Second Street Station (3 page)

The conductor realized he was dealing with a little girl who had a big imagination and ordered her once again to return to her mother.

“But it makes no sense, Mr. Conductor. Why would a man take off his shoes to hang himself? Why would he hang clothes to dry he wasn’t ever going to wear again?”

The conductor had no answer, but he also had no time to deal with a child’s logic. “He was probably crazy.” And he gave Mary a gentle push into the corridor, then closed the door.

Word of the Frenchman’s suicide had traveled fast and was already the topic of excited conversation when Mary returned to her car and calmly announced she had actually seen the dead man. Her family and friends were anything but calm. Immediately forgetting the swearing incident and the soap, Elizabeth hugged Mary, doing her best to soothe her young daughter, who really needed no soothing. In this rare burst of warmth from her mother, Mary informed her that she’d had a change of heart.

“I no longer wish to be a scientist or philosopher, Mother.”

“Really?” said a relieved Elizabeth, thinking this awful incident may have somehow netted a positive result.

“I’ve decided I want to be a detective.”

Elizabeth flinched. This daughter of hers would never give her peace.

Mary spent the rest of the trip trying to think of reasons why the dead man would have taken off his shoes and hung up his clothes before killing himself. There were none. She was sure he had been murdered.

It was a few days past the Blizzard of ’88, and everything in New York and Brooklyn had reopened as the city regained its legs. In a way, Mary had welcomed the blizzard. The Lowry Hat Factory was shut down, and though the loss of wages hurt, her Franklin stove kept her room warm, and she had time to catch up on her reading.

Having been denied a college education (“It’s for the wealthy,” her mother told her, “and even if we had the money, why waste it on a girl?”), Mary was a sponge for all knowledge. When their children were young, Elizabeth and Jeffrey had splurged on an
Encyclopedia Americana,
hoping Sean would aspire to higher education of the type that would pay off, such as medical or law school. To their dismay, Sean’s passion for academics was tepid at best. Mary reacted differently, devouring the material, reading each volume from cover to cover. She loved science, and Thomas Edison became one of her idols. She began following him when he revolutionized the incandescent lightbulb in 1879 and admired him for his creative genius and hard work.

Mary’s appetite was larger than the encyclopedia, and books were expensive. The occasional birthday or Christmas present did little to satisfy it. So Jeffrey befriended the owner of a bookstore that was a few doors down from the butcher shop where he worked. The owner had devoted a small section of his store to secondhand books, most of which were from his own collection. He was pleased to hear Jeffrey’s daughter was such a voracious reader, and he gave him access to any of the books in the secondhand section. The owner reasoned they had already been read, so it would be no calamity if they were read again before someone bought them. So began a tradition in which Jeffrey would come home with a twinkle in his eye, and Mary would know he had a special present for her. As a result, Mary was exposed to a wide variety of writers, from Dickens to Dostoyevsky to the Brontë sisters, Shakespeare, Milton, and beyond.

Elizabeth disapproved. “It’s sure to give her false hope,” she lamented to Jeffrey.
“Disappointment
and heartache are the only things she’ll get out of all this reading.”

It didn’t matter. Even if Elizabeth was right, and Jeffrey suspected she probably was, he couldn’t deny Mary the pure pleasure she derived from learning, nor could he deprive himself of the pride he felt over having a daughter with such wondrous abilities. He hoped that when disappointment came later in life, the knowledge she was gaining now might somehow help her be strong enough to handle it.

Luckily for Mary, advancements in all facets of book publishing and production had lowered the price of books. They now came bound in leather or cloth, or wrapped in paper, the last being the cheapest. The bookstore owner was still kind enough to lend Mary books, but the selection was limited. She found that if she skipped a meal here or there, she could save up to buy a paper-wrapped book.

Mary’s reading list betrayed her passion for forensics and detective novels. There were so many scientific journals and books randomly strewn around her little one-room apartment that it looked like the Great White Hurricane had struck inside.

