Murder in Little Italy

The doctor had arrived and was with her.

“Why would she try to kill you, though?” Malloy asked.

“I’ve been trying to figure that out, too.”

“Did you say anything about knowing who killed Nainsi?”

“No! When she as much as told me Joe was the baby’s father, I was pretty sure he must have done it, but I didn’t say a word. I was only trying to get away from her so I could tell you what I’d found out.”

Malloy rubbed both hands over his face. “All right, let’s go see what she has to say for herself.”

“The doctor probably isn’t finished with her yet.”

“Good, then she won’t be expecting us.”

Donatelli was in the second floor parlor with Lorenzo, Antonio, and Valentina. They all looked up when Frank and Sarah appeared.

“The doc is still in there,” Donatelli reported.

“Maria said she pushed her down the stairs,” Lorenzo informed Frank angrily, pointing at Sarah.

“Use your head, Lorenzo,” Frank said irritably. “Why would Mrs. Brandt do a thing like that?”

“Why would Maria say it if it wasn’t true?” Lorenzo challenged right back.

“I don’t know. Let’s go find out,” Frank suggested and went across the hall to the closed bedroom door.

“You can’t go in there!” Lorenzo protested, but Frank pushed the door open without knocking.

Mrs. Ruocco cried out in protest, and the doctor looked up in surprise. He was tying off the wrapping around Maria’s broken arm. Maria glared at him but didn’t say a word.

“What you come in here for?” Mrs. Ruocco demanded.

“Get out!”

“I need to ask Maria a few questions first,” Frank said.

“She is hurt!” Mrs. Ruocco reminded him.

“How bad?” Frank asked the doctor.

“Broken arm and lots of bumps and bruises. She’ll recover.”

“Good, then I guess she can talk,” Frank replied coldly, stepping into the room. Sarah came in behind him, and the others crowded around the open doorway.

“I think I’ll step out and leave you to your business,” the doctor said, hastily gathering up his medical supplies and stuffing them into his bag. “I’ll be downstairs if you need me.” He worked his way through the gathering in the doorway and disappeared.

When he was gone, Frank said, “Maria, you said Mrs.

Brandt pushed you down the stairs. Can you tell me why she did a thing like that?”

Fear flickered in Maria’s eyes as she stared at Sarah.

“She . . . she said she would take the baby away.”

Mrs. Ruocco made an outraged noise, but Sarah said,

“You know that isn’t true, Maria. I suggested you find a nurse for him, that’s all.”

“If she wanted to take the baby away from you,” Frank said, “why would that make her push you down the stairs?”

Maria looked around nervously, as if trying to find an ally. “I . . . I don’t know. She just did.”

“That’s funny, because Mrs. Brandt says you tried to push her, but she managed to duck out of the way,” Frank said. “If you were afraid she wanted to take the baby away, that would give you a good reason to want to hurt her, not the other way around.”

“She hates me,” Maria tried. “She doesn’t want me to have the baby.”

“And you’d do anything to keep him, wouldn’t you?”

Frank asked. “You’d even kill someone.”

“No!” Maria insisted, and Mrs. Ruocco gasped in shock.

“What are you saying?” Lorenzo cried from the hallway outside. “Leave her alone!” He started into the room, but Donatelli grabbed him and held him back.

“Do you want to know how much Maria wanted to keep the baby?” Frank asked of everyone present. “I’ll tell you.”

“Don’t listen to him!” Maria begged. “He’s lying!”

“It’s too late, Maria,” Frank said with a trace of sympathy. “Joe told us everything.”

“No, he’s lying. It isn’t true!”

“What is not true?” Patrizia Ruocco demanded, her dark eyes narrowed in suspicion at her daughter-in-law.

“That Joe is the baby’s real father,” Frank said.

Maria cried out in anguish, and Sarah watched the blood drain from Mrs. Ruocco’s face.

“That can’t be true,” Lorenzo insisted furiously. “Joe wouldn’t do that!”

“He admitted it to me today,” Frank said. “Nainsi didn’t know he was married, and she came looking for him here at the restaurant. Maria saw her, didn’t you, Maria?”

Maria didn’t reply. Her face looked as if it were carved from stone.

