3

“I’M SO SORRY,” SARAH SAID, CROSSING THE ROOM to take Mina’s hand in hers. Closer now, she realized that Mina didn’t look as if she’d really been doing much crying into the crumpled handkerchief. Her eyes were clear and dry.

Her mourning gown looked rather fresh and unwrinkled, too. Every well-dressed lady had at least one such gown for attending funerals and for weathering the period of time between the unexpected loss of a loved one and the moment when one’s dressmaker could deliver an entire new wardrobe of mourning apparel. Sarah had a feeling Mina had already ordered hers.

“I could hardly credit it when Alfred told me you were the one who found poor Alicia,” Mina said, her pale blue eyes properly troubled and confused.

“I didn’t find her,” Sarah said. “In fact, I only saw her for a moment the other night, at the house where she’d been living. I was there to deliver a baby and-”

“Then it’s true?” Mina exclaimed, glancing down at the hand in which she still clutched her handkerchief. Sarah saw Mina also held the business card she’d given to Alfred downstairs, the one that proclaimed her profession. “You’re a midwife?”

She said it as if being a midwife was one step lower than being a grave robber, but Sarah chose not to be offended. Sometimes, she mused, good breeding was a curse. “Yes, I am.”

“How awful for you! I had no idea! I thought you were married.” She glanced at the card again. “Your name is different.”

“I’m a widow,” Sarah said, deciding not to mention that she’d probably be delivering babies even if Tom were still alive to support her. Mina would never understand such a thing, and neither would any other woman of her class.

“But that’s still no reason for you to have a… a trade,” she said, selecting the most demeaning term she could imagine. “Surely, your father would provide for you.”

And just as surely, Mina couldn’t imagine why he wasn’t doing so. But if she was looking for gossip, Sarah wasn’t going to oblige her. She hadn’t come here to talk about herself anyway.

“I was a little surprised to find you still at home,” she said, deftly changing the subject and looking pointedly around at the lavishly decorated chamber which was obviously still Mina’s permanent abode. Apparently, Mina had found the new Moorish style of decorating to her liking. The place was furnished the way Sarah imagined a Pharaoh’s tomb might be. Or perhaps a Pharaoh’s harem, if Pharaohs had harems. “I was certain you’d be married yourself by now and living elsewhere.”

Sarah had just returned her old friend’s insult in kind, since finding one’s self an old maid was perhaps even more humiliating than having to support one’s self with a “trade.” She thought she caught a glimpse of anger in Mina’s pale eyes, sort of like the spark of stone striking flint, but only just that one flash. It was gone as quickly as a spark, and Mina managed to dredge up a pitying look.

“It was a sacrifice, as I’m sure you understand, but I simply couldn’t marry and leave Father alone. You know how Mother was when we were girls, and she’s only gotten worse through the years. Her mind is… well, she hasn’t been herself for years, and her health has failed dreadfully as a result. Then Alicia… What can I say? She was always such a trial to us, and now-” She quickly covered her mouth with her handkerchief, letting Sarah’s card fall to the floor as she apparently fought for control of her emotions.

Sarah couldn’t help wondering what those emotions were. As she recalled, Mina had never been particularly fond of Alicia. She’d been almost seventeen when the girl was born and positively mortified at this evidence of her parents’ sexuality. Mina had left school when word got around, refusing even to discuss the rumors of her mother’s pregnancy, although her pain-and probably her jealousy-had been patently obvious. She hadn’t shown her face at a single social event for months before Alicia was born, and for a long time afterward had been unwilling even to acknowledge the child’s existence. Apparently, time hadn’t reconciled her to her younger sister.

After a moment, Mina was able to speak again, and when she did, she forced a pained smile and said, “Where are my manners? I haven’t even offered you a chair.”

She looked around, as if searching for one, and Sarah took it upon herself to pull up a stool so she could remain near enough to read every nuance of Mina’s expressions. The stool’s seat was upholstered with gold brocade and rested on a base made entirely of a gilt sphinx with grotesquely large and naked breasts. She thought even a Pharaoh’s harem would have rejected such a piece.

When she was seated, she said, “I can’t help wondering what Alicia was doing in that boardinghouse.”

