Murder On Waverly Place

1

WITH A WEARY SIGH, SARAH BRANDT PUSHED OPEN THE front door of her house. She’d been awake for more than thirty-six hours, and she wanted nothing more than a quick bite to eat and a long night in the comfort of her own bed. But as she closed the door behind her, she heard a childish shriek of joy and all her fatigue fell away.

She looked up to see her daughter, Catherine, clattering down the stairs to greet her. “Mama!” she cried in a voice that was almost normal and threw her small arms around Sarah’s legs.

Sarah blinked back tears. When she’d found Catherine at the Prodigal Son Mission a few months ago, she wouldn’t speak at all. She’d appeared on the doorstep of the Mission one morning, and no one knew a thing about her life up until that moment except that something had frightened her into total silence. For months she’d remained mute, and only after coming to live with Sarah had she finally begun to speak again.

“What have you and Maeve been doing while I was gone?” Sarah asked, setting her medical bag on the floor so she could hug Catherine back.

The child looked up, her brown eyes wide with excitement. “Mrs. Decker is here!” she reported happily.

Sarah looked up in surprise to see her mother coming down the stairs at a more sedate pace than Catherine had used. Elizabeth Decker wore a simple dress that gave no indication her husband was one of the wealthiest men in New York City.

“Home at last,” Mrs. Decker said with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. Sarah thought her mother must have been worried about her.

“It was a difficult case,” midwife Sarah Brandt explained apologetically, thinking of the breech birth that had taken forever, only to be followed by an unexpected twin sibling. The surprised parents had needed more than a little reassurance. “Have you been here long?”

“All afternoon,” Mrs. Decker said. “But Catherine and Maeve kept me entertained.”

“We played with my doll house,” Catherine reported. “I got new furniture for the nursery.”

“Did you?” Sarah asked with a meaningful look at her mother.

“Yes, she did,” Mrs. Decker confirmed without apology.

“It’s beautiful,” Maeve added. The young woman who served as Catherine’s nursemaid had come down the steps behind Mrs. Decker.

“I’m sure it is,” Sarah said.

“We saved you some ham from supper,” Maeve said. “I’ll fix you something to eat.”

“Thank you,” Sarah said with heartfelt appreciation. “I’m starving.”

“And you’re exhausted, too,” Mrs. Decker said with the slightest trace of disapproval. She didn’t like the idea of her daughter earning her own living, especially when she had a family who was more than able to support her in grand style.

“Come see my new furniture,” Catherine begged, taking Sarah’s hand and tugging her toward the stairs.

“Let your mama take off her things first,” Mrs. Decker said, and Catherine obediently dropped Sarah’s hand and waited with ill-disguised impatience while Sarah removed her hat and jacket.

The next hour passed in a blur as Sarah went upstairs to admire the new doll house furniture, then ate the hearty supper Maeve had reheated for her while listening to a recounting of Catherine’s day. While Sarah was eating, her mother’s driver returned for her, but to Sarah’s surprise, she asked him to wait while she visited with Sarah a bit longer. Finally, Maeve took Catherine up to get her ready for bed, and Sarah had a chance to speak to her mother alone.

“Won’t Father be wondering where you are?” Sarah asked as they sat across the kitchen table from each other.

“He’s out of town on business,” she said, giving her another of those tense smiles. Only now did Sarah realize that the strain she’d sensed earlier in her mother went deeper than simple worry over Sarah’s safety.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, certain now that something must be. Why else would her mother ask her driver to keep the horses standing in the street? “Are you ill? Is Father ill?”

“No, no, don’t be silly,” Mrs. Decker said. “What makes you think something’s wrong?”

“You came here to visit, but instead of going home at a decent hour, you’ve been waiting for me to come home, and… Well, I can see that something is bothering you. What is it, Mother?”

Mrs. Decker smiled again, sadly this time. “I’m amazed at your powers of perception, Sarah. But nothing’s wrong, nothing at all, I assure you. I just… I wanted to ask a favor of you.”

“A favor?” Sarah couldn’t think of a single favor a poor midwife could do for a society matron like her mother.

“Yes, I… It’s difficult to explain, so please, Sarah, have an open mind and don’t judge me until you’ve heard me out.”