“It’s all part of my decorating scheme,” Mary would quip. “This may look like the work of a slob, but if you look closer, you’ll realize it’s my way of giving color to an awfully drab floor.”

Though the city was back to work, Mary wasn’t. The Widow Lowry’s response to Mary’s lack of total subservience was to lessen the number of days she worked, but the quirk of fate that allowed the Lowry Hat Factory to reopen on one of her off days didn’t upset Mary. Though it would strap her further financially, any day without the Widow Lowry was brighter, and it gave her more time to read.

She was lying on her couch (actually her bed marginally disguised to look like a couch), engrossed in
Beeton’s Christmas Annual,
which contained a serialized version of
A Study in Scarlet,
a first novel by a relatively new author, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. When the distinct odor of burned French toast interrupted her reading, she bolted for the stove and grabbed the frying pan with her bare left hand.

“Shit!” she screamed as she dropped the pan, then ran to the sink. She flipped on the water, threw her hand under it, and sighed as the cold water soothed the pain. Mary’s four-letter exclamations had been tempered over the years. Her mother and society had seen to that. But at times like these, a healthy “Shit!” did her a world of good.

Someone started banging at the door. She decided not to pay any attention to it. The water felt too good. The knocking persisted.

“Mary, it’s Kate. Are you okay?”

Mary smiled. Kate Stoddard worked with Mary at the Lowry Hat Factory. She had a similar room upstairs and had become a good friend. They weren’t as close as Mary and Sarah McNish had been, but she and Sarah no longer saw one another as much as they would have liked to. Their feelings hadn’t changed, and in time of need they would most certainly rush to each other’s aid, but Sarah was married to a lawyer and had two children. She was busy raising them, and their lives had taken different paths.

Kate Stoddard was a brown-haired girl in her early twenties who had a penchant for the dramatic and was easily excitable, often in a very folksy,
noncosmopolitan
way. A country girl from Haddonfield, New Jersey, she tried to dress and look as sophisticated as possible in order to assimilate into the big city. But her origins always shined through, and Mary wasn’t alone in thinking that the dichotomy was charming.

Kate was careful to shield her family from her “scandalous” life in the big city. She made regular trips to the Twelfth Street Post Office in Manhattan to pick up mail from them. Mary had accompanied her once. It seemed like a senseless journey.

“You should have your mail delivered instead of coming all the way here.”

“My parents run the general store in Haddonfield. They’re very small-town.”

“And they don’t want their baby living in scary old Brooklyn.”

Kate nodded, smiling. “I presently rent from an elderly couple in New York who refuse all mail delivery.”

“And they believe that?”

“Haddonfield. I left that hopelessly rural town, and they think I’m crazy.”

Kate always entertained Mary with comments about her origins or about her adventures in the big city. She found Kate refreshing compared to the average hardened city dweller. So in spite of how good the water felt, Mary wrapped a wet washrag around her left hand and answered the door.

“Did you burn your breakfast again?” Kate whispered.

As Mary nodded, embarrassed that it had happened yet again, neighbors started emerging from their apartments. Kate took over.

“It’s okay, folks. Nothing serious.” She lifted up Mary’s left arm. “Just a burnin’, cussin’ fool.”

Mary pulled Kate inside and shut the door, both of them laughing.

“My poor mother would be scandalized.”

Kate walked straight to the scene of the crime and picked up the charred French toast. “Pitiful, simply pitiful.”

“What’s even more pitiful, that’s supposed to hold me till dinner.”

Kate threw the French toast in the garbage, used a towel to pick up the frying pan, and put it in the sink. “Kiss up to the Widow Lowry, and she’ll give you more hours.”

“There’s a limit to what I can stomach. That woman’s a sadistic, dishonest…”

“I know. A real…” And, uncomfortable with such language, Kate lowered her voice to a whisper and spelled out, “B-i-t-c-h.”

“Why, Kate, I believe I’ve been a bad influence on you.”