Mina collapsed back against the cushions as if merely considering the issue was more than she could endure, and she lifted her hand to her forehead in the classic “tragic heroine” pose. Sarah rolled her eyes, but of course Mina didn’t notice.

“We had no idea she was there, of course. We had no idea where she was at all! She was always unstable, but she’d begun behaving even more strangely these past few months. She’d taken to having hysterics over every little thing and weeping for no reason whatever. Finally, we had to send her to Greentree. That’s our country home on the bay. We thought the country air might be good for her, and of course, the solitude. But then she ran away. One morning the servants went to waken her, and she was gone, as if she’d disappeared. We’ve feared the worst for weeks now. How could we not? A young girl alone in the world with no one to protect her, and Alicia was even more helpless than most. She was a wicked, evil girl to frighten us all like that, but then, she’s always been hopelessly spoiled. Mother ruined her, and now we all must pay the price of the scandal she’s brought down on us.”

Sarah would have thought the family would be more aware of their loss of a daughter than their loss of reputation because of the circumstances of her death, but Sarah had also not lived among the socially prominent in quite a while. She’d almost forgotten how callous and self-centered they could be. And she knew only too well how unforgiving a family could be when one of their members broke society’s rigid code of conduct.

But she was wasting her time in judging the VanDamms, time that could be better spent finding clues that would lead to Alicia’s killer. “Could someone have helped her run away?” Sarah asked, aware that she was asking the kind of questions the police detective should have. Malloy wouldn’t thank her for interfering, but if she found out something useful, she wouldn’t worry about that. “She couldn’t have managed it on her own, could she?”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Mina said coldly. “She was cunning enough to take her jewelry with her, probably to sell it so she would have money to live on. Heaven knows, she wouldn’t have had any other means of support. So obviously, she planned the whole thing.”

“But how would she have known how and where to sell it without being recognized?” Sarah wondered aloud, remembering how naive she herself had been at that age.

“I’m sure I have no idea,” Mina snapped. “Alicia was very secretive, and she certainly never confided in me. If she had, I might have been able to stop her from making our family a laughingstock. But you saw her the night before she died. Perhaps she said something to you, something that would explain her behavior.”

This time Sarah could not mistake the calculating gleam in Mina’s eyes. Sarah wasn’t the only one interested in the circumstances of Alicia’s death. Mina wanted every scrap of information Sarah could give her about her sister, and she wanted it now.

“I only saw her for a moment. We didn’t really speak at all,” Sarah admitted. Was Mina relieved or annoyed? Sarah couldn’t be sure. “I didn’t even know who she was then, except that she looked so much like you-like the way I remembered you when we were girls-that I actually called her Mina. That seemed to frighten her, but I suppose that’s because she was afraid of being found out.”

“Of course she was, the stupid little baggage!” Mina said angrily. “She was afraid we’d bring her back to the bosom of her family where she was doted upon and pampered. Where her every wish was instantly granted, and where she never had to turn her hand except to feed herself.”

“But something must have driven her away,” Sarah prompted, recalling her own sister and how she, too, had run away from much the same situation. “Perhaps there was a young man-”

“What on earth makes you think that?” Mina demanded, but then she remembered. “Oh, because of Maggie,” she said knowingly, instantly tearing open old wounds that Sarah had thought long healed. “Well, Alicia wasn’t a bit like your sister. She didn’t have ideals.” She said the word as if it left a bad taste in her mouth. “Alicia was just selfish and silly, and she certainly didn’t run off out of love for some common laborer. Even if she’d known any young men-which she didn’t-Alicia never loved anyone but herself.”

Sarah bit back the urge to defend the two girls. Maggie was past caring, just as Alicia was. Still, she couldn’t leave Mina basking in her self-righteousness, especially not if enlightening her might help find Alicia’s killer.

Trying to pretend she took no pleasure in hurting Mina in return, Sarah said, “I think you must be mistaken about your sister, Mina. She most certainly knew at least one young man. You see, I’m fairly certain she was with child.”

“What?” Mina’s face went scarlet and her eyes blazed with outrage. “How dare you say such a thing!”

