Murder On Mulberry Bend

4

“DETECTIVE?”

Frank forced himself to look away from the body and back at Officer Eisenberg. “Turn her over,” he said, his voice strangely hoarse.

“Yes, sir.” But when Eisenberg reached down, Frank realized he didn’t want a stranger touching her.

“Wait, I’ll do it,” he said sharply, startling Eisenberg, who quickly jumped out of the way.

She’d been wearing that hat when he’d kissed her only a few days ago. This suit, too. He’d seen her wear it a dozen times. Gently he put his hands on her shoulder and her hip to turn her. She wasn’t stiff, which meant she’d been dead for only a couple of hours at most. The coldness of death had seeped through her clothing, though, a chill unlike any other. A chill that could never be warmed.

He’d been a fool. He should have told her how he felt. He should have kissed her again. He should never have let her die without at least trying.

The pain was like a vise around his heart, and he could hardly breathe as he forced his hands to move. Ever so slowly he eased her over, hating the indignity of it, hating that she was lying on the ground, dried leaves clinging to her clothing and her hair, hating that total strangers were staring at her, people who had no right to even speak her name.

He got her over far enough that her own weight carried her onto her back. She landed with a soft rustle in the leaves, and Frank stared down at the face, slack jawed in death, the skin stained an odd, bluish color. The empty eyes stared back at him, holding a secret the blue lips could never reveal.

“Sir, what is it?” one of the other officers asked. The tone in his voice was kind, the way he’d talk to someone who was very ill.

“I just…” Frank had to clear his throat. “I thought I knew her.” It was the eyes. They were brown, not blue. Not Sarah’s eyes at all, thank God. And not her face, either, no matter how death might alter it. He drew a breath and felt the vise of pain around his heart release, leaving him weak.

It wasn’t Sarah. Sarah wasn’t dead.

But someone else was, someone who was wearing Sarah’s ugly hat. Someone who was wearing Sarah’s clothing.

“You don’t recognize her then?” Eisenberg asked.

“No, but I know someone who might.” He sighed with resignation. Or was it relief? Once again fate would take him back to Sarah Brandt.

Sarah had been taking advantage of having no babies to deliver this morning to do her often-neglected housework. She had just finished sweeping the last of the dirt from her kitchen out the back door when she heard someone pounding on the front door. She glanced down at her housedress in dismay. At least she could tell from the urgency of the pounding that it was a summons to service and not a social call, so it didn’t matter what she was wearing. Whoever had come to fetch her would wait while she changed into something more presentable.

Before she could put the broom away, her visitor was pounding again. They were always like that when a baby was on the way. Nobody seemed to remember that most babies took their own sweet time. Untying her apron, she made her way through the front room, which had been converted into a medical office, to the front door.

She hung the apron on the coatrack nearby and gave her hair a cursory pat before opening the door.

“Malloy!” she exclaimed in surprise. She wasn’t sure which was more shocking, his presence here at all or the expression on his face. He looked almost desperate. “What is it?” she demanded, growing desperate herself. “Is something wrong? Is it Brian?” she added as the new fear blossomed.

She stepped back instinctively as he came into the house without waiting for an invitation. Only then did she realize how intensely he was looking at her. His gaze swept over her, taking in her appearance from head to toe. Self-consciously, she touched her hand to her bodice, making sure all her buttons were fastened.

“Malloy, what -?” was all she managed to say before his arms came around her and he crushed her to his chest.

A thousand sensations collided in her brain. Her cheek against the rough fabric of his suit, his masculine scent engulfing her, his arms locked fiercely around her, his breath harsh and rasping in her ear. What felt like a shudder wracked his large frame, and then, as suddenly as he had embraced her, he let her go.

Robbed of his support, she nearly lost her balance, and he caught her arm to steady her, then quickly dropped his hand again. She stared up at him, trying to get control of her scrambled senses. Before she could, he said, “You’re alive.”

“Yes, I am,” she agreed, a little breathless and still unable to make any sense of this. “Was there ever any doubt?”

She’d expected him to smile the way he did whenever she said something sarcastic. But he didn’t smile, and the hand he raised to his head was trembling. Malloy was trembling!

