Murder on St. Mark’s place

3

SARAH COULDN’T BELIEVE SHE WAS DOING THIS. She’d gone shopping with Lisle Lasher after Gerda’s funeral, and Lisle had convinced her to buy a hat that could only be called ridiculous. She’d done her hair in a fancy pouf, then pinned the outrageous hat with its huge silk roses and oversized brim onto the top of it. She’d even painted her lips, which was as far as she would go, even though Lisle advised some rouge, too.

She wouldn’t look too out of place in a shirtwaist and skirt. Lots of working girls wore them to the dances, Lisle had told her, but she should have some beads to dress it up. Sarah was now the proud owner of a strand of gaudy glass ones. She would make Lisle a gift of them when the evening was over.

Harmony Hall was a large empty room over a saloon on Fourteenth Street. The sound from the band-it couldn’t be called music-was audible down the street. Sarah decided it must be unbearable inside the hall. The girls had met her a few blocks away, and as they strolled down the street toward it, Sarah began to sense their nervousness.

“If you’d rather not do this, I’ll understand,” Sarah said guiltily. How could she have been so insensitive? They must be terrified of going to the last place Gerda had been before she was murdered.

“Oh, don’t worry, missus,” Hetty said, patting her hair to make sure it was securely in place. “We want to help.”

“Sure we do,” Bertha said, glancing at Lisle.

Lisle looked like a China doll whose paint had been inexpertly applied. Her blue eyes shone in the fading sunlight, and her hair looked like spun gold beneath the brim of her elaborate hat. The paint on her lips and cheeks, probably applied to make her look older and more sophisticated, actually made her look more fragile and vulnerable. Only when one looked deep into her eyes did one see the inner hardness.

That hardness flashed like steel when she looked at Sarah. “We want to find out who killed Gerda, Mrs. Brandt. If you think this’ll help, we’ll do it.”

Plainly, she didn’t think it would, but Sarah knew better. She knew she would find the killer if she just put herself in the right place.

The entrance to the hall was an outside stairway on the side of the saloon. Half a dozen men in loud, checked suits hovered near its entrance, inspecting everyone who passed, as if their approval were necessary for admittance. They were a little the worse for time spent inside the saloon.

“Hetty!” one of them called, a smarmy-looking fellow with slicked-down hair beneath his straw boater. “Who’s that with you? Did you bring your ma to chaperone?”

The others found this hilariously funny and laughed uproariously. Sarah felt her cheeks heating, but she was certain it was from anger.

“At least I know who my ma is!” Hetty replied without missing a beat, tipping up her chin haughtily.

The other men found this even more hilarious, as drunks will. Sarah quickened her step to keep up with the other girls who were scurrying up the stairs to escape the drunks below. At the top of the steps, a burly young man sat at a rickety table collecting the fifteen-cent admission fee. Sarah treated the girls, knowing they had to count their pennies and skip lunches to afford such outings.

The hall was much hotter than the street outside, and the stench of human sweat was strong. Mixed with the smell of stale beer, cigarette smoke, and the other unpleasant odors of the city, it was nearly overwhelming, but Sarah fought off a wave of dizziness and reminded herself that she could get used to anything. She’d delivered babies in enough hovels to know that after a few minutes she wouldn’t even notice the smell anymore. The heat was another matter. She’d just have to ignore it.

The band had been playing a rousing rendition of “After the Ball,” but as soon as they arrived, the music stopped with unnatural abruptness, leaving Sarah’s ears ringing in the sudden stillness. The silence lasted only a moment, however, since the hundred or so people in the room instantly took advantage of the opportunity to converse without screaming over the din of the musicians.

“Let’s find a table,” Bertha said, taking Sarah’s arm and propelling her across the dance floor to where a few empty tables stood. They claimed one crammed in between two groups of drunken young men who might have been related to the men they’d encountered downstairs, so closely did they resemble each other. Or maybe it was just that all their suits were uniformly ugly and garish and their manner equally obnoxious. They hooted at the girls, making suggestive remarks which the girls studiously ignored.

