t Emilia have been meeting a lover?”

“She said she didn’t have no use for men after what happened to her,” Gina said. “She swore she’d never so much as speak to one again.”

“She must’ve changed her mind,” Maeve said with an unpleasant grin, “or she wouldn’t be dead, would she?”

“Did either of you hear her say she wished Ugo could see her in her new outfit?” Sarah asked.

Both girls just gave her a blank look.

Sarah opened her mouth to ask another question when she heard her father calling for everyone’s attention.

“Is it time for Mrs. Wells?” Maeve asked in alarm.

“I guess it is,” Sarah replied, and the girls were gone in an instant, hurrying to take their places beside her. Sarah rose and made her way more slowly to the other end of the ballroom so she could have a good view of the proceedings.

D
ANNY HADN’T FARED WELL DURING THE TRIP BACK to Mulberry Street. He insisted on trying to escape, which meant the officers had to keep using their locusts on him. Frank was beginning to wonder if there’d be anything left to question. By the time he got the boy into an interrogation room, he was bloodied and more than a little groggy.

“Do you remember me, b’hoyo?” Frank asked him. “Your friend Billy cut me up so you could escape the last time we met.”

Danny gave him a pained grin, still cocky in spite of his condition. “You gave me whiskey the last time,” he remembered.

“Tell me what I want to know, and you could get some tonight, too.”

“I don’t know much,” he tried.

“I think you do. You started telling me about Dr. Tom Brandt. And don’t pretend you don’t know who I’m talking about.”

“I don’t gotta pretend,” the boy said. Even with the bruises, he managed to look innocent.

“The doctor who was murdered three years ago. You were telling me how somebody hired you to fetch the good doctor. Who was it?”

Danny no longer looked quite so cocky. He glanced over at the cop still holding his locust at the ready and measured his chances. He didn’t want to anger Frank, but he was afraid of someone else, too. “He finds out I ratted on him, he’ll kill me.”

“How could he find out?”

“You start asking him questions, what else he gonna think? Then he finds me and kills me.”

“Maybe you should be more worried about me right now,” Frank suggested.

But Danny wasn’t fooled. “You might beat me up, but you ain’t gonna kill me.”

“I’ll put him in jail and then he’ll meet up with Old Sparky,” Frank said, using the nickname for New York’s brand new electric chair. “You won’t have to worry about him again.”

Danny shook his head, his expression grim. “Swells like him don’t go to jail. You even talk to him, he’ll have your job.”

“Nobody’s that important,” Frank tried, knowing perfectly well it was a lie. “But if you’re that afraid, I’ll see you get out of the city safely. You can go someplace else, where you can start a new life.”

“Why would I want to get out of the city?” he asked in amazement. “This is the only place I’ve ever lived. This is where all my friends are.”

Frank sighed. He wasn’t getting anywhere with kindness. He could beat the boy, but Frank had an idea he’d hold up pretty well against brute force. He’d been taking beatings all his life, and he was right when he said Frank wouldn’t kill him. How else was he going to find out who killed Tom Brandt?

“I guess I’ll just keep you here overnight, then,” he said, rising.

“I could give you a nice reward for letting me go,” the boy offered.

Frank glared at him. “Now you’ve gone and made me mad, Danny.” He motioned for the guard to take him away.

Danny gave him no trouble, and Frank led them down to the cellar cells.

The night guard woke up at the sound of their footsteps. “You got another birdie for the cage, Detective Sergeant?” he asked sleepily.

“Yeah, but I want you to let one prisoner out and put this one in.”

Frank noticed Danny’s swagger had vanished at the sight of the cells and their inhabitants. He was still trying to put up a good front, but Frank could see the growing apprehension in his eyes.

“Who do you want to let out?” the night guard asked.

Frank pointed to the huddled figure in the comer of the nearest cell. Billy hadn’t moved, although Frank could see his eyes staring blankly at them.

The guard went in and pulled him to his feet, prodding him with his locust to get him to leave the cell. Frank had once seen some boys torture a dog to death. Billy’s expression reminded him of that dog.

“What’s the matter, Danny? Don’t you recognize your friend?” Frank asked, shoving Danny until the two were face to face.

He watched Danny’s eyes widen in recognition. Billy seemed incapable of a change of expression.

“What’re you doing here?” Danny demanded of his friend. “What happened to you?”

Billy just stared, as if he didn’t even comprehend the question.

“You’ll have to excuse Billy,” Frank said. “He’s been here for a while, and he’s not feeling too good right now.”

“Billy, say something!” Danny begged, his voice high with fear.

Frank figured the two had been through a lot together, but Danny had never seen his friend like this. It was an ugly thing to witness.

Billy’s mouth was moving, but it took him a minute to find his voice. “Danny?” he croaked.

“Billy! What happened to you? What’re you doing here?”

Billy couldn’t answer, and Frank decided Danny had seen enough. “Put him in the cell,” he told the guard.

Danny put up a fight this time, but he stood no chance against the burly guards. When the cell door slammed shut, Frank looked at Billy, who didn’t seem to comprehend what was happening.