“And when Maria found out, she wanted the baby for herself, so she made the plan to trick Antonio into believing the baby was his.”

Antonio made a strangled sound in his throat, and Lorenzo roared in outrage.

“Liar!” Maria cried.

“You can ask Joe,” Frank told Mrs. Ruocco, although he could see she was beginning to believe him. The story simply explained too much. “He’s the one who told me all of this.

It was a good plan, too, but then you figured out Antonio couldn’t be the baby’s father, Mrs. Ruocco. You were going to put Nainsi and her baby out. To keep that from happening, Nainsi would’ve told you the baby was Joe’s. Maria couldn’t let you find out the truth, couldn’t let you know what kind of a man Joe was, and what kind of a woman she was, what the two of them had done to Antonio. So she killed Nainsi.”

“Maria?” Mrs. Ruocco pleaded, wanting her to deny it but knowing it was true.

“I didn’t! Mama, don’t listen to them!”

“And then, when Mrs. O’Hara wanted the baby, Maria had to kill her, too. How did you manage to sneak out of the house without anybody seeing you, Maria?”

Maria pressed her lips into a bloodless line, but Valentina said, “I know!”

Everyone turned to where she stood in the hallway behind her brothers.

“I saw her! We were all downstairs for lunch, even though hardly anybody came that day. I went upstairs because Mama was yelling at me, and I got tired of it. When I got upstairs, I heard the baby crying. I called for Maria, but she didn’t answer, so I started looking for her because I didn’t know how to make him stop. Then she came in from the outside stairs. She said she’d been to the privy, but . . . she looked so strange and . . . I didn’t think of it before, but she had her hat on! Why would she wear her hat out to the privy?”

Everyone turned back to Maria, who hissed something at Valentina in Italian.

“I don’t suppose you noticed if she had blood on her,” Frank said quite casually. “There wouldn’t have been much, though, because she cut Mrs. O’Hara’s throat from behind. Did you use one of the knives from the kitchen downstairs, Maria?”

Mrs. Ruocco caught her breath, and Frank looked at her sharply.

“You know something,” he said. “What is it?”

She wasn’t looking at Frank, though. She was looking at Maria with horror in her eyes. “I could not find knife at lunch,” she said.

“That’s right!” Valentina remembered with satisfaction.

“It was your favorite knife, the one you keep really sharp.

That’s why you were yelling at me. You said I lost it, and I told you I didn’t do it!”

Her mother didn’t spare her a glance. She kept staring at Maria. “I look and look. Then I find at dinner. You kill with my knife, then put it back in my kitchen!”

Maria’s face had gone white, and two red spots burned in her cheeks. Her eyes were wild as she looked around frantically for someone to help her. “I didn’t have any other choice! Nainsi wouldn’t have been a good mother! If she didn’t marry Antonio, she would’ve abandoned the baby.

Lorenzo, tell them! I had to protect the baby!”

But Lorenzo had nothing to say. Like everyone else, he was staring at her in horror. Donatelli wasn’t even restraining him anymore.

“Mama!” she cried desperately. “He’s your grandson! I couldn’t let that woman have him!”

“What woman?” Mrs. Ruocco asked bitterly. “Nainsi?

Mrs. O’Hara?”

Maria clutched at the bedcovers with her good hand. “It was all Joe’s fault! He was unfaithful to me. He got that girl in trouble! He arranged for Antonio to meet her!”

“Giuseppe kill no one,” Mrs. Ruocco reminded her. She turned to Frank. “You will take her away?”

“No!” Maria screamed. “You can’t let them put me in jail!!”

“If the doctor says she can be moved, I’ll send for a matron and an ambulance right away,” Frank told the woman.

“Mama, don’t do this!” Maria begged. “I was only trying to protect the family!”

Mrs. Ruocco refused to even look at her. “I not you Mama,” she said and walked out of the room. Valentina and Antonio followed her, but Lorenzo stood there, still staring at Maria in disbelief.

“What will happen to her?” he asked Frank.

Frank didn’t want to mention Old Sparky, so he simply said, “That’ll be up to the judge.”

“What about the baby?” Lorenzo asked.