With a glint in her eye, Kate replied, “Well, not all bad.”

Mary blanched, feeling guilty at having forgotten. “Of course, I’m sorry. How did your big night go?”

Nonchalance didn’t fit Kate, yet she tried it anyway. “Oh, nothing significant, except he’s having his mother’s ring sized to my finger.”

This announcement was accompanied by a look of complete and total joy. Almost
simultaneously,
the two friends screamed. Mary hugged Kate.

“Oh, Kate, I’m so happy for you!!”

Kate broke away from Mary and danced around the room. “All of Haddonfield’s gonna be abuzz. I came to New York, got me the perfect man, and we’re gonna have a perfect marriage and perfect kids.”

“You ought to be ashamed, Kate Stoddard. You left out the perfect grandkids.”

Kate pointed to a large locket around her neck. “Their photos are goin’ right here, in Grandma Stoddard’s locket.”

“Nothing like planning ahead, but right now you’re late for work.”

The reality of her everyday life dawned on Kate and snapped her out of her reverie. She rushed to the door but turned before leaving.

“Just think. Pretty soon I won’t have to work anymore for that…b-i-t-c-h.”

Mary was happy for her friend. She had no idea that it was the last happy moment they would share.

Mary wasn’t joking about her burned breakfast. After the debacle of the French toast, she had nothing to eat until dinner. She had enough money to pay the rent that was due the next day and buy two cans of soup, one for dinner that night and one for the next. If she wanted something to eat before then, she could either go to her parents’ house and be degraded by her mother or visit Sean, who was a policeman at Second Street Station. Neither choice was pleasant, but Sean was decidedly the lesser of two evils.

The irony of Sean’s becoming a policeman didn’t escape Mary, though she didn’t believe he had chosen that profession as a protruding middle finger to their lifelong sparring. Sean lacked the makings of a professional man, and the police force was no stranger to young men of Irish descent. The current joke was that you had to kiss the Blarney Stone in order to get in. Besides, the hostilities between Mary and Sean had been reduced as they got older. Not living in the same house had helped, but more significantly, Sean felt less threatened by his sister. After all, he was on a career path, and she was going nowhere.

Mary lived in a part of Brooklyn where violence was common, but that never gave her pause when she ventured out. Learning to defend herself was not an option for her but rather a rite of passage.

Growing up in late nineteenth-century Brooklyn was hardly conducive to a happy life for an intelligent girl with a sharp wit. School had been a nightmare for Mary. She had often been ridiculed and physically bullied simply for being cleverer than her tormentors. Mary likened school to Dante’s
Inferno,
thus adding to her schoolmates’ anger because she could reference something they had never heard of or couldn’t understand.

Much to her credit, Sarah, who in marked contrast to Mary was very popular, always defended her friend, but her parents insisted that she switch to a parochial school and Mary was left to stand on her own. She wasn’t the only outcast at school, but she had little in common with the perennial-oddball group who took the brunt of the abuse. Luckily, there was one girl in her class with whom Mary had formed a genuine bond.

Tina Chung had immigrated to the United States from China with her parents when she was three. In spite of her perfect English—and she spoke better than most of the other children—they still mocked her speech and constantly made fun of her name.

“You know how the Chinese get their names? They throw a stone into a pot and if it goes ping, ching, or chung, that’s the name they pick.” Inevitably, this pronouncement was followed by a cacophony of giggles.

Mary didn’t become friends with Tina because she felt sorry for her. She was drawn to Tina because she was smart, and they could discuss topics in which few children their age had any interest. After school, they often went to Tina’s home, where they would speed through their homework, then pursue other interests, which ranged from playing spirited games of chess or whist to conducting scientific experiments, and to inevitably discussing the works of great writers. Tina and her parents lived in a basement apartment of a brownstone. In exchange for rent, Tina’s father, Wei, did handyman work, and her mother, Xin, performed cleaning services for the owners, who lived upstairs.

