Murder on Sisters' Row (4 page)

“If you’re sure,” Jake said doubtfully, lunging to scare away a filthy boy who looked as if he wanted to pick his pocket. “Do you want me to get you tomorrow at your house?”

“No, I’ll find my own way,” Sarah said.

“Best come around noontime,” he said. “Everybody sleeps all morning, and I guess you want to get there before the customers start coming.”

“Yes, I do,” Sarah said, trying not to let her disgust show. “Thank you for your help.”

“Glad to be of service, Mrs. Brandt,” he said with a small bow and an insolent smile.

Sarah couldn’t help recalling how Amy had said he would kill her if she tried to help the girl get away. She managed not to shudder. He handed out her black medical bag and waited until she was safely inside before climbing up onto the carriage and driving away.

The girl who answered the door at the Mission greeted her warmly and scurried away to find the matron, Mrs. Keller.

Sarah set her bag down in the front hallway and glanced around. She’d come to know the place well since first discovering it a little over a year ago. In spite of its shabby furnishings and worn carpets, this truly was a refuge for girls. How could she have mistaken the house she’d visited last night for anything other than it was? No one would decorate a refuge for wayward girls the way Mrs. Walker’s house was furnished.

Mrs. Keller was walking toward her from the back of the house, drying her hands on her apron as she came. “Mrs. Brandt, we’re so glad to see you. How are Catherine and Maeve doing?” she added.

“Catherine is growing like a weed, and Maeve has blossomed into quite a young lady. I’ll bring them for a visit very soon.”

“Please do. Have you come to see me about something? I’ve got bread in the oven, and I was just cleaning up the kitchen, so I have a few minutes if you need me.”

“No, I don’t need to see you, but I do need to ask you a favor. I was wondering if one of the girls would take a message to Police Headquarters for me.” Police Headquarters was located just a block down Mulberry Street.

Mrs. Keller smiled. “I’m sure any one of them would. Is the message by any chance for Detective Sergeant Malloy?”

Sarah smiled back. The residents at the Mission had many reasons to be grateful to Malloy. “Yes, it is, and if his fellow officers find out I sent him a message, he’ll never hear the end of it.”

Sarah and Malloy had worked together on quite a few murder cases in the past year and a half since they’d first met, and their relationship had made Malloy the butt of many jokes, not all of them good-natured. Sarah didn’t want to cause him any unnecessary embarrassment, but she desperately needed to speak to him about what she’d learned from Amy last night.

“Come back to my office and write your note. We’ll say it’s from me, that I need to see Malloy right away. They’ll think I’ve got a troublesome girl here.”

A few minutes later, one of the girls had been dispatched with Sarah’s note and her instructions to say it was from Mrs. Keller. Sarah didn’t really expect Malloy to be available, but she’d wait until the girl got back, just in case they knew when to expect him. She was too tired to wait long, however. She’d either have to go home soon or ask Mrs. Keller if she had a spare bed.

To her surprise, however, the girl returned in short order with Malloy on her heels. He pulled off his hat as he entered the foyer, looking around for her. She’d been waiting in the parlor, and she went to meet him.

“Malloy,” she said, absurdly glad to see him, and she felt her fatigue falling away. His solid figure seemed to dominate the foyer.

“Mrs. Brandt,” he replied, as he always did. His dark eyes examined her critically.

She touched her hair self-consciously. She must look a fright after being up all night.

“Your note said you needed to see me,” he said, mindful of the girl still standing there, hanging on every word, and Mrs. Keller, who’d followed Sarah out of the parlor.

“Yes, I have some questions I need to ask you, if you have a few minutes.”

“Hilda and I will get you some coffee,” Mrs. Keller said tactfully, ushering the reluctant girl down the hallway toward the kitchen and leaving them alone.

Sarah led him into the parlor and closed the pocket doors behind them.

When she turned toward him, he was frowning in apparent disapproval. “And where have you been all night?”

“In a whorehouse,” Sarah replied baldly, in no mood to be disapproved of.

If she’d hoped to shock him, she’d more than succeeded. “My God, are you serious?”

“Perfectly. I was called to a birth yesterday, and the mother happens to live in a brothel.” She took a seat on the horsehair sofa that someone had donated to the Mission long after its usefulness was over.

Malloy plopped down beside her as if his knees had suddenly come unhinged. “Where?”

“In the Tenderloin,” she said, naming the triangular neighborhood north of Twenty-third Street between Ninth Avenue and Broadway whose northern portion was Longacre Square.

“My God,” he said again, looking at her in utter amazement. “Why did you let them take you there?” Now he sounded outraged.

“The young man picked me up in a carriage. All the curtains were drawn, and I enjoyed the privacy and didn’t pay much attention to where we were going. We stopped in the alley behind the house, and they took me in through the kitchen and up the servants’ stairs to the girl’s bedroom. I thought it was a boardinghouse.”

He rubbed a hand over his face and muttered something that was either a prayer or a curse.

She pretended not to hear. “As you can see, I emerged unscathed, but I do have something I want to ask you about.”

His dark eyes were nearly black when he turned to her. “You’re not going back there. And you’re going to start paying attention to where people are taking you when you go to deliver babies. And furthermore—”

“Stop it, Malloy,” she snapped. “I already have a father whose opinions I have to ignore. I don’t need another one. Now stop lecturing me and listen. I’m very tired and my patience is wearing thin.”

He didn’t like it, but he pressed his lips together into a thin line and just glared.

“Good,” she said, seeing his compliance. “The girl whose baby I delivered asked me to help her escape.”

This time he did curse, making Sarah jump. “Are you
crazy
?” he almost roared. “Do you know what happens to people who try to get girls out of places like that?”

“Yes, they get killed.”