“Believe me, it gives me no pleasure to shame her like this, but I thought you should know. Your father can probably keep it from becoming public, but finding out who the father of her child was will undoubtedly help the police find her killer, since he probably-”

“The police?” Mina echoed scornfully. She was sitting bolt upright now, fairly quivering with fury. “You mean that horrible Irishman who came here to tell us Alicia was dead? Well, I won’t have it! I won’t have someone like that probing into our lives and spreading lies and gossip about us! Father will never allow it. He’ll put a stop to this investigation immediately!”

“Then how will you find out who killed her?” Sarah asked.

“I don’t care who killed her! Why should I when she never cared about any of us? And what good will finding her killer do anyway? It won’t bring her back, and it will only ruin the lives of those of us she left behind, and we’ve suffered enough already!”

“But you can’t-”

“Sarah, I think you’d better leave now. You’ve caused enough trouble for one day. And if I hear a word of these lies about Alicia being spread about, I’ll know who’s responsible. I can see to it that you are never again received by any respectable family in the city!”

It was a threat designed to terrify, one that would most certainly have terrified Mina, and Sarah didn’t have the heart to tell her that she hadn’t been received by any of those families for years already. Still cursed by her good breeding, she said instead, “I’m sorry to have upset you, Mina. I know this is a painful ordeal for you. If there’s anything I can do to help, please let me know. My address is on my card.”

Somewhat mollified by Sarah’s apology, Mina nodded stiffly. “I’m sure I can count on your discretion about all this, can’t I?”

“Of course.” At least Sarah had no intention of gossiping about Alicia.

Satisfied that she had done all she could, Sarah rose to leave, but just as she reached the door, Mina called after her.

“I don’t suppose the police found her jewelry, did they? She had several very lovely pieces. One of them was a family heirloom.”

“I’m sure if they had, they would have returned them to you,” Sarah said, sure of no such thing. If the jewels had been in Alicia’s room when she was found, an underpaid police officer might well have slipped them into his pocket. But they could also have been stolen by Alicia’s killer. Tracing them might help solve the case. She would have to make sure Detective Malloy at least knew they were missing. “But if she needed money to live on, she might have already sold them.”

“She probably did,” Mina mused. “But perhaps we could offer a reward to have them returned.”

Sarah saw no reason to reply and let herself out, wondering what insanity had persuaded her that coming here would be a good idea. She’d really taken no pleasure in hurting Mina, regardless of how much she might have deserved it, and now she had to accept the fact that Mina cared more for her social standing and the missing jewelry than for finding out who killed her sister.

None of this should have come as a surprise to her, of course. She’d lived with people just like Mina most of her life. Her own sister had died because of people like Mina. Which of course didn’t make her any more kindly disposed toward them. Alicia may well have been just like Mina, too, and unworthy of Sarah’s concern. But Sarah couldn’t believe that, not when she remembered the haunted look in the young girl’s eyes that night before she died.

Alicia had been young and terrified and alone and pregnant, and someone had choked the life out of her, murdering not only her but her unborn child as well. Even if Alicia hadn’t been worthy of Sarah’s concern, the innocent child certainly was, and she couldn’t stand the thought that someone could snuff out two lives and never be held accountable. Sarah might have to deal with injustice every day, but she didn’t have to like it. And if she could possibly defeat it, just this once, then she would.

Lost in her thoughts, she didn’t realize that someone had been watching her as she descended the ornately carved staircase into the front hallway.

“Sarah?”

Startled, she looked up to find Cornelius VanDamm standing in the foyer below. He looked, she noticed with some relief, like a man who had just lost a child. His face was pale and his eyes haunted, although his clothing was immaculate and remarkably free of creases, as if he’d only just now put it on.

“Mr. VanDamm, I’m so very sorry about Alicia.”

“It really is you, isn’t it? Sarah Decker? I could hardly credit it when Alfred told me.”

“I’m Sarah Brandt now.”

“Oh, yes, of course. I thought I remembered that you’d married. I don’t think I know your husband, though.”

Of course he didn’t. Tom hadn’t wasted his time with society. Sarah decided not to mention that, though, or to explain that she was now a widow, either. The man had enough death on his mind at the moment. “I stopped by to pay my respects to Mina.”

“Is it true you saw Alicia the night she died?”

“No, it was the night before, or rather, early the morning before. I’m a midwife, you see, and-”

“A midwife?” he echoed her, but without the contempt Mina had shown. He was merely puzzled. “How odd that your father would permit such a thing.”