“Don’t pay no attention, Mrs. Brandt,” Lisle advised her. “They like you better if you ignore them.”

Sarah didn’t want them to like her at all, so she wondered if she should openly flirt with them to discourage their attention. That strategy seemed foolish, even if Sarah had the courage to carry it out, so she just sat down with the rest of the girls and concentrated on looking for a killer.

In no more than a few seconds, Sarah realized that Lisle had been only too right in predicting this trip was a waste of time. Easily half the people in the room were men, and all of them seemed to be dressed in tasteless plaid or checked suits. Most of them appeared to be already drunk, and the rest were on their way to it. They were all leering or jeering or both, vying for the attention of a female, any female, it seemed. To Sarah, they all looked exactly like the kind of man who would beat a woman to death. How could she possibly differentiate between them?

Sarah was shocked to see so many of the young women lighting up cigarettes as soon as the dance was over. Or rather, their male companions were lighting the cigarettes for them. Sarah had never seen a respectable woman smoking. She’d never seen a respectable woman drink more than a sip of anything alcoholic, either, but now the couples who had been dancing were making their way over to the bar on the far wall where several harried bartenders were serving drinks. The girls were doing much more than sipping.

“We’ll have to wait till the next time,” Hetty explained to her, nodding toward the bar.

“The next time for what?” Sarah asked.

Bertha rolled her eyes, but Hetty gave her a dirty look that put Bertha in her place. “The band plays for a few minutes, then everybody goes to buy a drink. Or the fellows buy drinks, that is. For the girls they dance with.”

The dancers must need a drink to keep from expiring in this heat, which would provide some excuse for the girls to imbibe, Sarah thought, and realized she was thirsty herself from the walk over. “I’ll treat you to drinks,” she offered, but the girls gaped at her in horror.

“A girl don’t buy her own drinks, missus,” Bertha said, as if explaining one of the more profound truths of life.

“You do, and what’ll the fellows think? They’ll think you don’t need them, that’s what, and you’ll be sitting on the bench all night!”

Sarah managed not to smile. Sitting on the bench all night was exactly what she intended to do, but she wouldn’t spoil their chance to have a good time. By the time the band began to play again, men had begun to buzz around, like flies attracted by the sweet scent of honey. To Sarah, the men looked like people she would cross the street to avoid, but Bertha, Hetty, and Lisle seemed more than pleased with their attention. When the band struck up the first discordant notes to “A Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight” all three of them got up to dance, leaving Sarah to observe.

Hours later Sarah was still observing. She’d bought herself some beer, ignoring the pitying looks she received from the bartender and the other women standing around, and she’d rebuffed the few men who were too drunk to notice her advanced age. Indeed, she was too old by a generation for this event. She was probably the only woman in the place older than twenty, and most were nearer fifteen.

The men tended to be older, probably because a man needed ready cash to impress the girls, and a young boy wouldn’t be able to afford it. In fact, some of the men seemed much older. And when Sarah looked more closely, she realized the older ones were very well dressed, too. Even though their suits were just as tasteless as the others, the quality was much better and the fit one only a tailor could accomplish. Once the sun went down and the shadows grew deep in the hall, Sarah began to understand what men of means might be doing in a working-class dance hall, too. When she had, she was ashamed of her naïveté.

The dancing was merely a ruse to get people into the hall to drink. The band would play one number and then take a break for about ten minutes while everyone went to the bar for a libation. Much more time was spent drinking than dancing, and as the girls became drunk, the men began to take advantage. Or maybe the girls simply began allowing them to.

The most obvious result of this loss of inhibition was the way the style of dancing grew wilder. Several couples were engaged in the kind of dance Sarah overheard someone call “spieling.” The girl would stand stiff as a poker, her left arm out straight, and the man would sidle up to her, positioning himself so that his chin was on her shoulder, regardless of the difference in their heights. She’d put her chin on his shoulder, too, and they’d start pivoting or spinning around in the tightest possible circle, their bodies locked together, in a frenzy of sexual excitement. As if inflamed by the sight of this, other couples stole away to the dark recesses of the hall to engage in the kind of kissing and groping Sarah had never seen in public.