Wei was aware of the prejudice and hostility his daughter was encountering and wanted her to feel proud of her heritage. He personally schooled Tina in the rich history and traditions of the Chinese people. Wei possessed an old Chinese charm that had been passed down from generation to generation in his family. It dated back to the Ming Dynasty. It was attached to a gold chain, and he wore it around his neck. He told Tina that one day it would be hers, and she could pass it on to her children so they’d always know where they came from. Tina loved the charm and was thrilled at the prospect of carrying on the family tradition. Mary was also fascinated by it and asked Wei what the Chinese letters on the charm meant.

“Ji qing ru yi,”
he told her. “It means ‘May your happiness be according to your wishes.’ ”

This saying struck Mary as especially relevant to her life since her mother and everyone else seemed to want Mary’s happiness to be according to their wishes, not hers. The words stayed with her for years to come and often helped her focus on her goals when others cast doubt upon them.

Tina was nine years old when, after a particularly tough day at school, Wei took her into the backyard of the brownstone.

“It is time for you to learn the art of jujitsu.”

Wei was a jujitsu master and a very fine teacher. One day Mary watched him give Tina her lesson and was enthralled. She approached Wei and bowed.

“Mr. Chung, I would be greatly honored if you would take me on as a student.”

Wei was charmed by Mary’s humility and her respect for Chinese culture. He had never experienced that with an American child. Mary genuinely admired the Chungs and their traditions. She worked hard and learned quickly.

Sean had the dubious distinction of being the first one to experience Mary’s new abilities. When he was unable to best her mentally, he would occasionally try to exert his physical dominance. In the backyard one day, Mary warned him: “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Sean. I won’t tolerate it.”

“Oh, you won’t tolerate it,” he said, mimicking her, then went for Mary. In no time, she had flipped him to the ground.

Sean was in a state of disbelief, but he dismissed it as luck and charged harder at her. As a result, he went down harder. After two more good thumps, his disbelief was replaced with sad resignation at having lost his last bastion of dominance over his sister.

A few years later, Wei got an opportunity to open a laundry business with his brother, Huan, in San Francisco and decided to move his family there. By then, Mary had become proficient in jujitsu, enough so that the bullying at school had changed to whispers behind her back. Ideally, physical supremacy wasn’t the way Mary had wanted to earn respect, but it certainly made her situation better, both at home and at school.

As Mary turned the corner onto Second Street, she stopped and took a deep breath. About thirty-five women were picketing in front of Second Street Station, carrying signs that read
HIRE FEMALE POLICE OFFICERS, YOU NEED POLICEWOMEN
, etc. Mary’s views on the women’s rights movement presented her with a dilemma she hadn’t reconciled. She was all for women’s rights, but she despised organized groups in general, feeling that by their very nature, they lowered their intelligence level to that of the least intelligent member.

Mary approached the precinct and began to climb the stairs. One of the organizers, Amanda Everhart, spotted her ignoring their picket line. She was a well-dressed woman in her thirties who came from an upper-class family. Her father was a lawyer and her husband was a newspaperman. Both men approved of her activism and encouraged her liberal views. She was adamant about her cause and certain that she was right. Mary would not go unchallenged on her watch.

“Join us, sister,” Amanda called out. “We’ll change the world.”

“Get them to outlaw corsets,” Mary replied, “and I’ll be a lifetime member.”

“It’s your future, too, sister.”

What bothered Mary most about these women was their self-righteous tone. It didn’t seem to enter their minds that some people had to spend their days trying to scrape together enough just to exist.

“Protest is a luxury, and the womb that bore you was obviously more privileged than the one that bore me…
sister.
”

As Mary entered the police station, Amanda wasn’t insulted, nor was she deterred. Instead, she was intrigued and impressed by Mary’s fire.

Bedlam had taken up permanent residence in Second Street Station. The place was in a continual state of panic, and the policemen reflected it.

“Most of them scurry around with great purpose as if desperately seeking an unoccupied toilet,” Mary had once joked to Kate.