“My father has no say in the matter, I’m afraid,” Sarah informed him, shocking him thoroughly. Before he could pursue the subject further, she said, “I already told Mina that I didn’t really speak with Alicia that night. I didn’t even know who she was until… Well, the police asked my help in going through her things, and I found her name embroidered in her jacket.”

He nodded and looked away, his face carefully expressionless-men of his class considered any display of emotion vulgar-but his eyes were haunted with a pain Sarah could only imagine.

“Mr. VanDamm, I hate to mention this, but I spoke with the detective who is investigating Alicia’s death, and… Well, perhaps you aren’t aware of it, but the police don’t usually exert themselves to solve cases unless they stand to gain something from it.”

His gaze swung back to her, the pain in his eyes replaced by the kind of amazement he might have expressed if his gardener had suddenly presumed to offer him advice.

Before he could stop her, Sarah hurried on, knowing she wouldn’t have another chance like this one to state her case. “I don’t know how capable this Detective Malloy is, but I’m sure he won’t bother to find Alicia’s killer unless he is compensated in some way. Even if he is, there’s no guarantee he has the resources to succeed, either, so you might want to consider hiring a private investigator of your own to make sure the case is solved.”

There. Mina might think finding Alicia’s killer was a waste of time, but she didn’t make the decisions here. Cornelius VanDamm was the master of this house, and now he understood just what he had to do to ensure his daughter’s killer was brought to justice.

Sarah would have felt better if he wasn’t staring at her as if she’d just grown a second head. Most likely no female had ever presumed to advise him on anything, most certainly not on the handling of criminal investigations. She was awfully glad she hadn’t mentioned that Alicia was pregnant. VanDamm probably would have had her thrown bodily from the house for being so shameless. Well, he’d find out soon enough, probably from Mina, but certainly from the authorities. If even they would dare reveal it to him. Or if he didn’t already know.

“Thank you for the information, Sarah,” VanDamm said. He had withdrawn completely, shutting off any indication of his true emotions, a trick she’d seen her father use when he no longer wanted to discuss something particularly painful. Like Maggie. “And thank you for stopping by. I’m sure Mina appreciated it.”

Sarah could have contradicted him, but she decided to leave instead. Being in this house with these people was bringing back too many unpleasant memories. After murmuring the appropriate condolences, she made her escape out into the street.

What had ever made her think she could do any good in that house? If Cornelius VanDamm wanted his daughter’s murder solved, it would be solved, even if that meant the police superintendent himself had to handle the case. And if he didn’t want it solved… Well, there was nothing Sarah Brandt or anyone else could do about it. She’d already done all she could. Now she would just have to wait and see.


“BABY KILLER! BABY killer!”

The cry from the small boys in the street told Frank that the woman he sought must be approaching. He’d been sitting on the stoop of the comfortable house on Gramercy Park for almost an hour, using the time to mull over the facts in the case of Alicia VanDamm’s murder. He hadn’t reached any enlightening conclusions, but perhaps the woman for whom he was waiting would be able to help.

Emma Petrovka was a middle-aged woman of substantial girth who made her way laboriously down the street using a silver-headed cane for support. Such canes had come into fashion when Queen Victoria started using one in her old age, but Frank suspected Mrs. Petrovka didn’t use one because it was stylish. More likely, her knees had given out under the strain of supporting her enormous weight, and she needed the extra support.

At first Frank thought her hearing must have gone, too, because she seemed oblivious to the chanting of the hoard of street Arabs who descended upon her. They were the filthy, ragged, barefoot urchins who sold newspapers or shoe shines to earn their daily bread and who slept in culverts and alleys because their own families had turned them out to fend for themselves.

“Baby killer! Baby killer!” they cried.

They had, it seemed, found someone lower than themselves whom they were free to torment. Because in spite of her rich gown, which she held up in the typically feminine “skirt clutch” with her free hand to protect it from the dirt of the street, and her luxurious home, Emma Petrovka was socially no better than these homeless waifs.

But if Frank thought she couldn’t hear the taunts, he was wrong. She was simply ignoring them. As she reached the house, she stopped, patiently opened her purse and withdrew something in her clenched fist. For an instant, Frank thought she meant to harm her tormentors, although what she could have thrown at them to hurt them, he couldn’t imagine. But when she cocked her arm and threw, she released a shower of pennies that clattered musically onto the cobblestones.