“The baby is mine!” Maria cried furiously. “Bring him to me! I have to take him with me!”

“You can’t take the baby to jail,” Sarah said with more kindness than Frank would have shown.

Maria gave a primal howl and started sobbing hysterically.

“Officer Donatelli, would you go and ask the doctor to come back up?” Sarah asked.

No sooner had he gone than Sarah heard the baby wailing upstairs. “Lorenzo, Joe is the baby’s father, so he’s really your nephew. Why don’t you go get him and take him to your mother, where he belongs?”

Lorenzo took one last look at the woman he’d come to love, the woman who had betrayed them all. Then he turned away.

15

Roosevelt looked very pleased with himself when Frank entered his office.

“Good work, Detective Sergeant,” he said. “Solving the Italian murder, I mean. Sad situation, of course, but at least no one can say we tried to hide the truth to protect anyone.”

“No, sir,” Frank agreed grimly.

“Even Tammany Hall seems satisfied. Of course, they’re always satisfied if they come out looking as if they really tried to help the working man—whether they really did or not.”

Frank had no reply to that, so he offered none. He wasn’t sure why Roosevelt had summoned him. Surely, he wanted more than to tell him he was pleased with the outcome of the Ruocco case. As he waited uneasily, he realized Roosevelt seemed a bit uneasy, too.

Finally, the Commissioner cleared his throat. “I . . . uh . . . I had a letter from Mrs. Brandt.”

Frank shouldn’t have been surprised. They’d agreed she would contact Roosevelt. “Did you?”

“Yes, and I understand from her that you have uncovered some new information about her husband’s death.” He made it sound like an accusation.

Frank resisted the instinctive urge to be defensive. “Yes, I found a witness and . . . and some other interesting facts that weren’t known when Dr. Brandt was killed.”

“After all this time?” Roosevelt asked skeptically. “It’s been three years, hasn’t it?”

“Almost four,” Frank admitted.

Roosevelt peered at him intently through his spectacles

“And this witness suddenly came forward after almost four years?”

“He heard I was asking around about the case,” Frank lied. He’d actually hunted the boy down after hearing about him from an informant. He wasn’t even sure if he could find him again.

“What about this new information? Where did it come from?”

Frank wanted to grind his teeth, but he forced himself to admit the truth. “Felix Decker gave it to me.”

“Are you saying he had information about who killed Dr.

Brandt and he didn’t use it at the time to find the killer?”

Roosevelt demanded in outrage.

“He didn’t think it had anything to do with Dr. Brandt’s murder. The officers who investigated believed Dr. Brandt had been killed by someone trying to rob him.”

“But you don’t?” Another accusation.

“Dr. Brandt wasn’t robbed,” Frank said as respectfully as he could manage. “And the witness heard him arguing with his killer. When I heard that and saw what Mr. Decker had found out, I started thinking Dr. Brandt had been killed by somebody he knew and not by some petty criminal.”

Roosevelt removed his spectacles and rubbed his eyes before carefully replacing the glasses. “Mrs. Brandt has asked me to reopen the case and assign you to work it,” he said without expression.

That was what Frank had asked her to do, of course. He’d been hoping for it, in fact. He couldn’t tell how Roosevelt felt about it, though, so he waited.

“I don’t have many men on the force that I can rely on, Detective Sergeant. You’ve proven yourself to be one of those few. I can’t spare you to spend all your time on a four-year-old case,” he said.

“I understand, sir,” Frank said, not bothering to hide his disappointment. He should have expected this.

“But,” Roosevelt added thoughtfully, “Mrs. Brandt is an old friend, and she deserves to know the truth, if that’s possible.”

Frank waited again, holding his breath.

“I’ll give you permission to investigate it so long as it doesn’t interfere with your regular work. I’ll inform Chief Conlin,” he added, naming the chief of police.

“Thank you, sir,” Frank said. He should have felt gratitude, but he didn’t really know whether to be grateful or not. What if he never found Tom Brandt’s killer? And what if he found out things about Brandt that would hurt Sarah?

“I think you’re on a fool’s errand, Mr. Malloy,” Roosevelt warned, “but I wish you luck, for Mrs. Brandt’s sake.”

