Murder on St. Mark's Place (26 page)

Sarah thought of her death, how terrified she must have been. The pain and the fear and the knowledge that she knew who the killer was but would never be able to tell anyone. How many others would have to die before they could stop him?

She swiped impatiently at the tears that sprang to her eyes. She didn’t have time for that now. “Do you have any idea who did it?”

“Well, I did question our friend George, even though I was pretty sure he didn’t do it. He didn’t. He was with a group of fellows playing cards all night. They were pretty drunk, but they all said George never left the room for more than a few minutes. He was pretty broken up about the girl, too. I guess he cared for her a little.”

Sarah wasn’t surprised George was innocent. “I found the place where Gerda got the red shoes. In Coney Island, at a shop in the Elephant Hotel: The shopkeeper remembered that the man who bought them for her was named Will.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“Is that all?” he asked impatiently.

“Yes, that’s all! It proves that Gerda knew this Will fellow, too. We know it wasn’t George, so this Will must be the killer.”

“Well, unless this shopkeeper gave you Will’s address, I don’t think we’re any closer to finding him now than we were before,” Malloy pointed out.

Oh, dear, she just wasn’t thinking clearly. “There’s more. I also realized I’d never asked Gerda’s friends if they knew anyone named Will. I just asked the names of the men they did know. I was going to ask them today—” Her voice broke, and she had to cover her mouth to hold back a sob.

“There wasn’t much chance that they did know him,” Malloy pointed out.

Sarah drew a shaky breath. “That’s what I thought, too, at first. But then Dirk said—”

“Dirk?”
he asked incredulously.

Oh, dear, she hadn’t meant to tell him that part. “Yes, I asked Dirk Schyler to go with me when I went back to Coney Island. He knows the area,” she added defensively when he made a face. “At any rate, I realized that there was really no reason for Gerda not to have told her friends. the name of the man who’d been so generous to her and bought her the shoes unless one of them already knew him and considered him her beau or something. Dirk pointed out that the girls are very possessive of the men who are generous, so if she’d stolen him away from one of her friends, she might not want her to know.”

“It’s possible,” he said sourly. “Or maybe she didn’t want anybody stealing him from her, and that’s why she didn’t tell them who he was.”

“There’s one way to find out, although I don’t suppose this would be a good time to question Hetty and Bertha. They’ll be pretty upset.”

“I don’t know. They didn’t seem very upset when Gerda died. Maybe they’ll think it’s one less woman to compete for the men.”

“What a horrid thing to say! Don’t you have any feelings at all?” she demanded, suddenly furious.

“Ah, that’s more like it,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “For a minute there, I was afraid you were going to go vaporish on me.”

Now she really was mad. He’d made her angry on purpose so she wouldn’t cry. Just like a man, afraid of a few tears. Well, she’d make him pay for getting her ire up.

“All right, now tell me what happened. How did Lisle ... ?” Angry as she was, she still couldn’t say the words.

He winced a bit, but he said, “She was beaten, like the others. In an alley not too far from where she lived. Near where they found the Reinhard girl, too. Why do these girls go into alleys with strange men in the first place?”

“Because they can’t go to hotel rooms,” Sarah informed him without thinking.

“What?”

Oh, dear, now she would have to explain. How on earth could she do that without embarrassing them both? She drew a deep breath and plunged ahead. “Prostitutes usually have a room or else men take them to a hotel, but these girls can’t do that. They have families who expect them to come home at some point for the night. If they want to be alone with a man, their choices are few. Alleys are dark and private and perfectly suitable for a quick ... uh ... rendezvous.”

Malloy was horrified. “Are you talking about ... ?”

Sarah nodded reluctantly. “Whatever favors the girls grant are granted in alleys. Standing up. Which only makes sense, considering how filthy the alleys are.”

Malloy took a minute to digest what she was telling him. She hadn’t been able to imagine discussing this with him, but for some reason she didn’t feel the embarrassment she’d expected to feel. Malloy’s attitude probably had something to do with it. Most men would have snickered or made fun, but he was as appalled as she.