In an instant the guttersnipes were scrambling and pushing and shoving, trying to snatch up as many coins as they could before their fellows got to them. Forgotten, Emma Petrovka turned and started up her front steps.

Only then did she notice Frank, who rose to meet her.

“That only encourages them to taunt you again,” he pointed out mildly.

“No, it prevents them from doing even worse,” she said, heaving her weight up first one step and then another. “Who are you and what do you want? I don’t talk to no newspaper reporters, so if that’s who you are-”

“I’m with the police,” Frank said, showing her his badge. “I’m Detective Sergeant Malloy.”

If she was afraid-as well she might have been, since her profession was patently illegal-she gave no indication. Instead she sniffed in derision. “I pay my protection money every month. You ask the captain. He will tell you not to bother me.”

“I’m not here to bother you. I want to ask you some questions. About a girl you may have seen.”

“I have seen many girls, Mr. Detective Sergeant. That is the nature of my profession.” She had reached the front door, her sheer bulk forcing Malloy to step aside, and she was fitting a key into the lock.

“This girl was murdered.”

Emma Petrovka looked up at him. Her eyes were the color of mud, peering out like two dull marbles from the folds of fat that made up her face. She had a large mole on her cheek with several long hairs growing out of it, and her small mouth was pursed into a frown. “If a girl dies after one of my procedures, that is not murder,” she informed him, and returned to the task of unlocking her front door.

“That’s not how she died. Someone strangled her. But we know she was going to have a baby and an abortionist visited her the night she was killed.”

Emma Petrovka pushed open her front door, then gave Frank a pitying look. “Do you think I killed this girl?”

Plainly, such a thing was impossible, so Frank didn’t even consider replying. “I think whoever sent you there killed her. Her name was Alicia VanDamm.”

She raised her bushy, black eyebrows but gave no other indication that she recognized the name. “I do not know this person, Mr. Detective Sergeant. I cannot help you.”

Before Frank could pose another question, Emma Petrovka had passed through the doorway, and now she slammed the door shut in his face. For an instant he stood staring at the lace curtains swinging on the other side of the glass and considered forcing his way inside. Except he wasn’t really that interested in talking to her anymore. She was an ugly, unpleasant old woman. If he wanted to talk to an ugly, unpleasant old woman, he’d go home.

Sighing wearily, he turned and sauntered down her steps. The boys who had been tormenting her were gone now, scattered after cleaning the coins from the street to find other sources of amusement. Frank reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the list of names he had culled from various sources. The list was surprisingly short. He would have thought a city the size of New York could provide work for hundreds of abortionists, and he would have thought they’d all be willing to cooperate with the police on any matter. He would’ve been wrong on both counts. The half dozen women he had visited today had all been as tight-lipped as Emma Petrovka.

He was wasting his time, of course. No one was going to admit having attempted an illegal procedure on a girl who was later murdered. But as thin as this thread was, it was the only one he had. Checking the next address on the list, he headed off downtown.


SARAH WAS PLEASED to see that the “Room for Rent” sign was gone from the front window of the Higgins’s house. Several of the Higgins children were playing on the front stoop. Sarah greeted them by name.

“How do you like your new baby brother?” she asked them.

“He sleeps all the time,” Mary Grace informed her disdainfully. As the eldest, Mary Grace apparently felt it was her responsibility to speak first. Her brown eyes were large in her delicate face and much too serious for a girl who had only known ten summers.

“He’s too little to play,” Robert complained. Robert was only five but much sturdier than his slender sister.

“He’ll grow,” Sarah said. “But he’ll never catch up with you. You’ll always be bigger than he is.”

“I will?” Plainly, this idea delighted Robert.

Eight-year-old Sally looked up from rocking her rag doll and said, “But you’ll never be as big as me and Mary Grace. You’ll always be our baby brother.”

“I’m not a baby!” Robert cried in outrage and began to howl.

Sarah would have comforted him, but Mary Grace was apparently used to such outbursts and wrapped her frail arms around his husky body and patted his shoulder for a few seconds until he’d forgotten why he was crying and ran off to find something else to do.