“Don’t judge you?” Sarah echoed in dismay, wondering what her mother could have done to merit judgment. “When have I ever judged you?”

“You can be quite uncharitable about other people’s… weaknesses, Sarah,” her mother said.

Sarah gaped at her in astonishment. “I’m not uncharitable!” she insisted, stung by the accusation. “And what weaknesses could you possibly…?” Her voice trailed off as she had a most horrifying thought. “Have you taken a lover?”

Her mother gaped back at her in equal astonishment, and Sarah watched the emotions race across the familiar face-surprise, amazement, revulsion, and then amusement that finally dissolved into hysterical laughter. Elizabeth Decker, one of New York society’s four hundred most elite members, was suddenly howling with laughter at Sarah’s kitchen table.

“I suppose this means I was wrong about the lover,” Sarah guessed wryly as her mother tried to compose herself.

“Oh, dear me, yes,” Mrs. Decker assured her as she wiped the tears from her eyes with a lace-trimmed handkerchief that cost more than Sarah earned in a month. “A lover! What on earth made you think of such a thing?”

“You asked me not to judge you,” Sarah reminded her tartly. “And you said I was uncharitable. I tried to think of what you could have done that I would find unforgivable.”

“And moral turpitude was the only thing that came to mind?”

“It also had to be something you were embarrassed to tell me,” she said, realizing it for the first time herself. The strain she’d sensed in her mother was embarrassment, not worry.

Mrs. Decker sobered. “Oh, yes, well, perhaps that is part of it. Not embarrassment, exactly, but a bit of… discomfort.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, just tell me,” Sarah said in exasperation. “It can’t be worse than what I was imagining.”

Her mother straightened in her chair, as if gathering her courage, and drew a deep breath. “I… I would like for you to accompany me to a séance.”

This was so far from anything Sarah had imagined that she needed a moment to make sense of it. “A séance?” she repeated stupidly. “You mean where they talk to ghosts and rap on tables?”

“I’m sure I don’t know what they do,” her mother said, no longer trying to hide her discomfort. “I’ve never attended one.”

“Then why do you want to attend one now?”

“A friend of mine, Mrs. Burke… Do you remember her? We were in school together.”

“I think so,” Sarah said, remembering a gentle lady who had visited her mother from time to time.

“Well, she… she lost her sister several years ago. They had been quarreling, and Kathy never had an opportunity to… to say good-bye or ask forgiveness. Then she heard about this medium…”

“What’s a medium?” Sarah asked with a confused frown.

“That’s what you call the spiritualist who conducts the séance. Kathy heard about this medium who is able to speak to the dead-”

“Mother!” Sarah cried in dismay. “No one can speak to the dead.”

“I knew you’d be judgmental. I asked you specifically-”

“All right, all right,” Sarah said, lifting her hands in surrender. “Go on. She heard about this… this medium person.”

“So she went to see her. Madame Serafina, that’s her name. She was able to contact Kathy’s sister.”

This was all so ridiculous that Sarah didn’t even know where to begin. She drew a fortifying breath and tried not to be uncharitable on top of being judgmental. “Are you saying that this… this medium person-”

“Madame Serafina,” her mother supplied.

“Madame Serafina,” Sarah repeated dutifully. “That she was able to speak to Mrs. Burke’s dead sister?”

“Well, not directly, you understand. She apparently has a spirit guide who speaks to those who have passed to the other side.”

Sarah rubbed her forehead where a knifelike pain was pulsing. How she wished her mother had chosen to have this conversation on a day when Sarah had had a full night’s sleep beforehand. “Mother,” she tried patiently, “this isn’t possible. We can’t speak to the dead.”

“Of course we can’t,” her mother readily agreed. “That’s why you need a spirit guide to do it for you.”

Sarah stared at her mother in disbelief. Had she lost her senses? “Why on earth would you want to talk to the dead in any case?”

“Because,” her mother said, and to Sarah’s horror, Mrs. Decker’s eyes filled with tears. “I want to talk to Maggie.”

At the mention of her sister’s name, Sarah’s own eyes stung as a pain so great she could hardly bear it filled her chest. Of course. Why hadn’t she realized it immediately? “Oh, Mother,” Sarah said, reaching across the table to take her mother’s hand.

