Murder in Morningside Heights (A Gaslight Mystery) (21 page)

Bathsheba couldn’t very well deny it, but she still wanted to protect Miss Billingsly. “I’m telling you, she ain’t well.”

“If you mean she’s been drinking, we’ll take that into consideration. Do you think I should go up to her?”

Bathsheba glanced at Gino. “She ain’t dressed proper. It’d take some time to get her presentable enough to come downstairs.”

“I’ll go up, then. Would you mind entertaining Mr. Donatelli while I talk with her for a little while?”

Gino, bless him, gave Bathsheba his most appealing smile. She snorted, but she said, “If he don’t mind sitting in
the kitchen. I’ll take you upstairs first, Mrs. Malloy. It’ll be better if I tell her you’re here and take you in to see her.”

For the second time, Sarah went up the stairs, and again she followed Bathsheba to the back bedroom, the one that had been Abigail Northrup’s. She remembered that after Abigail died Miss Billingsly had moved out of the room she’d shared with Miss Wilson all those years.

They stopped at the closed door, and Bathsheba said, “Wait here while I tell her.”

Bathsheba slipped inside, leaving the door open a bit. Sarah could see the room was dark. The shades were drawn here, too. Bathsheba crooned to her charge, soft words of comfort Sarah couldn’t make out.

“Did I dream it or is she really dead?” Miss Billingsly asked on a wail.

More crooning from Bathsheba.

“Did I do it, Bathsheba? Please tell me I didn’t do it!”

“
D
on’t you be silly now, Miss Estelle,” Bathsheba said. “You never woulda hurt Miss Georgia. You loved her too much.” Sarah noticed the maid had said this loudly enough for her to hear. “Now, listen here, you got a visitor. That nice Mrs. Malloy come to see you. She and her man are gonna find out who been causing all this trouble for us.”

“Why is she here? I don’t want to see anyone.”

“I know, sweet pea, but she needs your help.”

“I can’t help anybody. I can’t even help myself.” She was blubbering now, and Sarah managed not to sigh. She hated making people weep.

“Course you can. You can do all kinda things now. Miss Georgia, she’d expect you to do what you can.”

“But what can I do?”

“We won’t know till you try, now, will we? That Mrs. Malloy, she just outside. She gonna talk to you a spell.”

“But I’m not even dressed.”

“Mrs. Malloy don’t care, now, do you, Mrs. Malloy?”

Sarah recognized this as her summons. She stepped into the darkened room. “No, I don’t care a bit.”

The room smelled stale and faintly of liquor. She smiled, hoping she looked friendly and not threatening. Miss Billingsly made a sound of distress and pulled the covers up to her throat.

“Bathsheba,” Sarah said, “why don’t you make us some tea. Has Miss Billingsly eaten anything today?”

“No, ma’am, she ain’t.”

“And some toast, too.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Bathsheba hurried out, and Miss Billingsly made another little distressed sound.

“Thank you so much for seeing me,” Sarah said, as if she’d had a choice. Casting about, she saw a chair at the dressing table and pulled it over next to the bed. Miss Billingsly cowered a bit as she sat down, but Sarah pretended not to notice. Miss Billingsly wore a plain nightdress and her hair hung down her back in a braid. Her eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot, but maybe that was just from crying. Sarah purposely didn’t look at the half-empty bottle of sherry on the nightstand.

“I was very sorry to hear about Miss Wilson. That must have been a terrible shock.”

Miss Billingsly eyed her suspiciously, but Sarah noticed she’d stopped clutching the covers as if afraid Sarah was going to snatch them away. “I . . . I couldn’t believe it was her at first.”

“Were you the one who found her?”

“Oh heavens, no! I don’t think I could’ve borne it. It was
Mr. Stevens. Coming home from work. They live on the next corner, and he goes through the alley because it’s shorter.”

“It must have been dark back there. I’m surprised he saw her.”

“She was . . .” She had to swallow. “She was lying right in the middle. He nearly tripped over her, he said.” Her voice broke and she sobbed a few times.

“What was she doing in the alley?”

Miss Billingsly stopped in mid-sob. “What?”

“I was wondering why a woman alone would have chosen to walk down the alley in the dark.”

“Oh, I see. Yes, you’re right. That would be strange, wouldn’t it?”

“Can you think of any reason she would? I mean, do you use the alley in the daylight?”

“Yes, we do. So you think it . . . it wasn’t dark yet when she . . . when it happened?”

“That’s certainly possible. What time did she go out?”

“I don’t know exactly. Bathsheba can tell you. But it was in the afternoon. We don’t have classes on Saturday, so we usually go someplace together . . . or at least we used to. But that wouldn’t be proper when we were still mourning poor Abby, would it?”