She’d lost sight of Hetty and Bertha, and she feared they had succumbed to the temptations offered by their partners. Lisle was still on the dance floor, but she was offering only token resistance to the man who was using his hands in ways never taught at the dance academy Sarah had attended as a child. Lisle’s gaze met hers across the room, and Sarah suddenly realized the girl was checking to see if Sarah was watching her. She had the uncomfortable feeling that if she wasn’t here, Lisle wouldn’t even be offering token resistance.

This whole evening had been a waste of her time, and an unpleasant waste, too. Seeing the things she’d seen here, she was overwhelmed with dismay and pity at the desperation that would drive young girls to a place like this and compel them to submit to indignities and worse in exchange for the dubious pleasures of male attention.

She should leave. Her presence was an embarrassment to her companions, and she certainly wasn’t going to find Gerda’s killer here. What had ever made her think it would be that easy? She’d have to be careful that Malloy never found out about this foolishness, or she’d never hear the end of it.

As Sarah debated the propriety-and the wisdom-of simply leaving without telling her companions, the last, crashing notes of “Ta-Ra-Ra Boom-De-Ay” rang out, and Lisle came straight back over to the table for the first time in over an hour. Her partner was at her heels, half-angry and half-pleading, trying to convince her to go to the bar with him for a drink.

“I don’t have to put up with your sass, Billy,” Lisle told him, the color in her cheeks real this time. She’d sweated off her rouge long ago. “I’m leaving.”

“Since when did you get so particular?” Billy demanded. “I know how you got that hat. George don’t give them away for free!”

“Shut your mouth!” Lisle snapped, refusing even to look at him. She’d reached the table, and she said to Sarah, “Do you mind if we leave now?”

Sarah was on her feet in an instant, only too happy for an excuse to escape this bedlam. “Should we find Bertha and Hetty?” she asked, gathering her things.

“They know their way home,” Lisle said, heading toward the door. Sarah had to hurry to catch up to her, but she was no match for Billy, who was still pleading his case.

“Don’t be this way, Lisle. I told you, I get paid on Friday. I’ll get you something nicer than a hat! How about some jewelry^?”

Lisle pretended not to hear him, but when she looked back to see if Sarah was coming, her face was scarlet in the smoky light of the hall. “I don’t want nothing from you, Billy. Find yourself another girl.”

Billy said something obscene that made Sarah gasp, and she realized her heart was pounding. This is exactly the scenario she’d imagined had led to Gerda’s death. A young man furious at being spurned follows her and waits for an opportunity to…

But Billy wasn’t following anymore. He’d turned on his heel and returned to the hall, most likely seeking easier pickings. Indeed, the hall was full of young women who would be more than willing to accept his attentions. Why should he subject himself to further rejection when within minutes he could most likely be enjoying success with someone else?

Lisle didn’t stop to wait for Sarah when she reached the street. She plunged through the group of drunks still lingering at the foot of the stairs and was halfway down the block when Sarah caught up with her.

“Wait, Lisle, there’s no need to run!” Sarah cried, finally stopping her. Lisle’s slender body fairly radiated fury as she stood on the sidewalk, waiting. Tapping her foot impatiently, she wouldn’t look at Sarah, either.

Sarah couldn’t resist looking over her shoulder to see if anyone was following them, but no one seemed to care that they were leaving the dance. “Come on, I’ll walk you home,” Sarah said, taking Lisle’s arm gently.

Lisle signed, the anger draining out of her and leaving her looking very young and extremely vulnerable. Sarah had to resist an urge to hug her.

“That Billy,” she said, her disgust sounding sad.

They started walking, and Sarah waited awhile, letting Lisle calm down a bit. Finally, she said, “You were right about that being a waste of time. I don’t know what made me think we’d find Gerda’s killer that way.”

Lisle glanced over, her expression wary. “You didn’t look like you was having much fun.”

“I didn’t go to have fun,” Sarah reminded her. “You didn’t have much fun there at the end. Don’t you like Billy?”