“No,” Mrs. Decker said, snatching her hand away and blinking fiercely at her tears. “Don’t give me sympathy. I don’t deserve sympathy. I don’t deserve forgiveness either, but I want to ask for it anyway.”

“Maggie forgave you long ago,” Sarah assured her.

“No, she didn’t,” her mother insisted. “How could she? She died before she even knew I was sorry for what I did to her.”

“Mother, listen to me-”

“Kathy spoke to her sister,” Mrs. Decker insisted, the pain like a flame burning in her eyes. “She hadn’t been able to eat or sleep for months, and then she spoke to her sister and apologized, and her sister forgave her.”

Sarah’s heart was breaking over her mother’s anguish. “Mother, these people who do this, they’re charlatans. They trick gullible people just to get their money.”

“I know many of them are,” Mrs. Decker agreed too easily. “But not this one. Kathy said she knew things about her and her sister that no one else could have known. She’s done this for other people, too. She’s amazing, and she’s developing quite a following.”

Sarah asked the only other question she could think of that might discourage her mother. “What does Father think of all this?”

Mrs. Decker stiffened defensively. “He knows nothing about it, and there’s no reason he should.”

“He would never allow you to go to a spiritualist,” Sarah reminded her.

“He will never find out. Unless you tell him, of course,” she added.

Sarah couldn’t imagine doing any such thing, and she was sure her mother knew it. She’d have to try a different tack. “Why have you started thinking about all this now?”

“You mean why have I suddenly started thinking about Maggie?” she asked with a trace of sarcasm that Sarah hadn’t expected.

“Well, yes,” Sarah admitted.

Her mother’s lovely face twisted with the pain of loss that Sarah would have sworn she no longer felt. “I never stopped thinking about her, Sarah. She’s my daughter. I think about her every morning, when I wake up, in that one blissful moment when I emerge from the sweet oblivion of sleep, and for one second, one single second, I don’t remember that she’s dead. For that one second, there’s the possibility that she’s still in the world and I might see her happy for one more day. And then I remember. I remember that she’s dead and that I’ll never see her again, not in this life at least. And I feel that pain all over again, the pain of losing her and knowing it was my fault that she died.”

“It wasn’t your fault!” Sarah cried, tears streaming down her cheeks now.

“Whom should we blame then?” her mother asked bitterly. “Your father?”

Sarah had always blamed him the most, but she wasn’t going to say that now. “Mother, Maggie made her own choices-”

“The only choices we left her,” Mrs. Decker reminded her. “And don’t think for one moment your father made any decisions without my approval. We are equally damned for what we did to her.”

“Mother, please!” Sarah reached out again, alarmed to see that all the color had drained from her mother’s face. She looked as if she might faint.

This time Mrs. Decker let Sarah take her hand, and she clasped it tightly, nearly bruising Sarah’s fingers. “I know it’s not possible to talk to the dead,” she said, shocking Sarah. “At least I’ve always believed it is, but suppose I’m wrong? Suppose we’re both wrong? Suppose someone can reach Maggie? Suppose it’s possible to make my peace with her here and now instead of waiting for some fragile hope of eternal forgiveness? I have to find out, Sarah. I have to at least try!”

Sarah stared at her mother, reading the desperate hope and the anguished need. She’d suffered this guilt for years and suffered far more than Sarah could have imagined. How could she deny her mother this one chance to end it? “All right,” Sarah said, defeated. “If it’s so important to you, I won’t try to talk you out of it.”

“And you’ll come with me?” she asked, her eyes lighting with renewed hope.

“I can’t do that,” Sarah said without apology. “I don’t suppose they allow nonbelievers to attend in any case.”

“But you have to go, Sarah. You must!”

“Why?”

“Because…” Mrs. Decker had to swallow the tears from her voice. “Because Maggie may not want to speak to me at all, but she’d speak to you. If she’ll come back for anyone, it will be you.”

Sarah stared at her mother in wide-eyed astonishment, having no idea how to respond. Fortunately, Maeve appeared at that moment, saving her from having to decide.