“Mother of God,” he murmured, and rubbed his face with both hands.

“Had Lisle been... interfered with?” An awkward euphemism for rape.

“Not violently. She probably consented to that part, the same way the others did. It’s after that the killer gets angry and starts beating them. That’s the part that doesn’t make any sense. I can understand him getting angry if the girl refuses him, but these girls didn’t. It’s like he’s angry with them
because
they allowed him to use them.”

“Maybe he is,” Sarah said. “His mind has got to be twisted to kill the girls the way he does.”

He gave her no argument.

“So what do we do now?” she asked after a moment.

“You don’t do anything,” he said. “I’m going to see this girl’s family and find out what I can about where she was last night.”

“Her family won’t know anything.”

“And I’ll question Hetty and Bertha, too.”

“They won’t
tell
you anything,” Sarah warned him. “Why don’t you let me talk to them?”

“Because you’re not a police officer,” he reminded her.

“What difference does that make? They’ll tell me things they’d never tell you. If you expect to find out anything at all, you’ll have to let me talk to them sooner or later.”

She was right, and it killed him to admit it. After a painful inner struggle, he surrendered. “Do you even know where they live?”

“No, but I can find them.” She knew just whom to ask. It would give her the perfect excuse to go there, too.

 

M
ALLOY HATED THIS part of his job. Questioning the grieving family of a murder victim was never easy. When the victim was a young woman, it was horrible. He could hear the weeping from down on the street. Of course, with the windows open because of the heat, you could hear everything going on in the flats above.

The girl’s family lived on the third floor. Frank was sweating by the time he reached it. The door to their flat stood open, and neighbors had gathered in the kitchen to comfort the girl’s mother, who was inconsolable.

When they noticed him, the room went silent. Even the mother stopped crying. Her bloodshot eyes looked to him pathetically. Some part of her probably hoped he’d come to tell her it was all a mistake. “Could I talk to you alone, Mrs. Lasher?” he asked.

“It’s Frankle,” one of the neighbors said helpfully. “She’s remarried.”

“Mrs. Frankle,” he corrected himself.

“My husband, he’ll be back soon,” she tried, moving her hands helplessly, desperate to be spared the ordeal of speaking of her dead child.

“Then I’ll talk to him when he gets here.” He looked at the other women in the room meaningfully. Without a word, they filed out. One of them patted Mrs. Frankle’s hand and whispered something to her before following the others out.

When they were gone, he closed the door in spite of the heat.

“There’s no mistake, then? It’s really Lisle?” she asked, her eyes still holding on to the hope.

“No mistake. I thought somebody had identified her.”

“My husband, but he said ... He could’ve made a mistake. I wanted to go myself, but when they told me , ... I couldn’t.”

“You made the right choice,” he assured her. “Remember her the way she was.”

He pulled out a chair and sat down across the kitchen table from her while she dabbed at her eyes with a damp handkerchief.

“Do you know where Lisle went last night?”

She shook her head. “She goes out almost every night, but I do not know the places. She does not tell us where she goes. Dancing, I think. Her friends would know.”

“Did she have any special men friends?”

“None that come here,” her mother said bitterly. “She does not tell us anything about what she does or who she knows. I tell her this is not good, that she will end up like the Reinhard girl, but does she listen? No, she never listens.”

She was working herself up to anger now. Malloy always learned more when they were angry. “Maybe she mentioned someone she was afraid of,” he suggested.

“No, never,” her mother insisted. “She does not tell us anything. Except...”

“Except what?” he asked when she hesitated.

She was thinking, remembering. “There was a photograph ...”

Frank couldn’t believe he would be this lucky. “A photograph of what?”

“Of Lisle. And some other people. In a boat, I think. I do not know when she would have been in a boat. She tried to hide it, but nothing is private here. That is what she always says. The other children, they get into her things, so she cannot keep anything a secret. She cries to me about it, but what can I do?”

“It’s hard in a place so small,” Frank agreed. “And the other children found this photograph?”