Frank knew he’d need much more than luck.

*

*

*

Sarah was late. She’d had a delivery and hadn’t gotten Malloy’s message until she had gotten home. He’d sent a note, asking her to meet him at a coffee shop near her house.

Why hadn’t he simply come to her front door as he usually did?

Her concern had made her even more flustered about being late. What if he hadn’t waited for her? How would she find him? And how long would she have to wait to find out what was so sensitive that he didn’t want to discuss it at her house?

When she entered the shop, she didn’t see him at first.

He was back in a corner, reading a newspaper. She drew a calming breath and let it out in a sigh of relief. As if he’d sensed her presence, he looked up and caught her eye, but he didn’t smile.

With growing apprehension, she hurried over to his table. He laid the paper aside, rose, and held her chair for her.

“What’s wrong?” she demanded as he seated her.

“Nothing’s wrong,” he assured her and signaled the waitress to bring her some coffee before sitting back down himself.

“Then why did you want to meet me here instead of coming to my house?”

“Can’t I invite you out for coffee without you suspecting something’s wrong?” he asked with a smile that looked forced.

“Apparently not,” she replied tartly as the waitress brought her coffee.

When the girl was gone, she said, “Have you heard anything about what’s going to happen to Maria?”

He seemed relieved by the question. “She confessed, and she’s a female, so they probably won’t execute her.”

“I went to see her,” Sarah admitted.

He frowned in disapproval. “After she tried to kill you?”

“I was curious,” Sarah said, defending herself. “I needed to know why she did it.”

“Why she tried to kill you, or why she killed Nainsi?”

“Neither. I wanted to know why she came up with the plan to have Nainsi marry Antonio in the first place. Most women wouldn’t want anything to do with their husband’s mistress and bastard child.”

“You said yourself she’s not in her right mind,” Malloy reminded her.

“She’s not now,” Sarah reported sadly. “She has a bundle of rags that she carries around the jail with her. She thinks it’s her baby, Joseph.”

Malloy winced. “Then I don’t suppose you got any answers from her.”

“Oh yes, I did. She was only too happy to explain her reasoning to me. She feels justified in everything she did, and she wants the family to understand her reasons. They certainly don’t want to hear about it, especially from me, but she didn’t seem to realize that.”

“So did she want the baby for herself, and plan to kill Nainsi all along?”

“No, not at all. She did want the baby, of course. She thought Joe owed it to her because he refused to fulfill his husbandly obligations to her. That’s why she figured out the plan to get the baby into the family by marrying Nainsi off to Antonio. She apparently thought Nainsi would get bored with being a wife and mother and run away, though. Maria might even have planned to encourage her to do just that, but we’ll never know.”

“And that would leave the baby for Maria to raise.”

“Exactly. She’d have Joe’s baby, which is all she ever wanted. And Antonio wouldn’t be stuck with a wife he didn’t want anymore. I gather he might have even been able to get an annulment if she abandoned him, but I’m not sure Maria cared about Antonio’s future. She’d have the baby, and that’s all she cared about. She thought it was a perfect plan.”

“Have you heard how the Ruoccos are getting along with the baby?” he asked.

“Not firsthand, of course,” Sarah admitted. “I did hear that they got a woman in the neighborhood to nurse him, though, so he should be fine.”

“If they can keep Valentina away from him,” he remarked slyly.

That seemed to end their conversation about the Ruocco family. Sarah sipped her coffee to extend the silence, giving Malloy a chance to say what he’d called her here to say.

When he didn’t, she said, “Why did you really ask me to meet you here, Malloy? And don’t tell me any fairy tales this time.”

He fiddled with his cup for a few seconds, as if looking for an answer there. Finally, he said, “Roosevelt gave me permission to work on your husband’s case.”

This wasn’t what she’d been expecting. “I wrote to him . . .”

“I know. He told me. I have to keep doing my regular work, of course, but he said he’d clear it with Conlin to let me work on it when I can find time.”

“Oh.” It wasn’t what she’d wanted, not exactly, but it was more than they’d had before. “What are you going to do next?”