“Catherine is ready for bed and… Oh, I’m sorry,” she said quickly, sensing the tension in the room. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“That’s all right, Maeve,” Sarah said, jumping up in her desperate need to escape. “I suppose she wants me to tuck her in.”

“Yes, she always misses you when you’ve been gone awhile.” Maeve’s shrewd glance was flicking back and forth between Sarah and her mother, trying to gauge the situation. Were they quarreling? Disagreeing about something? Sarah wasn’t about to explain.

“I’ll be back shortly,” Sarah said, not daring to meet her mother’s eye.

Catherine was more demanding than usual, begging Sarah for just one more good-night kiss and asking question after question. She knew Sarah’s attention was focused elsewhere and tried every trick she knew to draw it back. Hating herself for giving the child less than her due, Sarah finally managed to break away. She found her mother still sitting at the kitchen table. Maeve had made herself scarce.

“I’m sure this was a shock to you,” her mother said before Sarah could open her mouth. “I shouldn’t have asked you so soon. I should have given you time to get used to the idea. It’s just…”

“How long will Father be out of town?” Sarah asked, having figured out the rush.

“Only three more days. It’s not really necessary that he be out of town, of course, but I thought-”

“You thought it would be easier if he were,” Sarah supplied for her. “I just don’t know…”

“Sarah,” Mrs. Decker said, her blue eyes clear now, and full of determination. “You’ve finally been able to lay your own ghosts to rest. Please, help me with mine.”

Sarah knew she was referring to Sarah’s husband, Tom. She hadn’t even realized how haunted she had been by his tragic murder almost four years ago until her friend Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy had finally tracked down his killer. While Sarah would still miss Tom until the day she died, at least she understood why he had died and had seen his killer punished. While nothing would ever ease the pain of losing him, she did have some measure of peace now. Could she deny her mother the chance at some peace for herself?

“I’ll go with you, Mother,” Sarah said.

Mrs. Decker’s relief was palpable. “Oh, Sarah, thank you. I can’t tell you how much this means to me.”

“Don’t thank me yet. I’m not promising to support you in this or believe for one second that it’s possible. I’m just going to make sure no one takes advantage of you.”

“It is possible,” her mother said, her voice almost breaking from the strength of her emotions. “It has to be.”

For her mother’s sake, Sarah could almost hope it was.

AFTER SEEING HER MOTHER OFF, SARAH CLOSED THE front door to find Maeve standing on the stairs that led upstairs to the girls’ bedrooms. “Is everything all right?” the girl asked with genuine concern. “Mrs. Decker seemed upset.”

Sarah looked at the young woman who, like Catherine, had also come from the Prodigal Son Mission. Maeve had sought refuge there to escape a life Sarah knew little about. She had recently learned some important facts about that life, though, and about Maeve’s special talents.

“Do you know anything about spiritualists?” Sarah asked.

“Spiritualists?” Maeve repeated with a frown. “What kind?”

“Are there different kinds?”

Maeve shrugged, telling Sarah more than she wanted to know.

“My mother wants to go to a séance.”

Maeve’s eyes widened with surprise. “Mrs. Decker? I wouldn’t’ve thought she’s the type.”

Sarah’s head began to throb again. “Would you come into the kitchen and tell me everything you know about it?”

“Are you sure?” Maeve asked with unfeigned concern. “You’re awful tired. Maybe tomorrow…?”

“I won’t be able to sleep,” Sarah assured her. “At least not until I know more about this.”

Maeve nodded and led the way back to the kitchen. When they were seated at the table, Maeve folded her hands expectantly.

“What do you know about people who do séances?” Sarah asked.

Recently, Sarah had learned that in her former life, Maeve had been a grifter, or at least that she’d come from a family of grifters, people who made their living by conning people in elaborate schemes. Although Maeve had never given Sarah any reason to suspect she was dishonest, Sarah’s friend Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy had recognized her abilities immediately when Maeve had employed them to help him solve the murder of Sarah’s husband, Dr. Tom Brandt.

“I never knew anybody who did that kind of thing,” Maeve replied. “You need a house in a respectable neighborhood, and most of all, you need some way to get people with money to come to you. You know, classy people who can vouch for you.” She smiled apologetically. “My family never could even have managed the house part of it.”