“You can’t leave me here!” Danny was yelling. “I’ll tell you what you want to know! I’ll tell you everything!”

Frank ignored him. He knew better than to believe promises made in panic. “I’ll be back tomorrow, Danny,” he said. “We’ll have a long talk then.”

He took Billy’s arm. “Come on, b’hoyo.”

Billy went meekly, eyes lowered, steps shuffling. He stumbled on the stairs, and Frank had to hold his arm to keep him from falling.

If Frank had wanted revenge for being attacked by this boy, he would be savoring this moment. Instead he felt disgusted.

He took the boy upstairs to the lobby and out the front door. “You can go now,” Frank told him.

Billy’s blank gaze rose to him, not comprehending. “Go?”

“Yeah, go home, or wherever it is you go.”

“I thought ...”

“You thought I’d send you to The Tombs,” Frank supplied. “You’re not worth the trouble. Get out of here, and if I ever arrest you again, you’ll wish I’d killed you tonight.”

For a second, the boy didn’t move. Maybe he thought it was a trick, that Frank would knock him down if he moved. So Frank stepped back and waited, slipping his fingers into his vest pockets.

Billy’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, and Frank could see him gathering himself.

Before he could blink, the boy was gone, running as if for his life and disappearing into the darkness.

Frank rubbed his arm, which still itched, and walked off in the other direction.

 

Sarah’s mother introduced Richard Dennis who told briefly about his wife’s devotion to the mission and the work they did. Obviously ill at ease, he still made a moving speech, then introduced Mrs. Wells, who began to speak with a poise that must have impressed even the Deckers.

Sarah found herself mesmerized by Mrs. Wells’s presentation, even though she thought she’d already been thoroughly impressed by the work they were doing at the mission. She’d meant to watch the reactions of the other guests, but she forgot, caught up in the images Mrs. Wells painted of the lost children of the tenements.

Maeve and Gina stood beside her looking young and vulnerable, like the sacrificial virgins Sarah had imagined them to be earlier in the evening. They listened with rapt attention, their young faces fairly glowing with their devotion to the woman who had saved them.

Mrs. Wells told stories of some of the girls she had known. She gave no names, so Sarah could only guess which story was whose. But she had no trouble at all identifying the subject of her final story.

“I wish I could tell you we succeed with all of our girls. The truth is that some of them yield to temptation again when they leave us. One young woman came to us to escape a life of shame and degradation. She was ill and desperate, and we believed she had found a home with us and hope for the future.

“We were wrong, however. She stayed only until her health returned. When she was strong again, she left us, turning her back on God’s love and ours. We continued to pray for her. We pray for every girl who comes through our doors, in the hope that God will protect her and perhaps even bring her back before she is totally lost.

“The girl of whom I speak returned to the man who had first ruined her, believing his lies and trusting one who was unworthy of that trust. The next time we saw her, she was bruised and broken, beaten nearly to death for the sin of loving an evil man.” Several women in the crowd murmured in sympathy.

“We could have turned her away,” Mrs. Wells continued. “We could have reminded her that she had betrayed our faith in her. But we followed Christ’s admonition to forgive seventy times seven times, and we once more offered her a haven. And once again she grew strong. We prayed for her, and she began to change. We saw her accept God’s love. We saw her reject the temptations of this world. She worked hard and learned skills that would help her earn her living honestly. One morning, she set out to start her new life, full of hope and promise. It was a promise she would not live to keep. She was only sixteen when she died.” Some of the guests gasped.

“Most of us would consider her sudden death a tragedy,” Mrs. Wells went on. “Had she never come to the mission, had she died without knowing God’s love, her death
would
have been tragic. But she did come to the mission. She did know God’s love, and now she is in paradise. ‘O death where is thy sting? O grave where is thy victory?’ ” she added, quoting the Bible.

Several women dabbed at their eyes with lace handkerchiefs, and Sarah felt the sting of tears herself.

“The tenements hold hundreds of girls like this. We’d like to reach every one of them, but we can’t do that without your support.” Mrs. Wells continued with a moving appeal, and then she closed, offering to speak to people individually if they had questions about the mission.

A crowd quickly formed around her. Most of them were female and deeply concerned about the plight of young women in the city. Sarah stood back and watched Mrs. Wells answer their questions for a moment, until she noticed Gina and Maeve had been edged out and were standing alone. Sarah decided to rescue them again.

This time even Maeve looked glad to see her. Sarah ushered them away and got them a plate of sweets to nibble while they waited for Mrs. Wells to finish her business.

“I didn’t know she was gonna talk about Emilia,” Gina said to Maeve after she’d sampled a few of the different cakes. “She never did before.”

“Emilia wasn’t dead before,” Maeve reminded her impatiently. “She wasn’t nothing to talk about until she was dead.”

“Mrs. Wells probably thinks her story will touch people’s hearts,” Sarah said.

“You mean make them sad?” Gina asked with a frown.

“That’s right,” Sarah said.

Gina still didn’t understand. “Why would they care? They didn’t even know her.”