“Yes. Her brothers teased her about it, but she said she did not care because she did not like the man anymore. She told them to burn the picture. I think she said it because she knew they would not hurt it if they thought she didn’t care. They kept it to tease her, though.”

“Do you know where it is now?” The chances that it would help him were very slim, but he was willing to take even the smallest clue.

“No, I—”

“It could be very important.”

“Do you think it could help find who did this?”

“It might.”

“I will try to find it.”

 

SARAH HEARD A baby squalling as she climbed the stairs. The cry was loud and strong, a good sign if it was coming from the Ottos’ flat. The door was open, and Agnes was moving around, preparing dinner while she bounced the wailing baby on her hip.

“She’s really growing,” Sarah said from the doorway.

Agnes turned around, obviously startled. Her eyes widened with what looked like alarm. “The baby, she is fine,” she said, offering her for Sarah’s inspection. “You do not need to worry about her anymore. There is no reason for you to come here.”

Indeed, the child was plump and much healthier looking than she’d been the last time Sarah was allowed to see her.

“Sounds like she’s hungry,” Sarah suggested.

“I will feed her as soon as I am done here. Lars wants his supper on the table when he comes home.”

Oh, yes, she had forgotten about the charming Mr. Otto. “I won’t keep you. I was just wondering ... Perhaps you heard that another girl was murdered last night.”

Agnes’s eyes grew large, and she murmured something that sounded like a prayer in German. Then she noticed her other two children, who had come from the other room to see who their visitor was. She spoke to them sharply in German, and they retreated. Then she turned back to Sarah. “I did not know. Who was it?”

“Gerda’s friend Lisle.”

Agnes paled, and she sank down into one of the chairs. She was murmuring in German again. The baby was wailing louder now, and Agnes automatically unbuttoned her shirtwaist and offered her breast.

“It was the same? The same as Gerda?” she asked, not quite meeting Sarah’s eye.

Sarah hardly heard the question. She was too busy looking at the nasty bruise on Agnes’s chest, right above her breast.

Seeing Sarah staring, she quickly pulled her shirtwaist to cover it. “My skin makes the black spots so easy,” she said self-consciously. “Is that the reason why you come here? Just to tell me about Lisle?”

It made her sound so cold. “No, not exactly. I wanted to pay my condolences to Bertha and Hetty, but I don’t know where they live. I thought maybe you could help me.”

She seemed relieved and gave Sarah an address on Seventh Street. “That is where Hetty lives. I do not know about Bertha. Please, you must go now. Lars will be home soon, and he does not want you here.”

How well Sarah remembered. “I brought some gifts for the children,” she said. “Just some toys,” she added when Agnes would have objected.

“I cannot take them,” she said, her eyes frightened again. “Lars would want to know where they came from. He would be angry. Please, you must go now.” She sounded almost desperate.

Sarah was beginning to understand. How she could have been so dense, she had no idea. Agnes was afraid of her husband, and probably for good reason, if the bruise had come from his hand, as Sarah strongly suspected. Well, she certainly didn’t want to be the cause of another beating.

“I understand,” she said. “Thank you for the information. I’m glad to see the baby is doing so well.”

Agnes’s eyes begged her to be gone, so she turned to go, but just as she reached the door, Agnes called, “Do they know ... ? Do they know who the killer is yet?” She could hardly get the words out.

Sarah was only too happy to be able to ease her mind, if only a little bit. “We have a good idea. I think it won’t be long until he’s arrested.”

She’d expected Agnes to be relieved. Instead, she looked alarmed, almost frightened. “You know who it is?”

“Yes, or at least we’re fairly sure it’s a man named Will. Gerda and the other girls all met a man named Will just before they died.”

“Will?” She repeated the name carefully. “You are sure?”

“As sure as we can be without catching him in the act,” Sarah said, exaggerating slightly.

Agnes closed her eyes for a moment, as if offering a silent prayer. Perhaps she was giving thanks that Gerda’s killer would soon be caught. “Thank you,” she said when she opened her eyes again.