“But you know that it’s all fake, don’t you?”

“I always figured it was. People talk, so I heard about it. There’s a lot of money in it, I guess.”

“How do they get money from people?”

“Not by stealing or anything,” Maeve hastened to assure her. “The marks… I mean, the customers, they come back of their own free will. The trick is to make them want to. You tell them some little thing the first time, just enough to make them believe it’s on the up and up. Then they have to come back again to hear more. Next time you tell them a little more and promise that the next time there’ll be even more. There’s no end to it, and they’ll pay more and more each time to hear what they think the spirits are telling them.”

Sarah sighed wearily. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

“Mrs. Decker wouldn’t let herself get taken in, though,” Maeve said.

“What makes you say that?” Sarah asked in surprise.

“She’s smart. She’s…”

“Rich?” Sarah guessed when Maeve hesitated. “That’s no guarantee you won’t be gullible. In fact, she’s probably much more innocent about these things than you are. She’s led a very sheltered life.”

Maeve frowned, considering this. “If you don’t mind my asking, what’s made her want to do this in the first place?”

Sarah sighed again, absently rubbing the ache in her forehead. “She wants to contact my sister, Maggie.”

“I didn’t know you had a sister,” Maeve said in surprise.

“There’s no reason you should. She died a long time ago, and we don’t talk about her,” Sarah admitted. “We’re too ashamed.”

“Ashamed?” Maeve couldn’t believe it. “I’m sure you’ve got nothing to be ashamed about, Mrs. Brandt.”

Sarah only wished that were true. “Guilty then,” she said. “We’ve got more than enough guilt to go around.”

“I don’t believe it!”

“Then I’ll have to convince you, won’t I?” Sarah said with another sigh. “Maggie was my older sister. I suppose she was a bit of a rebel. She didn’t think it was fair that our family had so much when many other people had nothing. She wanted to do something to help.”

“Like the ladies who volunteer at the Mission,” Maeve guessed.

Oh, if only Maggie had confined herself to such conventional good works. “No, she wanted more than that. She wanted to convince businessmen like my father to treat their workers more fairly.”

“Did she?” Maeve asked doubtfully.

“Not at all. She tried to convince our father first, of course, but he completely dismissed her, which only made her more determined.”

“I can understand that.”

“I’m sure you can,” Sarah said with a small smile. “Telling Maggie no was always the surest way to make her dig in her heels. And then she fell in love.”

Maeve’s eyes lit up, thrilled to hear about a romance. “With who?”

“A man who worked for my father. He was young, just a clerk, but he probably had a bright future. He would never be good enough for Felix Decker’s daughter, though.”

Maeve’s face fell with disappointment. “So Mr. Decker wouldn’t let them get married,” she guessed.

“Of course not. Not even when she told them she was with child.”

“Oh, no! But wouldn’t she have to get married? With the baby and everything?”

“No. My father was determined she wouldn’t waste herself on a nobody, so my parents arranged for her to take a trip to Europe. She would have the baby there, give it to some orphanage, and return home with no one the wiser.”

Maeve made an anguished sound of protest. “That’s horrible!”

“Of course it is,” Sarah agreed bitterly. “Didn’t I tell you we were ashamed?”

“Is that how she died? Having the baby?”

“Not exactly. As you already know, Maggie wasn’t one to meekly go along with our father’s plans. She escaped before the ship set sail, and she found her lover, and they eloped. But they didn’t live happily ever after,” Sarah warned quickly when Maeve’s face lit up again.

“But they were together!” Maeve protested.

“My father is a very powerful man. He had dismissed Maggie’s husband when he found out about the affair, and he’d made sure the man couldn’t get work anywhere else. He had to labor on the docks, when he could find work at all, and when he couldn’t, they went hungry.” Sarah had to close her eyes to shut out the visions that still haunted her.

“That must’ve been awful hard on your sister,” Maeve said. “With her being used to living in that fancy house and all.”

“None of us ever imagined how much they suffered. I tell myself that if we had, my parents would have helped them, but… Well, we’ll never know, will we?”

“They would have,” Maeve assured her. “Mrs. Decker is such a nice lady.”