“Come in and sit down,” she urged him, convinced now that he must be ill. Nothing else could explain such bizarre behavior. She took his arm, and he let her lead him to the upholstered chairs that sat by her front window. “Can I get you something?” she asked when he was seated in one of them.

“No,” he said, still looking at her strangely. “No, just… just sit down here where I can see you.”

Now Sarah really was worried. She did as he’d instructed her, taking the other chair. “It’s not Brian, is it? Nothing’s happened to him?”

“He’s fine,” he said. “Everything’s fine now. It’s just… a little while ago, I thought you were dead.”

“Dead?” she repeated incredulously. “What made you think I was dead?”

He drew a deep breath and let it out in a shaky sigh as he rubbed a large hand over his face. Then he gave her a crooked smile. “Because I saw your dead body.”

“Malloy, stop this!” she cried. “You’re frightening me.”

“Then we’re even. I had a few bad minutes myself when I saw you lying dead in City Hall Park this morning.”

“I haven’t been near City Hall in weeks,” she insisted.

“Well, someone was near there. A woman with blond hair who was wearing your clothes and your hat, and she was dead.”

“That’s impossible! What made you think they were my clothes?”

“I recognized them. How could anybody forget that hat? It’s the ugliest thing any woman ever put on her head. There couldn’t be two like it in the city.”

“There’s absolutely nothing ugly about my hat,” she informed him indignantly, “and there’s also no way anyone else could be wearing it or…”

“Or what?” he prodded when her voice trailed off on that thought.

“Oh, dear,” she said, remembering. “Someone else could have been wearing my hat. I gave it away!”

“Who did you give it to?”

“I took it to the mission. The Prodigal Son Mission. I took a whole bundle of clothes down there on Sunday afternoon.”

He looked askance at the shabby dress she was wearing. “Did you take a vow of poverty or something?”

“This is a housedress, Malloy,” she said, indignant again. “I was cleaning when you came. I gave my other clothes away because I got some new ones. From my mother.”

“Did your mother take a vow of poverty?”

Sarah almost smiled. This was the old Malloy. Whatever had been wrong with him, he was feeling better now. “I needed something to wear to the opera last Saturday, so I went to my parents’ house to borrow a dress.”

At the mention of the opera, he frowned, confirming Sarah’s opinion that he was jealous of Richard Dennis. She pretended not to notice.

“While I was there, she insisted that I take several other things as well. My mother has excellent taste, and my new clothes are so much more fashionable than the old ones, I decided I didn’t need them anymore.”

“So you took them to this mission,” Malloy guessed. “The Prodigal Son? Isn’t that the one on Mulberry Street, down by Police Headquarters?”

“Yes, do you know anything about it?”

He shrugged, which either meant that he didn’t know anything or that he didn’t want to say. “So who did you give the clothes to at the mission?”

She opened her mouth to say she’d given them to Mrs. Wells, when the real meaning of his question hit her. “The dead woman must be someone from the mission!”

“Or at least they’ll know who they gave your clothes to,” he said.

Sarah felt a sickness in the pit of her stomach. “Did you say the dead woman had blond hair?”

He winced a little, reminding her that he’d thought the body was hers at first. “Yes. She had brown eyes. Younger than you, but about the same size.”

Sarah groaned and closed her eyes.

“Do you know who it is?” he asked.

“I think… I’d have to see her, of course, but one of the girls at the mission fits that description. An Italian girl.”

“This girl was blond,” he reminded her.

“She must have been from Northern Italy. Her name was Emilia.”

“Emilia what?”

“I don’t know. They’ll know her at the mission, I suppose. If it really is her. They might have given the clothes to someone else,” she added hopefully. Maybe it would turn out to be someone she didn’t know at all.

Malloy sighed again. “I’ll get someone from the mission to identify the body then.”

Sarah remembered the girl she’d met who’d been so full of life and hope. She was learning to sew so she could make an honest living and overcome her unfortunate past.

“I could identify her,” she offered. “If it is Emilia, that would save someone who really knew her from having to go.”

“The city morgue isn’t a very pleasant place,” he warned her.

“That’s why I’d like to save someone else from making the trip. I only met her once, so seeing her in a place like that won’t be as painful for me as it would for someone who cared about her.”

Malloy didn’t want to take her there. She could see it in every line of his face.