He’d already opened his mouth to continue, but her reply stopped him dead. “What?”

“You were going to tell me that I could get killed. I know that. Amy told me.”

“Who’s Amy?”

“The girl who had the baby. It’s a little boy, Malloy, and they’re going to take him from her.”

“Of course they are. A brothel is no place for a baby.”

“I’m sure it isn’t,” Sarah agreed. “It would be awfully bad for business, I imagine.”

Malloy glared at her again. “If you’re going to ask me to rescue this girl or something—”

“No, I wouldn’t ask you that. If they’d kill me, they’d probably kill you, too.”

“They wouldn’t kill me, but I’d lose my job. Places like that pay the police to protect them, not kidnap their girls.”

“I hadn’t thought of that.”

“I’m sure there’s a lot of things you hadn’t thought of, like not going to a brothel in the first place.”

“You don’t have any reason to be angry with me. I already told you, it wasn’t my fault.”

He rubbed his face again. “I’m not angry with you. I’m just . . . angry.”

Sarah bit back a smile. She knew he wouldn’t be so mad if he didn’t care about her. “You don’t need to be. I’m not going to do anything foolish.”

He frowned, obviously not believing her for a minute.

“I know I don’t stand a chance of helping Amy, and so does she. She asked me to contact a Mrs. Van Orner for her.”

His eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Who’s that?”

“She has a charity that takes care of girls like Amy. She helps them get away and—”

He groaned. “One of those rich do-gooders. I thought the name sounded familiar. She’s going to get herself killed one of these days, too.”

“She has people who help her, I understand.”

“Other rich do-gooders,” Malloy said in disgust.

“I’m going to ask her to help Amy.”

Malloy half turned on the sofa so he was facing her, his dark eyes nearly glowing with the strength of his emotion. “Sarah, leave it alone. I’m warning you, you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into.”

“But that poor girl and her baby! She’s obviously from a good family, and she hates it there, hates the things she has to do. I can’t even imagine what it must be like for her.”

“She’s not what you think, Sarah. Those girls are all liars. They’ll say anything to get what they want.”

“But you didn’t see her. She’s terrified of Mrs. Walker—”

“Who?” he asked sharply.

“Mrs. Walker. She’s the . . .” Sarah tried to think of a nice word and failed.

“The
madam
,” Malloy supplied, rolling his eyes. “Of all the madams in New York, you had to pick one of the Sisters, didn’t you?”

“The Sisters?”

“Yeah. Maybe you didn’t notice, but the house you were in is one of seven that are just alike. They say seven sisters came to the city from New England years ago and each one set up her own house of ill repute . . . Well, I don’t think the madams at the houses next door are really Mrs. Walker’s sisters, but they call that street Sisters’ Row.”

“I have to admit, I was surprised at how well appointed the house was.”

“It has to be,” Malloy said. “They cater to the wealthiest men in the city, which means they pay lots of protection money to the police. If you get in trouble there, no one will help you, Sarah.”

She heard the fear underlying the harshness in his tone. “I told you, I’m not going to do anything foolish.”

“You’re going to help that girl. That’s foolish.”

“I can’t turn my back on her, Malloy. How could I live with myself?”

Malloy sighed. “You don’t know what those women are like. She’s not an innocent country girl who got kidnapped and forced into a life of shame—and even if she was once, she’s not innocent anymore,” he added when she would have protested.

“What about her baby?” Sarah argued. “She can’t bear the thought of being separated from him.”

“So she said, but she probably figured that was the easiest way to get you to help her. Look, do I have to lock you up to keep you from getting involved in this?”

Sarah couldn’t help smiling at the idle threat. “Just try, Malloy,” she taunted. “And no, you don’t. I told you, I’m going to find this Mrs. Van Orner and turn the matter over to her. I’m not going to put myself in danger. I’ve got a family to think about now, you know.”

“Don’t forget it either. How are the girls doing?”

Sarah gave him a report on Catherine and Maeve, then asked, “How is Brian getting along in school?”

“Almost as well as his grandmother.” Malloy’s young son was deaf, and he attended a special school. Malloy’s mother escorted him there and back and helped out in the classroom.

“Is she learning to sign, too?” Sarah asked, delighted.

“She says somebody needs to be able to talk to the boy.”

A knock at the door announced Mrs. Keller’s return with a tray of coffee and some freshly baked cookies. Malloy begged off, saying he had to get back to Police Headquarters, but he took a handful of cookies with him.

He stopped in the doorway on his way out and turned back to Sarah one last time. “Don’t forget what you promised.”

Sarah couldn’t remember exactly what she’d promised.

T
HE NEXT MORNING, SARAH AWOKE EARLY AND PUT ON the suit she wore when she wanted people to take her seriously. She’d had it for a long time, since she’d left her parents’ mansion to marry Dr. Tom Brandt, but since she hardly ever wore it, it was still presentable, if a bit out of style.

“You’re pretty dressed up to be going to see a new mother,” Maeve observed over breakfast. She knew Sarah’s routines after living in her house for so many months.

“I have an errand to run first.”

“You look pretty, Mama,” Catherine said softly, looking up at her with shining eyes.

“So do you, my darling,” Sarah said, bending down to give her a peck on the forehead.

“Will that boy be fetching you in the carriage again?” Maeve asked.

Sarah looked at her, trying to judge the reason for the question. Jake was a handsome young man, after all, and Sarah didn’t want Maeve getting ideas about him. “Are you hoping to see him again?”

Maeve looked genuinely shocked. “No! And I don’t think you should see him again either.”

“Why?” Sarah asked in surprise.

“He’s a bad one. You can always tell. He’s too cocky and full of himself. He’s mean, too. You can see by the way he treats the horses.”