Sarah wished she was as certain. “At any rate, we had no idea where they were. I think my parents believed that if they were truly in need, they would ask for help. In fact, I think that was exactly what my father had planned. They’d come crawling back, he’d make them beg forgiveness for defying him, and then he’d help them.”

“Except your sister would never give in, so they never asked.”

“No, she wouldn’t, not until it was too late.” Sarah drew a deep breath and let it out in a weary sigh. “I was home alone that night when he finally came,” she remembered. “My parents were at some party, and there wasn’t time to find them. Maggie was dying.”

“Oh, no!”

“He took me to the place where they were living. It was a rear tenement, on the fifth floor.” Sarah didn’t have to explain to Maeve that this was the cheapest of lodgings. Rear tenements were built in the spaces behind the buildings that fronted onto the streets. They got little air and less sunshine, and the fifth floor would be the least desirable location in a building where no one ever wanted to live in the first place. “The front room was full of lodgers who rented out floor space at night. That was the only way they could afford the rent.”

Maeve’s eyes were filling with tears. She didn’t want to hear the ending to this story, but she held Sarah’s gaze, determined not to flinch.

“Maggie had given birth with no one to help her, and she was dying. I know now that the afterbirth hadn’t been expelled properly, but I didn’t know anything about childbirth then. She was bleeding and no one could make it stop. She wanted me to take care of her baby.” Sarah’s voice caught on a sob as the horrible memories overcame her.

“You did, didn’t you?” Maeve cried. “Please tell me you didn’t leave him there!”

“He was already dead,” Sarah remembered, wiping the tears from her own face. “Such a tiny little thing and so perfect. I’ll never forget how beautiful he was. But I promised her I’d take care of him, and then… then she was gone.”

“And that’s why you became a midwife,” Maeve guessed, her voice filled with wonder.

“Yes,” Sarah said simply. “There were other reasons, too, but that was probably the most important one.”

“And when you married Dr. Brandt, your parents had learned their lesson and didn’t stand in your way.”

“I suppose you could say that. At least they didn’t stop me. I didn’t see them much after I was married, and after Dr. Brandt died, we quarreled and didn’t speak at all for several years.”

“But now you’ve made up.”

“Yes, although none of us can really forget what happened to Maggie.”

“But that wasn’t your fault. You were so young, you couldn’t’ve done anything.”

“I knew Maggie wasn’t going to Europe. She told me she was planning to elope. I’ll always wonder what would have happened if I’d told my parents and they’d been able to stop her.”

“You couldn’t do that! She wanted to be with the man she loved!” Maeve protested.

“But if I’d spoken up, she’d still be alive and her baby would, too. Even her husband… He hanged himself after Maggie died. Three lives lost, because I kept her secret.”

“That’s foolishness, Mrs. Brandt,” Maeve insisted. “You can’t know what would’ve happened. Maybe Maggie wouldn’t want to be alive like that. Imagine knowing your baby was out there somewhere and you’d never see him again!”

Sarah smiled at the girl. “Thank you, Maeve, for trying to make me feel better.”

“I’m not trying to make you feel better,” she protested. “I’m telling the truth!”

“Yes, you are,” Sarah said. “And you’re right. We don’t know what would have happened, but now you know what did happen and why my mother is so interested in contacting the dead.”

“Does she want to tell your sister she’s sorry for what happened?”

“Yes, she does, and since we both know this spiritualist is a fake, she’s not going to be able to do that.”

“But what if she could?”

Sarah looked at her in surprise. “I thought you didn’t believe.”

“I don’t, but Mrs. Decker does, and that’s all that counts. If she believes this person can talk to your sister, then she can say she’s sorry and she’ll feel better. Would that be wrong?”

A very good question. Sarah considered it.

“Or maybe,” Maeve ventured, “you think she doesn’t deserve to be forgiven.”

“Oh, no! I know how sorry she is. I’ve always known that, but tonight I finally realized how much she’s suffered. I don’t want to see her suffer anymore.”

“Then what harm could it do? So long as you’re there to make sure nobody takes advantage of her, I mean.”

What harm could it do? Sarah had no idea. She just hoped she wasn’t going to find out.