“But Miss Wilson went out somewhere without you yesterday.”

Miss Billingsly frowned. “Not on a social call. I’m sure of that. She wouldn’t do that.”

“Did she give you any idea where she was going?”

Miss Billingsly shook her head. “She was very mysterious. She said she had an appointment, but she would be home for supper. And then . . . she wasn’t.”

Sarah was trying to remember exactly when darkness
would have fallen last night. Winter days could be dark by four thirty or five o’clock, and in the heavily shadowed streets, it came even earlier. “Would she have normally walked down the alley when she was coming home?”

“If she was coming from that direction, I suppose so.” Miss Billingsly had stopped crying and was concentrating very hard on what Sarah was asking her. “It was cold and she was probably in a hurry, so she’d take the shortest route.”

She might have been in a hurry because she was being pursued, too. “What’s in that direction?”

“What do you mean?”

“Is that the way she’d come home from the Normal School?”

“No.”

“Can you think of someone she might’ve met who lives in that direction?”

“I . . . Lots of people. Many of the teachers at the school live in the streets behind us.”

So no help there. Sarah managed not to sigh. “Had she said anything to you about Miss Northrup’s death?”

Her lip quivered, but to her credit, she bit down on it and kept her composure. “She’s hardly spoken to me since . . .” She drew a shuddering breath. “Since I accused her of killing Abigail.”

“Why did you say a thing like that? Did you really believe it?”

“I . . . I was so jealous, you see. Georgia and I . . .” She pressed a fist to her lips to hold back her tears.

Her despair was painful to witness, and Sarah took pity on her. “I know how much you loved her, and she loved you, too.”

This time she smiled, a painfully mirthless parody of a smile. “She loved me until she saw Abby. Georgia always said nothing could separate us. She owned this house, and we had our work, and we’d be together as long as we lived.
Then Abby came, and she was so young and so smart and so pretty . . .”

Sarah wanted to say something to comfort her, but she knew nothing could. She waited until Miss Billingsly had calmed herself again. “Can you think of any reason someone might kill both of them?”

She considered the question for a long moment. Then her eyes grew wide with horror. “You mean me, don’t you? I’m the only one who could’ve wanted both of them dead!”

“Are you really?” Sarah asked, refusing to be baited.

This stunned her into silence.

“Are you really the only one who wanted them both dead?” Sarah repeated mercilessly.

“I didn’t want them dead at all,” she cried. “I just wanted everything back the way it was before. I know I’m not pretty. I never was, but Georgia didn’t care about that. She loved my mind. She loved the discussions we’d have long into the night. She loved talking with me about our students. She loved going to museums with me and talking about what we saw. We shared everything until Abby came.”

“Are you saying you didn’t resent Abigail?”

“Of course I did. I saw the way she looked at Georgia. She worshipped her. Nobody could resist a love like that. I didn’t even blame Georgia, or at least not very much.”

“You must have been angry when Abigail came here to live, though.”

“I was, but Georgia said it wouldn’t make any difference between us. Abby was a child. Georgia was going to be a mentor to her, and we would be an example to her of how females could live their lives without men interfering.”

“And you believed her?”

“I wanted to believe her, because if I didn’t . . .”

“If you didn’t, you’d have to leave her.”

Miss Billingsly’s eyes filled with tears. “I couldn’t leave. This is my home. Where would I go? What would I do?”

Sarah couldn’t help thinking of all the women whose husbands abandoned them for a younger, prettier woman. Miss Billingsly would have done what they did: survive somehow. At least Miss Billingsly had a profession. She wouldn’t have found herself penniless on the street as many women did. Sarah wasn’t going to point that out, however. Instead she said, “So you killed Abigail to protect yourself.”

“What?” Miss Billingsly cried, stiffening in shock. “How can you say such a thing! I could never hurt her. I could never hurt anyone!”

“Even someone who had ruined your whole life?”

That stopped her, but only for a few seconds. “Mrs. Malloy, I didn’t kill Abigail and I didn’t kill Georgia. What would that have gained me? When Abby died, Georgia didn’t come back to me, did she? If anything, things were worse between us. I couldn’t even comfort her because she thought I was glad Abby was gone.”

“But you couldn’t have known that until after Abigail was dead. Maybe you believed that with Abigail out of the way, you’d get her back.”

She was wagging her head before Sarah even got the words out. “I didn’t kill Abby, Mrs. Malloy. You’ve got to believe me.”

“Then, who did?”

“I don’t know! I thought—” She slapped a hand over her mouth as if to hold back the rest of her words.

“What did you think?”

She lowered her hand slowly, and Sarah could almost see her tears drying in the heat of her anger. “I thought Georgia had killed her.”