Mary’s observation was certainly true this day. Some of the policemen had criminals in tow, mostly poor men and women. Either the wealthy never broke the law or they had the means to avoid the consequences of breaking it. A handful of people were there to report crimes, trying their best to find a free policeman. All these activities created a noise level that was insufferable, but insufferable was the norm.

“Doctor!” screamed a badly bruised man with a large cut on his head. He was alone, handcuffed to the arm of a bench. “Doctor!” But no one came.

Mary spotted a policeman struggling with a prostitute who was arrested not for selling her wares but rather for stealing her customer’s gold watch. The policeman’s name was John Russell, a wiry but deceptively strong man with a quick temper who looked most comfortable with a sneer on his face.

“Get your hands off me. I’m a lady!” she protested.

“And how much does a lady cost nowadays?”

“I wouldn’t know. Ask your mother.”

Officer Russell slapped her before she could start laughing, and he slapped her hard. It wasn’t the slap that prompted Mary to step forward. It was something else.

“Excuse me, Officer,” Mary started to say, “but it seems—”

“Get lost!” Officer Russell screamed. “Only one whore at a time!”

He then smacked the prostitute with such force it knocked her onto the bench behind her. His smirk indicated he enjoyed doing it. Most women when faced with this situation would have been either scared or insulted or both. Not Mary. She calmly looked into Officer Russell’s eyes, decided this man did not deserve her time, and moved on.

“Doctor!” the man on the bench screamed again.

“This isn’t a place for ya, Mary.”

Mary turned to see Police Sergeant Billy O’Brien. He was fifty, balding, and pudgy, but no one ever judged Billy by his appearance. The man was full of life and defined Irish charm.

“Why, Billy, you look so spiffy I thought it was the commissioner himself.”

“Do I? Now, why am I gettin’ the feelin’ you’re wantin’ somethin’?”

“I’m here to see Sean.”

Billy smiled impishly, then shouted toward the stairs that led to the basement. “Sean Handley, there’s a mighty fine-lookin’ lass inquirin’ about ya!”

In seconds, Sean came charging up the stairs, still buttoning his messy uniform. He had grown into a handsome young man and was brushing back his hair with his hand when he spotted Mary and disappointment registered on his face. Billy laughed, then winked at Mary and left them alone.

“Doctor!”

Sean took Mary aside, talking hurriedly. “I’m in it over my head, Mary. The pipes in the basement burst. It almost flooded the evidence room and I—”

“I was hoping you’d take me to lunch,” Mary said, cutting him off mid-excuse.

He stared at her and shook his head. “All those brains and not a plug nickel.”

Just then, all eyes in the station clicked toward the doors as Chief Patrick Campbell entered. In his forties, heavy but solid, Chief Campbell was not only their boss but probably the best policeman in all of Brooklyn. He was tough on crime and tough on his men, yet there wasn’t one policeman in that precinct who didn’t aspire to be him or at least earn his respect. Greetings of “Hi, Chief” and “Morning, Chief” rang out as he walked along.

Billy approached with a copy of the local newspaper, the
Brooklyn Daily Eagle.
The headline read,
CAMPBELL VOWS TO CLEAN UP BROOKLYN
, and right below it was a newspaper artist’s rendering of Chief Campbell scowling.

“Made it again, Chief. Charmin’ picture.”

Chief Campbell grimaced, unwittingly looking exactly like the drawing. The grimace was Chief Campbell’s trademark. It kept his men on their toes, and he was keenly aware that no one wanted to see a happy chief of police. They would think him ineffective or daffy. Though labeling him as merely grumpy would have been a disservice. He was smart, perceptive, and somewhat witty when in the mood.

Sean shoved some money into Mary’s hand as he saw Chief Campbell approach.

“Now, get going,” Sean said, then abruptly turned away from her. “Morning, Chief.”

“Doctor!” the man on the bench moaned again. He was not giving up.