“He was being… fresh,” she admitted.

Sarah didn’t point out that every man in the room was being fresh with someone or that Sarah had concluded taking or allow such liberties was the entire purpose of coming to these dances. They walked another block down Fourteenth Street before Sarah said, “Who’s George?”

Lisle’s head snapped up, her expression frightened now. “Nobody. He’s just… He’s a fellow I know.”

“Did he give you a hat?”

Her mouth tightened. “Don’t pay no attention to what Billy says. He don’t know what he’s talking about.”

Sarah waited a few seconds before saying, “Someone gave Gerda a hat right before she died. Was it George?”

“Could’ve been anybody,” Lisle said defensively.

“But if it was George, maybe the police should talk to him. Find out where he was the night Gerda died. Who is this George?”

At first she thought Lisle wouldn’t answer. Then Sarah realized she was weighing her words very carefully. “He… he’s a salesman. Sells ladies things.”

“And he gives girls presents?”

Lisle seemed to flinch. “He’s real generous,” she allowed, although the admission seemed to pain her.

“You mean he’s generous to girls who are generous to him,” Sarah corrected.

“It ain’t what you think!” Lisle insisted.

“How do you know what I think?” Sarah asked.

“We ain’t whores!” Lisle said. “We don’t take no money!”

“Lisle, I didn’t-Sarah tried, but Lisle ignored her.

“It ain’t whoring if you don’t take money!”

“Lisle, I’m not going to judge you,” Sarah assured her. “I’m just trying to find out who could have killed Gerda before he kills someone else, and the more I know about her, the easier that will be.”

Lisle didn’t say anything for another block. They were getting close to St. Mark’s Place. Sarah didn’t have much time left before Lisle would be home. She gambled. “Lisle, you know this is a dangerous way to live. You could become pregnant. You could get a disease.”

“You think I don’t know that? But how else can we get nice things? Do you know how much I earn at Faircloths? Six dollars a week, that’s how much! And my family’d take it all if I’d let them! As it is, they only let me keep a dollar or two for myself. I’ve got to make do on that, and I have to skip lunch or walk instead of taking the trolley so I can afford to go to a dance.”

Sarah was calculating in her head. The last suit she’d bought for herself cost seven dollars and fifty cents. How many lunches and trolley rides would girls like Lisle and Gerda have to skip and how long would they have to save before they could afford a new outfit? Even a few dollars for a hat or a shirtwaist would require great sacrifice.

Now Sarah understood another truth about the dance she’d just attended. The men were obviously there for sexual favors, and Sarah had assumed the girls gave them for attention. She’d never dreamed there was more at stake.

Both Gerda and Lisle had probably exchanged sex for a hat from the man named George. “What kind of a man is he? This George, I mean.”

Lisle shrugged one shoulder. “He’s all right, I guess. Likes to have fun. Never minds dropping a few dollars to show a girl a good time.”

“Does he have a temper?”

Lisle looked at her with disdain. “All men got a temper if a woman says no. Don’t you know nothing at all?”

Sarah decided not to mention that her husband, Tom, had been at least one exception to that rule. Lisle probably wouldn’t believe her anyway.

“But do you think this George would be violent? Is he the kind of man who-?”

“Who would’ve killed Gerda?” Lisle asked grimly. “I don’t have no idea. Who knows what a man’ll do if a woman pushes him far enough?”

“Would Gerda have pushed him?”

“Gerda liked to make them mad,” Lisle admitted after a moment. “She liked to make them beg her. Lot of men, they don’t like that.”

“Wouldn’t that be dangerous?” Sarah asked, instantly realizing how foolish the question was. Of course it was dangerous. Gerda was dead. “I mean, is that what you do? Is that why Billy was angry?”

Lisle didn’t like talking about this. “I ain’t like Gerda. I don’t like a fuss. I… I just like pretty things.”

They had reached St. Mark’s Place, and they turned toward Tompkins Park. The streets weren’t as deserted as they should have been this time of night. Many people were sleeping on the fire escapes and stoops because of the heat. Others were leaning out of windows or sitting wherever they could find a spot, trying to catch whatever breeze might be stirring.