“You did?” Sarah asked in genuine surprise. “Why?”

“Because . . . they had a terrible fight the night before. I don’t know what they were arguing about, but they were both very angry. They didn’t even speak to each other that morning before we all left for school. So when Abby turned up dead . . .” She gestured helplessly.

“Do you still think she did it?”

“I don’t know, but if she did, then who killed her and why? It doesn’t make any sense!”

She was absolutely right. It didn’t make any sense at all.

*   *   *

G
ino had waited patiently in the hallway for Bathsheba to return. She’d said something about sitting in the kitchen, but he knew better than to presume. She seemed a little surprised to find him still standing there, but she motioned impatiently that he was to follow her, so he did.

The warmth of the kitchen enveloped him, a welcome change from the frigid streets and drafty hallway.

“Sit yourself down,” she said without the slightest trace of hospitality. “I expect you want some coffee. Or tea. Which is it?”

“Whatever is easier,” he said, still smiling.

“I’m makin’ tea for Miss Estelle. You can have some of that.”

He waited while she filled the kettle and set it on to boil. Then she sliced some bread, and when she was finished, she laid the knife down and brushed her hands over her apron and looked around absently, as if she were at a loss as to what to do next.

“Maybe you’d sit with me while we wait for the water to boil,” he said.

She gave a little huff, as though she was disgusted, but she pulled out one of the chairs and sat down. Then she gave
him a long, considering look. “A fine-lookin’ man like you, I reckon you get just about whatever you want in this world, don’t you?”

“Oh no, ma’am. Well, I guess it’s a little better now. When I was an Italian on the police force, all the sergeants were Irish, and all they ever did was make life hard for me. Until Mr. Malloy came along, that is.”

“Least you got a job with the police. You don’t see no colored fellows in that uniform, do you?”

“No, ma’am.” Gino couldn’t even imagine that, but he supposed the Irish cops had never imagined having Italians on the force either. “I expect it’ll happen someday, though.”

“Not in
my
day,” she said. “Now, tell me what you think I know that’ll help you catch whoever been killing my ladies.”

“How did Miss Wilson happen to be out in the alley? Or was that really where they found her?”

“Oh, that’s where they found her, all right. Our neighbor, he was walking down the alley on his way home, and he nearly stepped on her. It’s right dark back there, so he didn’t see her at first. He started shouting, and I went out to see what was going on, and . . .” She clamped her jaw shut and looked away, unwilling to cry in front of him.

“And how did she happen to be outside in the dark all alone?”

Bathsheba swallowed hard and turned back to him. “She went out in the afternoon, while it was still daylight. Said she had an appointment, but she’d be home for supper.”

“Did she say who her appointment was with?”

“She don’t tell me her business, and I didn’t ask, though I wish now that I had.”

He was sure she did. “What time did she leave?”

“Oh, around three o’clock, I’d guess.”

“How did she seem? Was she nervous or anything?”

Bathsheba’s forehead wrinkled in concentration. “She seemed determined.”

“Determined?”

“Yes. Not nervous, I’m sure. She . . . Her mouth, it was all pinched up.” She puckered her lips to demonstrate.

“Like she was angry and not wanting to show it,” he guessed.

“More like she was angry, but not at me, so she was holding it back to be polite.”

“Who would she have been angry with?”

“Not Miss Billingsly, if that’s what you’re thinking. I told you before, they never had a cross word, not even when Miss Northrup moved in.”

Gino nodded as if he understood, and he was pretty sure he did. “But Miss Billingsly was upset when Miss Northrup moved in, wasn’t she?”

“Sure, but what could she do? This is Miss Georgia’s house. If she want, she can tell Miss Estelle to just find some other place to live.”

“So Miss Billingsly never got mad about it?”

“She was hurt, but she was too much of a lady to say anything, not like that Miss Northrup.”

Gino’s nerve endings twitched, but he knew better than to express too much interest in her provocative statement. “You already told Mr. Malloy that Miss Northrup argued with Miss Wilson. Was it more than that?”

Bathsheba shifted a little in her chair. “Well, now, like I said, she didn’t yell or scream or anything like that, but she let Miss Georgia know what she was thinking. That last day . . .” She looked away as if she’d lost her train of thought.

Gino waited, and when she didn’t continue, he said, “Did she argue with Miss Wilson on that last day?”

Bathsheba sighed wearily. “The night before. She . . . Well, she wanted to do something that Miss Georgia told her not to do. She said . . .”

“What did she say?” Gino prodded gently when she hesitated. “It could be important.”

Bathsheba winced. “I couldn’t hear all they was sayin’, you understand. I don’t listen at keyholes.”