“I can go without you,” she reminded him.

“And what if it isn’t her?”

“Then we can go to the mission and tell them what happened. They’ll send someone to find out who it really is.”

This was a perfectly logical plan, but Malloy didn’t like it at all. She wasn’t sure what part of it bothered him until he said, “I guess you won’t want me to go with you.”

“Why not?” she asked without thinking. He didn’t reply, giving her a chance to figure it out for herself. “Oh,” she said after a moment. “Because you were so rude to me yesterday.”

He didn’t confirm or deny it. He just sat there, stubborn as always.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you about that,” she said. “Were you angry at me for being late?”

His lips tightened. “I told you, you didn’t have to come. I didn’t really expect you’d come at all.”

She suspected that wasn’t true, but she said, “Then you must be mad because I did come.”

He sighed. “I’m not mad about anything.”

She wanted to ask if he was jealous, but she decided that would be a waste of time. He’d deny it, and she’d look silly. She decided on another tactic. “Then are you going to explain why you were so rude to me?”

He gave her one of the looks he reserved for uncooperative criminals. “I wasn’t being rude, Mrs. Brandt. I was just stating a fact.”

His look didn’t bother her one bit. “Then I won’t expect an apology,” she retorted pleasantly.

She thought he might be grinding his teeth. “Do you want me to go with you to the morgue or not?” he asked finally.

She wasn’t going to fall into that trap. “You’ll need to know if I recognize the dead woman, so you might as well go with me,” she said, trumping him. “I’ll need to change my clothes first. I won’t be long.”

Sarah took her time changing and redoing her hair. Perversely, she wanted to look her best for this awful task. She distracted herself from thinking about what lay ahead by thinking about the way Malloy had embraced her when he came into the house. The act in itself was shocking. Even more shocking was the fact that he hadn’t apologized for taking such a liberty. She wasn’t sure what that meant, but she wasn’t going to ask him about it. The mood he was in, she couldn’t imagine what he’d have to say on the matter, and she thought perhaps they were both better off pretending it hadn’t happened.

Until she was ready to mention it again, of course.

One thing was certain, however: he’d been very happy to find her alive and well, happier than he felt he had a right to be.

The question was, did Sarah think he had a right to be? She remembered how he’d kissed her that night last week when he’d thought she wouldn’t remember. She remembered how she’d felt in his arms a short while ago. She remembered how her parents had warned her about Malloy. And she remembered how Malloy had warned her about Malloy. Too many things to remember, she decided as she slid her foot-long hat pin carefully into her new hat. The sturdy pin would hold it in place through the force of a hurricane.

Sarah thought she looked very attractive in the stylish suit her mother had insisted she couldn’t possibly wear again because it was a year old. Malloy didn’t look impressed, however. His eyes narrowed, and she realized he was staring at her hat.

“Don’t tell me you think this hat is ugly, too,” she challenged.

“I remember now. You were wearing this one yesterday.”

Which meant the dead woman had been wearing the old one. Sarah didn’t want to think about that. “Let’s go,” she said.

They walked over to Sixth Avenue in silence, and Malloy hailed a Hansom cab to take them to the morgue.

Malloy’s bulk made for close quarters in the cab. Sarah should have felt awkward, but the enforced intimacy came naturally to her now. In the months she’d known Malloy, they’d been through a lot together. A few recent, awkward moments couldn’t make him an unfamiliar or uncomfortable presence.

“How is Brian doing?” she asked to break the silence. Traffic was moving slowly, as usual, so they’d have a lot of time to fill before they reached their destination.

He carefully didn’t look at her. “He’s driving my mother crazy. All he wants to do is walk on his new foot. He even tries to get out every time somebody opens the door to the flat.”

“It’s cruel to keep him inside,” she pointed out.

“He doesn’t have shoes yet,” Malloy reminded her. “Ma won’t let him out without shoes.”

“What did she say when she saw he could walk?”

Malloy did look at her then. “She crossed herself and said a Hail Mary.”

Sarah could easily imagine Mrs. Malloy doing just that. She wouldn’t dare express joy, for fear of attracting bad fortune to her loved ones.

When he offered nothing else, she let a few minutes pass before she said, “What do you know about the Prodigal Son Mission?”