“Is your mother staying in bed?” Sarah asked Mary Grace, figuring the girl would tell the truth while the mother might lie.

“Most of the time,” Mary Grace said. “I try to make her rest.”

“Remind her that if she gets sick she’ll make double work, because then the rest of you will have to take care of her on top of doing her work for her. Maybe that will help.”

Mary Grace nodded solemnly. “I’ll do that. Thank you, Mrs. Brandt.”

Sarah wished Mary Grace would smile. She looked far too old for her years. Just the way she remembered Alicia VanDamm. She knew why Mary Grace was so serious. Her mother was overwhelmed, and a lot of her burdens fell on the child. But Sarah couldn’t imagine why Alicia VanDamm, a child of wealth and privilege, had seemed so troubled. Now she might never find out.

Inside, in the cluttered family quarters, she discovered Mrs. Higgins in bed, just where she should have been, and looking better than the last time Sarah had seen her.

“Oh, Mrs. Brandt, you don’t know the trouble we’ve had. The police were here asking everybody questions and going door to door on the street, asking did anybody see or hear anything. As if they’d tell the police if they had! And then we packed up that poor girl’s things because we had to rent out her room-had to charge a dollar a week less because somebody was murdered there! Can you imagine?-and then a man came to collect her belongings. He was the strangest creature. So formal and polite. I asked was he a relative, but he said no, just an employee of the family. Did you ever hear of such a thing? Sending the hired help to collect her things? What kind of people are they? Everybody says they’re rich, that her father owns a bank or something. Could that be true? But why was she living here? I mean, she always paid her rent on time every week, but she never went out or acted like she had anything extra to spend. If her family was rich, why was she on her own?”

“How’s the baby doing?” Sarah asked, determined not to spread any gossip about Alicia VanDamm and her sad history. The infant was sleeping on the bed beside his mother, and Sarah carefully unwrapped his blanket to examine him. She was pleased to note that he had filled out nicely. His little cheeks were rounding, and his arms and legs were growing plump. He stirred a little, his small mouth making sucking motions, as if he dreamed he was suckling, and Sarah quickly re-covered him before he could awaken. “He seems to be doing well,” she remarked. “Have you decided on a name?”

“Harry after Mr. Higgins’s father,” Mrs. Higgins said almost absently. “But that wasn’t the worst of it. That man-that employee-he wanted to know if we’d stolen Alicia’s jewels! Can you imagine? He practically accused us to our faces! This is a respectable house, I told him. If she had any jewels, I never knew anything about them, and if they’re gone missing, he’d do better to be asking the police about it.”

“I’m sure he didn’t really think you’d taken them,” Sarah soothed her. Sarah could just see the VanDamm’s butler looking down his nose at the Higginses and telling them they’d better turn over Alicia’s jewelry or else.

“If anybody took them, it was that Hamilton Fisher. From the day he moved in, he was always hanging around her room. Not that she ever left it, except to eat, mind you. I used to wonder what she found to do all alone up there all day. Just stared out the window, I expect. But whenever she did come out, he was right there, trying to make her talk to him. Or just notice him, I expect. Never saw a young man so taken with a girl. He’d sit at the table with her and say all kinds of wild things, trying to make her smile. She never did, though. I think she was a little afraid of him. And who could blame her? She just wanted to mind her own business, and there he was, bothering her all the time. But maybe it wasn’t her he was after at all. Maybe he really wanted to steal her things. Do you think that was it, Mrs. Brandt? Do you think he might’ve finally decided just to go into her room and take what he wanted, and when she put up a fuss, he-”

“I’m sure that wasn’t it at all. Please, Mrs. Higgins, you mustn’t upset yourself. It’s not good for you or the baby. I’m very glad you were able to rent out your rooms after all.”

Mrs. Higgins sniffed derisively. “Not to the kind of lodgers I’m used to. They’re a very rough sort of men, I can tell you. That’s what happens when I leave things to Mr. Higgins. He can’t see what people look like, so he isn’t as careful as I would be. But I doubt they’ll be here long. That kind never stays anywhere very long. And when they leave, I’ll be sure to get a better class of lodgers. For full price, too.”