Lisle lived down a few blocks, in one of the tenements. Sarah remembered how little she knew about the girl.

“Do you live with your family, Lisle?”

“My mother and stepfather.”

“You don’t like him very much,” Sarah guessed from the tone of her voice.

“I hate him,” Lisle said with surprisingly little rancor. It was just another fact of her life.

“I don’t suppose he approves of you going to dances.”

“He don’t have nothing to say about it. I told him if he made any trouble, I’d leave. I’ve got some friends I could stay with. Then he wouldn’t get my money anymore. He didn’t say anything after that.”

“Could you really do that? Live on your own, I mean?”

Lisle made a disgusted sound. “Not likely. Not on six dollars a week, even with three of us to a room. He don’t know it, though, so he leaves me alone.”

The bleakness of Lisle’s existence weighed on Sarah, especially when she thought of Gerda and the other dead girls. Their lives had been equally as bleak and hopeless. “What are your plans, Lisle? What are you going to do with your life?”

Lisle looked up in surprise, as if no one had ever asked her such a question before. “I don’t know,” she said after a moment. “I’ll get me a steady fellow, I guess, and we’ll get married.”

Then the babies would come, too many, too quickly, and fragile Lisle would be old before her time. Maybe she wouldn’t even survive. Life was hard for girls like this, and they had few options. Survival was all they could hope for. Happiness wasn’t even something they dreamed about.

Sarah knew she couldn’t change Lisle’s destiny, but she felt compelled to warn her anyway. “Be careful, Lisle. There are good men out there. Don’t settle for less.”

Lisle gave her an unfathomable look, and Sarah didn’t know how much she’d appreciated the advice. Probably not at all, but at least Sarah had tried.

Lisle’s step slowed, indicating they had reached her building. Some children were sleeping on a blanket on the sidewalk out front, and an old woman crouched on the stoop, staring vacantly out into the darkness. Lisle looked up, apparently checking her family’s apartment windows.

“Looks like it’s safe to go in. No lights. They must be asleep.” Her smile was wan in the glow of the gaslight.

“Thank you for taking me with you tonight,” Sarah said. “I hope I didn’t ruin your evening.”

“There’s always tomorrow,” she said philosophically.

“Gerda thought that, too,” Sarah reminded her gently. “Don’t take any foolish chances.”

Lisle smiled slightly and shook her head, as if unable believe Sarah was real. “Good night, Mrs. Brandt.”

Sarah waited until she had disappeared into the building. She glanced at the old woman, but she hadn’t moved, and Sarah realized she was asleep. Sitting straight up but fast asleep. Probably she was guarding the children.

Leaving them to their rest, Sarah made her way back down St. Mark’s and back toward her own home in Greenwich Village.

SARAH DIDN’T KNOW exactly what she could say to Agnes Otto. The new mother was still in bed, just as Sarah had recommended, and Sarah suspected she was suffering just as much from grief as she was from the exertions of childbirth. Her eyes were red-rimmed, as if she’d been crying, when Sarah arrived the next day.

“Mrs. Brandt, do you know anything about my Gerda? Did the police tell you anything?” she asked eagerly.

“I spoke with my friend, but he hasn’t told me anything yet. The police are probably still investigating,” she added, knowing it was most likely a lie, but not wanting to hurt Agnes any more than was necessary. “How are you feeling?”

Agnes’s head rolled on the pillow, and she closed her eyes against fresh tears. “I cry all the time. I cannot stop,” she said.

The baby was sleeping beside her on the bed, swaddled in spite of the heat, and Sarah carefully unwrapped her. The baby’s arms and legs were still spindly, and when she pinched the baby’s skin, it didn’t spring back the way it should have.

“How often do you feed the baby?” she asked.

Agnes waved her hand vaguely. “When she cries.”