“I know they don’t allow any prodigal sons in.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s for prodigal daughters only. I thought you said you visited them. You didn’t see any boys around, did you?”

“There were boys playing in the yard,” she said.

“The old woman lets them in the yard, but no further.”

“But that’s good,” Sarah argued. “The girls she takes in probably need to be protected from men.”

“Then she should call the mission something else,” Malloy argued back.

He still hadn’t answered her question. “Do you know Mrs. Wells, the lady who runs it?”

“Not very well. Everybody knew her husband. He preached on street comers for years.”

“What was he like?”

“A fanatic, like all of them.”

“Like all of who?” she challenged. “Protestants?”

He gave her another of his looks. “Evangelists,” he corrected her. “At least the kind who think they’re called to save the poor.”

“Don’t you think that’s a worthy calling?”

“Depends on what you’re saving them from.”

“I imagine they’re trying to save them from hell,” she said.

“There are lots of kinds of hell,” he reminded her. “And you can find all of them on the Lower East Side.”

“Mrs. Wells is saving girls from that, too,” Sarah pointed out. “Emilia, the girl I was telling you about, was a prostitute when Mrs. Wells took her in.”

“You didn’t ask me what I thought of Mrs. Wells. You asked me what I thought of her husband.”

That was true. “And you haven’t really told me.”

Malloy gave her a put-upon look. “He was enthusiastic but… weak,” he said, finally settling on a word.

“Weak in what way?” Sarah thought he might mean physically, since she knew Mr. Wells had died young.

“I’m not sure weak is the right word, but he just never accomplished anything important. He preached for years, and he still never had a congregation or many followers. He tried to help people, but he never had much success.”

“How did he get the mission?”

“Some rich woman gave him the money, or at least that’s what I heard. He bought the house, and then he got sick and died.”

“And his wife took over his ministry,” Sarah said. “She seems to have been stronger than he was.”

“She’s more successful, at least.”

“But you don’t seem to think much of her, either.”

“She doesn’t have any use for Papists, Mrs. Brandt.”

Sarah recalled that Mrs. Wells had been pleased that Emilia had renounced her Catholic faith. “Does she force people to convert?”

“I’m not sure you’d call it forcing. She just doesn’t help anyone who doesn’t.”

“Oh,” was all Sarah could think to say. She tried to imagine turning away someone in need because she didn’t agree with the way they worshipped God. Mrs. Wells seemed too kind to do something like that, but she was deeply religious and convinced her faith was the only correct one.

As if tired of the subject, Malloy asked if she’d seen Webster Prescott, the newspaper reporter who had been injured during their last investigation. Sarah informed him of Prescott’s improving condition, and they discussed the young man’s situation for the rest of the trip.

When the cab reached the morgue, Sarah began to regret her decision to come. The building seemed to loom over her, casting a shadow across the sun of this pleasant day. Malloy paid the cab driver, then offered her a hand down. A small part of her wanted to tell him she’d changed her mind, but pride controlled the larger part of her. She took his hand and stepped out of the cab.

His fingers were strong, but he released her as soon as she was safely on the pavement and stepped back, as if anxious to keep a safe distance between them now that they were out of the confines of the cab.

“You don’t have to do this,” he reminded her, as if sensing her doubts.

“Yes, I do,” she said. He shook his head, but he led her inside.

For some reason, she had expected more ceremony around the viewing of a body. The unidentified dead were kept in a basement room, their bodies lying on tables and covered with sheets. The place reeked of chemicals and death. She fought an urge to put her handkerchief over her nose. She didn’t want to betray any weakness before Malloy.

The attendant was a scrawny young man with a pockmarked face who acted annoyed at being disturbed.

“This is the one,” he said, leading them to one of the tables after consulting his list. “Came in this morning.” Sarah followed him and stood beside the table holding the shrouded body he’d indicated. He went to the other side of the table and casually drew back the sheet, revealing the dead woman’s face and bare shoulders. They had already removed her clothing, the last indignity of death.

Someone had closed her eyes, but no one would imagine she slept. Her skin was blue, her lips almost purple. Still, Sarah recognized her instantly, and the sadness was like a weight in her chest. “It’s Emilia,” she informed Malloy who stood off a ways, waiting for her verdict. “How did she die?” she asked the attendant.