Sarah was hardly listening. She was too busy thinking about Hamilton Fisher and wondering why he’d been so intent on making the acquaintance of Alicia VanDamm. It could be as simple as a young man wanting to be noticed by a pretty girl. But it seemed like more than that, from what Mrs. Higgins described. And of course, he’d vanished the night she died. Had Malloy asked about him? Did he know how interested Fisher had been in Alicia? “Did that young man, that Mr. Fisher, did he have a job?”

“Not that I ever knew,” Mrs. Higgins said, apparently undisturbed by the change of subject. “I was worried he might not be able to pay, but he gave me a month’s rent in advance, so I couldn’t complain, now could I?”

“And then he ran off after Alicia was killed, after only living here a week, when his room was paid for a month?”

“Makes him sound guilty, don’t it?” Mrs. Higgins said, with a worried frown.

“Have you told the police all this?”

Mrs. Higgins gave her a pitying look. “That fellow they sent over, that detective, he hardly asked me any questions at all. Acted like he couldn’t be bothered. Oh, I know nobody’s going to care if some orphan girl gets herself murdered, but if Alicia’s family is really rich, wouldn’t they at least offer a reward? Something to get the police interested?”

“I’m sure they will,” Sarah said, mentally cursing Frank Malloy. Well, he might not appreciate her help in the case, but she had far too much information now to even consider keeping it to herself. Like it or not, she’d have to track him down and make him listen to her. And then she’d have to find out if the VanDamms were going to offer a reward. And if they weren’t…

Well, she’d decide what to do next when she found out. If Alicia’s own family didn’t care enough to find her killer, Sarah wasn’t sure what she could do, but she would do something. Or die trying.


SARAH LOOKED OUT of the hansom cab and frowned up at the slightly tawdry, marble-fronted building on Mulberry Street that served as police headquarters for the city of New York.

“Here you are, ma’am,” the driver called down from his perch above her. Quickly, she paid him through the window overhead and climbed out. The driver wasted no time in clucking his horse into motion again and moving out into the early morning traffic, leaving her standing alone on the sidewalk. Oddly enough, police headquarters was located in a rather rough neighborhood, one in which Sarah didn’t feel comfortable walking unescorted, which was why she’d taken a cab. The hansoms, which were one-seated carriages with the driver mounted above and behind the passenger compartment, were a relatively new addition to the streets of New York, although they had been popular in England for over fifty years. Sarah had felt perfectly safe inside the cab, but as she watched it pull away, her sense of well-being evaporated, and she began to regret her decision to confront Detective Malloy.

She shouldn’t have felt so very uneasy. The tenement buildings around her were just the kind of buildings she frequently visited to deliver babies. The women hanging out of the windows, gossiping and arguing, were the kinds of women who had those babies. And the children playing in the streets, the vendors pushing their cards and shouting for customers, and all the other sights and smells of poverty were only too familiar. No, it wasn’t the neighborhood that worried her, but rather the building that should have provided a sanctuary amid the squalor of the tenements.

Well, what was the worst that could happen to her? Malloy had already said he didn’t consider her a suspect, so she most likely wouldn’t be arrested. Smiling grimly at this small comfort, she looked up at the fanlight window over the green, double entry doors and read the words, “New-York Police Headquarters.” Pretty forbidding. Walking in and brazenly asking for Malloy would also be embarrassing, but Sarah had been embarrassed before and survived. Thinking of poor Alicia renewed her courage, and ignoring the stares of the suspicious looking characters loafing nearby, she made her way up the steep stairs to the front door. Then she had to explain her mission to the doorkeeper who only grudgingly admitted her.

The place smelled of unwashed bodies and tobacco juice. The floor was littered with battered spittoons, but no one seemed able to hit them with their streams of juice because the floor was brown with it. Before her stood a high desk, and behind it sat an enormously fat man in a police uniform. His bald head gleamed brightly in the early morning sunlight.

Sarah tried to ignore the men seated on the benches that lined the walls, all of whom were shackled and some of whom bore signs of a recent beating, but they had most certainly noticed her.

“Hey, O’Shaughnessy, you got the whores making house calls now?” one hollered.

“Is this one of them reforms that Roosvelt’s making?” another cried. “No wonder he wanted to get rid of Byrnes,” he added, naming the recently resigned chief of police.