“She’s not thriving. She should have put on more weight than this, and she’s dehydrated… not getting enough to eat,” Sarah explained when she saw the alarm in Agnes’s eyes. “She might just be a good baby who doesn’t wake up often enough. You’ll have to feed her even when she doesn’t cry. Every two or three hours. Listen for the clock to chime and feed her.” The Ottos wouldn’t have a clock of their own, but the city was full of public clocks by which people regulated their lives. “Wake her up if you have to.”

She could see Agnes’s despair. Sarah was making demands of her, and she didn’t think she could cope. “Maybe one of your neighbors would help you remember,” Sarah suggested.

“They already do enough,” Agnes said. “They take care of my children and bring us supper every night. I cannot ask more.”

Maybe she couldn’t, but Sarah wasn’t afraid to, not if it might save this baby’s life.

Sarah finished checking Agnes and the baby, and as she stepped away from the bed, she nearly tripped over a small wooden box sitting on the floor.

“Oh, that is Gerda’s things,” Agnes said, new tears welling in her eyes. “All that is left of her.”

The lid had come loose, and Sarah used that as an excuse to kneel down and peek inside. A thought occurred to her. “Did Gerda keep a diary?”

That was how she and Malloy had finally solved the first murder they’d investigated together. The victim’s own words written in her diary had led them to the killer.

“A what?” Agnes didn’t recognize the word.

“A… a journal?” Sarah tried. “A book she wrote things in, private things?”

Agnes found the very idea ridiculous. “Nein. Why would she do such a thing?”

Of course she wouldn’t, Sarah thought. That would have made finding her killer so much easier. Assuming she’d even known her killer before that night, that is.

Sarah pretended to repack the items in the box more carefully while she was really examining them for any clues. She found little of interest, however. Only a few strings of glass beads, a handkerchief with ragged lace, and there, in the very bottom, a photograph. Sarah opened the cardboard frame, expecting to see a picture of the dead girl. Instead she found what appeared to be a picture of people in a boat, and they all appeared to be screaming.

Puzzled, she looked up at Agnes for an explanation.

“It is Gerda. There in the front row,” she said, pointing.

Sarah looked again and recognized Gerda Reinhard. She was sitting with a young man in a bowler hat. He had his arm around her, and they were obviously only pretending to be frightened. “Where was it taken?”

“At that place, what do they call it? It is on an island…”

“Coney Island?” Sarah asked, looking at the photograph again.

“Ja, Gerda said they have this boat ride. The boat goes down a… a hill and makes a big splash.”

“And they take a photograph of it?” Sarah knew that couldn’t be true. Photography required that the subjects sit very still. Taking a picture of an amusement-park ride would be impossible.

“Yes,” Agnes said, “but not when it is going.” She searched for the proper words to explain. “They have a special boat. That one,” she added, pointing to the picture. “You sit in it, and they make a photograph. The people in the boat are just pretending to be riding down the hill.”

“Oh, I see, so they have a souvenir of their adventure,” Sarah said, looking more closely at the picture. “Do you know the man sitting with Gerda?”

“No, we do not, and that made Lars very angry. He say Gerda should not be making photographs with men he does not know.”

Sarah only wished Gerda had only been posing for photographs with such men. That was the least of her transgressions.

“At least you have her picture,” Sarah pointed out. “To remember her by.”

“But such a picture,” Agnes lamented, closing her eyes again.

Sarah discreetly finished examining the contents of the box, carefully replaced the lid, and set it back where she had found it. Maybe she could ask Lisle and the other girls if they knew the man in the photograph, although the chance that he was Gerda’s killer was probably remote.

“That was the day when she got the red shoes,” Agnes murmured, her eyes still closed so that Sarah wasn’t sure if she’d been addressing her or not.

“Gerda got the red shoes when she went to Coney Island?” Sarah asked.

Agnes nodded, her face a mask of pain. “Just before she…”

“Agnes, would you mind if I borrowed this photograph for a few days? I’d like to see if I can find out who this man with Gerda is.”

Agnes’s eyes flew open, and her pain instantly turned to horror. “Do you think he is the one?”

“That’s something we can let the police find out,” she demurred.

Malloy would be proud of her restraint. She’d have to make sure he heard about it very soon.