He shrugged.

“Her cheek is all red. Did someone beat her?” she asked.

“No, that’s from the blood,” he explained importantly. “She was laying on her face when they found her. The blood settles to the lowest point.” Sarah looked more closely and realized he was right.

“She’s blue,” she told Malloy this time. “That means she must have suffocated.”

“Coroner says not,” the attendant said, now with an air of superiority. “Her eyes ain’t bloodshot, like she would be if somebody smothered her.”

To the attendant’s surprise, Sarah reached out and raised the dead girl’s eyelid. He was right. Then she leaned closer, examining the girl’s neck for signs she was choked. “There aren’t any bruises on her throat, either.”

“What are you, lady, some kind of doctor?” the attendant asked, giving Malloy a questioning glance.

“I’m a trained nurse,” she informed him. A nurse who had seen death many times and witnessed dying far too often. She turned to Malloy. “What does the coroner think killed her?”

“He don’t know,” the attendant replied, obviously taking great pleasure in knowing more than either of them. “There ain’t a mark on her anyplace.”

“Well, something made her stop breathing against her will,” Sarah said impatiently. “Maybe she was poisoned.”

“You know of a poison makes people stop breathing like that?” he replied in challenge.

Sarah supposed there could be, but she wasn’t exactly an expert on poisons. She turned to Malloy, who was looking even more annoyed than he had before. “Could I examine her myself? Maybe I can find something they missed.”

“They ain’t done an autopsy yet,” the attendant said with a small smirk, “but if you think you can save ’em the trouble, go ahead.” With a flick of his wrist, he jerked the sheet off the body, leaving the poor girl lying there naked and completely exposed.

“You ghoul!” Sarah shouted in outrage, but Malloy was faster. He slammed the attendant against the wall.

“You jackass!” Malloy was saying, his forearm pressed against the fellow’s throat in a very threatening way. “Haynes will hear about this. Now get out of here, before I put you on one of these slabs.”

The attendant had undergone a complete transformation. Stricken with terror over what Malloy might do to him, he’d suddenly found his manners. “I… I’m sorry, ma’am,” he stammered when Malloy released him and gave him a shove toward the door. “I didn’t mean no harm. Please don’t say nothing to Doc Haynes,” he added as he backed out of the room.

Sarah was too busy gathering up the sheet and spreading it over Emilia again to respond. Malloy made a move, as if to go after the fellow, and he scampered away, slamming the door behind him.

“I’m sorry for that,” Malloy said when he was gone. “This kind of work… Well, the best people don’t choose a job like this.”

Sarah could imagine. “This poor girl had little enough dignity in life. I hate the thought of that… that creature looking at her now.”

“He won’t be looking at anything around here anymore. I’ll see to that.”

She looked up from arranging the sheet and gave Malloy a grateful smile. “Do you think it would be all right if I examined her?”

“You don’t have to. Haynes will be doing an autopsy, like that idiot said. He’ll figure it out.”

Sarah sighed. “It’s just… I feel responsible somehow.”

“Because she was wearing your clothes?” he asked with a frown.

“I don’t know why. I just do. Please, I’ll only need a minute.”

He sighed in resignation. “Take as long as you need.” He walked to the other side of the room and sat down in the attendant’s chair. She noticed he carefully turned his back, giving the girl some privacy even in death, and she smiled at his consideration.

Without really knowing what she was doing, Sarah carefully examined every inch of Emilia’s body. Except for more of the red marks on her arm and hip and knee, from where the blood had pooled when she’d been lying dead in the park, she found nothing unusual. Covering her with the sheet again, she called, “Malloy, could you help me turn her over?”

He wasn’t happy about it, but he did, lifting the slight girl as if she’d been a straw dummy and placing her gently on her stomach. “You’re wasting your time,” he said as she pulled the sheet down to check the skin of the girl’s back. “Haynes will probably find out she had some disease and just picked this morning to drop dead.”

“She didn’t look sick when I saw her,” Sarah argued.

The girl’s hair had come undone and was in a hopeless tangle around her shoulders, bits of dead leaves clinging to it. From this angle, Sarah realized with a start why Malloy had thought Sarah’s was the dead body lying in the park. Emilia’s hair was almost the same color as hers.