“If I gotta get measured, I want her to do it!” another called, making reference to the newly instituted Bertillion system of identifying criminals by taking measurements of various body parts and keeping them on file along with their photographs for identification purposes.

“Shaddup,” the desk sergeant commanded, but the suggestive banter kept on anyway. Sarah simply ignored it.

“I’d like to see Detective Sergeant Malloy, if he’s in,” she told the desk sergeant over the din.

“Malloy, is it?” He peered down at her, turning his double chin into a triple. “He expecting you?”

Not likely, she thought, but she said, “Yes, I have some information for him about a case he’s working on.”

He didn’t seem to believe her. Probably, the usual police informants looked nothing like Sarah. “I ain’t sure he’s here,” he said skeptically.

“Perhaps you could check and see. Or send someone to find him. My information is very important. He won’t want to miss it.” There, if that didn’t make Malloy furious with her, nothing would. Sarah didn’t particularly care, however, so long as he listened to what she had to tell him when he got here.

The desk sergeant was scowling at her now, his face a lot redder than it had been, and it had been pretty red before. Plainly, he didn’t like having a woman tell him what to do, no matter how gently she phrased it.

For a moment, she thought he was going to vent his wrath on her, but suddenly, his fury faded into something more sinister. “O’Brien!” he shouted without warning, startling her.

A scrawny young man who hardly looked old enough to shave but who nevertheless wore a police uniform, appeared from a nearby doorway. “Yes, Sergeant?”

“Take this here lady downstairs to one of the waiting rooms.” He used the word “lady” as if he didn’t really mean it.

O’Brien looked Sarah over in surprise. His eyes were very blue and a little frightened, and his pale blond hair was plastered to his skull with hair tonic. “Downstairs?” he echoed uncertainly.

“That’s right, O’Brien, downstairs. She’s waiting for Malloy. Maybe when you’re done, you can go find him for her.”

“Where is he?”

“How the hell…? Oh, sorry, ma’am,” the sergeant said, not sounding sorry at all. “How should I know? If he’s expecting her like she says, he won’t be far now, will he? And in the meantime, the lady can wait for him downstairs.”

Sarah wasn’t sure she wanted to find out what was “downstairs,” but she also didn’t want to leave without seeing Malloy since she had no illusions he would ever come to her, no matter how much information she promised him.

“I’ll be happy to wait, Officer O’Brien,” she assured him.

For a long moment, O’Brien seemed torn between doing his duty and obeying some higher instinct, but in the end, duty won. Or perhaps the Sergeant won. He certainly looked intimidating. Sarah wouldn’t want him angry with her, or at least no angrier than he already was.

“Come with me, then,” Officer O’Brien said, not letting himself look at Sarah again. Sarah knew she was probably making a terrible mistake by going with him, but she’d already come this far. Her chances of getting Malloy to her place were probably nil, she reminded herself, unless she killed someone herself, so this was her only option.

Determined not to show any hesitation, she followed Officer O’Brien down the long, dingy hallway. The walls were painted dark green beneath layers of dirt, and even though the sun shone brightly outside the many windows, the exterior awnings kept the interior dim.

O‘Brien led her down some rickety stairs that were littered with decades of dirt and refuse. Holding the rail, Sarah was glad she’d kept her gloves on. As they reached the basement, new and fouler odors assailed her, the origins of which she didn’t want to know. She was beginning to understand why O’Brien hadn’t wanted to bring her down here.

Through another hall, this one dirtier than the one upstairs, past several doors. Sarah thought she heard the sound of moaning coming from behind one, but she didn’t let herself think about it. Finally, they reached a door that Officer O’Brien opened and indicated she should enter. Unfurnished except for a small table and several wooden chairs, the brick-walled room was illuminated by a single gas jet that cast strange shadows into the corners. Although the sergeant had called this a “waiting room,” Sarah was pretty sure it wasn’t typically used for waiting.

“I’ll try to find him quick as I can,” O’Brien told her apologetically. “And I’d better lock you in. So nobody can bother you,” he added when Sarah widened her eyes in alarm.

Before she could change her mind and beg him to take her back outside where she could hail a cab and flee, forgetting the insane impulse that had brought her here in the first place, he was turning the key in the lock outside.

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