“I’ll go back to the families again, and this time I’ll have the authority I need to question them.” They had discovered that Tom was treating some mentally ill women just before he was murdered, and Malloy believed that had given someone a motive to kill him.

“I told you before that I’ll help in any way I can,” she reminded him.

He managed a smile at that. “Have I ever mentioned how much I hate having you involved in my investigations?”

“I’m serious, Malloy. You know I can go places that you can’t and talk to people who won’t speak with you. I can even ask my family for help if necessary.”

Did he flinch slightly? She was sure he had. He was probably remembering her mother’s involvement in one of their earlier investigations. “Do you think your family would be interested in helping solve your husband’s murder?” he asked.

She’d never thought of that. “It doesn’t matter if they are or not. They’ll help me if I ask them,” she said with certainty.

That seemed to satisfy him. “I won’t need them, though,” he said. “And I won’t need your help, either. It’s too dangerous for you to be involved.”

“But, I—”

“No,” he said sharply. “How many times have you gotten yourself into danger when you were just an innocent by-stander? Just a few days ago, Maria Ruocco tried to push you down a flight of stairs! You’re too close to this case, so you’re not going to help. No arguments.”

“All right,” she said, although she really didn’t mean it.

He fiddled with his cup again. He wasn’t telling her everything. He was trying to protect her, but she didn’t need protection. She needed the truth.

“What is it, Malloy? What aren’t you saying?”

He sighed and looked up again, meeting her eyes with a directness that made her want to turn way. “These women who were your husband’s patients might not have anything to do with your husband’s death,” he said.

She nodded her understanding.

“And even if one of them does, I might not be able to prove it. I’ll do everything I can, legal or not, but it might not be enough.”

“I know,” she said, although she hadn’t let herself admit it before.

“And if I figure out who did it, but I can’t prove it, you’ll have to live with it. Can you do that?”

She didn’t want to hear this, and she certainly didn’t want to think about it. Knowing someone had murdered Tom and had been walking around free all this time was maddening. Knowing who it was and that he would still never be punished would be so much worse. “I don’t know if I could live with it or not,” she admitted.

He nodded once. “That’s what I thought.”

She stared at him uncertainly. “Does that mean you aren’t going to try?”

“No,” he said. “It just means that if I find him, but I can’t prove it, he’ll still pay.”

“Malloy!” she said in alarm. “You can’t . . . You can’t do something like that, not after the way you’ve worked this past year to build a new reputation for yourself. Everyone comes to you now when they have a difficult case or one that requires discretion. They know you’re trustworthy and honorable. You’re just the kind of man Theodore wants on his modern police force.”

The smile he gave her was full of bitterness and regret.

“It won’t always be Theodore’s police force. He’s an ambi-tious man. He won’t be satisfied here long, and when he’s gone, his reforms will go with him.”

“But things could never go back to the way they were before,” she argued.

“No, they’ll be worse. A lot worse. And so will I.”

“No, you won’t!” she protested, reaching out and laying her hand on his. “You were never that kind of man before, and you never will be.”

He looked down at where her hand rested on his and gently pulled his free. “I’m the kind of man I have to be, Sarah. I have Brian to think about, and if it’s a choice between my honor and my son, I’ll choose my son. I have to.”

He reached in his pocket and pulled out some money, laying it on the table for their coffee.

“I’ll let you know if I find out anything about your husband’s murder,” he said, rising from the table. “Good-bye, Sarah.”

As she watched him walk away, his image blurred. Only then did she realize she was crying. She dashed the tears away angrily. How dare he try to make her think less of him? How dare he pretend to be something he wasn’t?

And how dare he think that any of that would matter to her? She would, she supposed, simply have to convince him otherwise.

Author’s Note

Writing this book brought back a lot of wonderful memories of visits with my Italian great-aunts, aunts, uncles, and hordes of cousins. I think I was channeling them all to help me create Patrizia Ruocco and her family. I hope you enjoyed this installment in the Gaslight series. Please drop me a line and I will be happy to put you on my e-mail list. I’ll keep you posted on places where I’ll be autographing, and I’ll also send reminders when I have a new book coming out. You may contact me through my Web site, victoriathompson.com.