A wave of pity washed over her, bringing tears to her eyes. She wanted to go back in time. She wanted to change things so that Emilia would still be alive, a young girl full of hope, perhaps for the first time in her life.

Tenderly, she touched the tangle of golden hair in a feeble attempt to smooth it. She found a stray hairpin and pulled it out. As if of their own accord, her fingers began searching for others, combing through the silken locks and pulling out the bits of leaf and dead grass, the way she would have if it had been her own hair.

When she’d done what she could, she twisted the mass back into the semblance of a bun and began securing it with the pins she’d salvaged. She didn’t realize she was crying until a tear dropped onto Emilia’s shoulder, but she didn’t bother to wipe her eyes until she’d finished with her futile task.

Only when Emilia’s hair was tidy again – or as tidy as it could be under the circumstances, did Sarah reach for the handkerchief that all well-bred ladies carried tucked into their sleeves. Emilia’s image blurred, but Sarah resolutely blotted away her tears, until she could see the girl clearly again.

“You can leave her for Dr. Haynes now,” Malloy said quietly, gently. She couldn’t remember ever hearing that tone in his voice. She wanted to look up and see the expression on his face, but something else had caught her attention.

“What’s that?” she asked of no one in particular, leaning down to peer more closely at the hollow on the back of the girl’s neck that was now exposed.

“What’s what?” Malloy asked, but she didn’t answer. She was tracing the small mark with her finger.

“Look, there’s a little dried blood here,” she said, pointing at a spot just at the base of the girl’s skull, where her hair almost hid it.

Malloy examined the spot she’d found. He wasn’t impressed. “You don’t die from a scratch on the neck.”

“It’s more than a scratch,” she insisted. “It looks as if someone stuck something in there. See, the skin closed over it because the wound is so small.”

He looked again. “Could a wound like that kill someone?”

Sarah tried to remember her anatomy classes, and what she remembered alarmed her. “The brain is just inches from this spot. If the knife or whatever it was went straight in, it would sever the spinal cord. If it went upward at an angle, it would plunge right into the brain.”

Malloy still wasn’t convinced. “I thought you said she suffocated.”

“I said she stopped breathing against her will. We don’t know much about how the brain works, but we do know that injuries to it can stop various bodily functions.”

“Like breathing?”

“Like breathing,” she confirmed.

Malloy stepped back from the table, thumbs hooked into his vest pockets, and considered her theory. “Wouldn’t there have been a lot of blood?”

Sarah couldn’t imagine they’d missed blood on the girl’s clothing when they’d removed it. “Where are her things?” she asked, looking around.

Malloy found them under the table, in a sack. Sarah removed each item carefully, trying not to remember that some of these things had touched her own body so recently. She didn’t recognize the shoes and the undergarments. They would have belonged to Emilia. Then she pulled out the jacket of the suit she’d bought at Lord & Taylor just a few short months ago. They’d been having a sale, and she’d been pleased to improve her wardrobe for the reasonable sum of seven dollars. Carefully, hating the very feel of the fabric, she turned the jacket and examined the neckline. She saw no trace of blood.

“I don’t see anything, but a deep puncture wound probably wouldn’t have bled very much,” she said, handing it to Malloy and reaching into the bag for something else. She pulled out the hat she’d worn for so long that she’d stopped noticing it. Malloy had called it ugly, and indeed it was. She tried to imagine anyone being pleased to receive such a worn and shabby thing or wearing it proudly, as Emilia must have done. The thought was too painful to bear.

“What’s this?” Malloy asked and showed her the jacket again. Sarah took it and looked closely at the spot he indicated. She’d missed it because it blended with the dark color of the material, but there, about halfway down, below where the right shoulder blade would have been, was a curiously shaped stain.

“Is it blood?” she asked.

“Looks like it.”

Sarah stared more closely, holding it up to the feeble light. “It’s not from a wound,” she said.

“No,” he said grimly.

“What is it, then?”

“She must have been stabbed with something thin, right?”

“Right.”

“The killer pulled it out and wiped the blood off on her back before he walked away.”

Sarah shuddered in horror. “Dear heaven,” she murmured. “What could they have used to kill her?”

“You said she was Italian?” he asked.

“Yes, I’m sure she was.”

“I’d say it was a stiletto.”