Murder on Lenox Hill (23 page)

“I . . . They'll be mad, 'cause I told. They'll hate me.”

“Maybe they want it to stop, too, but they don't know what to do.”

“They'll be mad,” he insisted. “Isaiah, he'll be
real
mad. He doesn't like me anyway.”

“Why not?” Frank asked with a frown.

“Because . . . because Reverend Upchurch likes us better than him.”

“Who does he like better?”

“Me and Mark.”

“Why is that?”

Percy shrugged. “Isaiah says because we're younger.”

If Upchurch preferred
young
boys, eventually the boys would get too old for his taste. Frank remembered Isaiah's anger and bitterness, and he wondered if this was part of it. The whole thing made him sick, and the more he learned, the sicker he got. “I'll talk to your grandmother, if you like, so you don't have to. I can explain it to her.”

“She'll be mad at me, too,” he said sadly.

“No, she won't. I'll make sure she isn't. This isn't your fault, and she'll know it.”

“She loves Reverend Upchurch. She won't want to hear anything bad about him.”

“I'll bet she loves you more.”

Percy didn't look convinced. “I could just stop going to the church after school. I could tell Reverend Upchurch I'm not allowed to anymore. Nobody has to know. My grandmother and my mother could keep going to church like always.”

“What about the other boys?”

Percy winced. “They can do what they want, can't they?”

“Even if all of you decide to stop going to see Upchurch, he'll find other boys. He won't stop. He'll
never
stop unless you stop him, Percy. It's up to you.”

 
 
M
RS. EVANS LOOKED AS IF SHE WERE CARVED IN STONE as Sarah and Malloy told her of the unspeakable horror that Upchurch had perpetrated on her family. She'd been shocked and incredulous at first, certain such a thing could never have happened, but they'd answered all of her questions as honestly and tactfully as they could, chipping away at her disbelief with the edges of their certainty. She'd endured the entire ordeal stoically. Sarah knew how many years of training and practice it had taken to allow her to sit, expressionless, as everything she'd once held sacred was ripped brutally from her.

“This is . . . difficult to believe,” she said hoarsely when they had told her everything they could and answered all her questions.

Sarah imagined it was. “You must be wondering how Mr. Malloy came to suspect Reverend Upchurch in the first place. Believe me, this is the last thing I expected to discover when I visited your church.”

“What did you expect to discover, Mrs. Brandt?” she asked, her eyes narrowed with quiet rage. “You obviously had some purpose when you came snooping around, and don't bother telling me that fairy tale about your work at some mission on the Lower East Side.”

Stung, Sarah reminded herself that Mrs. Evans was extremely angry, and she would naturally lash out at her and Frank for being the ones to open this Pandora's box of horrors. “I do volunteer at the Prodigal Son Mission, but the real reason I went to your church is that one of the girls at your church was raped, and her attacker is probably one of your members.”

For a moment, Mrs. Evans's stoicism broke. “Do you mean Grace Linton? Someone attacked that poor girl?”

“I didn't say—”

“Don't bother denying it,” Mrs. Evans snapped. “You didn't know anyone in our church except the Lintons. It must be Grace.”

“Her family doesn't want anyone to know,” Sarah cautioned.

“Of course they don't. That poor girl. But didn't Grace tell her parents who is responsible?”

“She either can't or won't name the man.”

“How awful for them. But how did you get involved, Mrs. Brandt?”

“I . . .” she glanced at Malloy who was trying very hard not to remind her that he'd warned her against this very thing. “I thought an outsider might have a better chance of finding the guilty man. I thought it was possible someone had somehow convinced Grace not to tell. It would have to be someone she trusts completely. And then I visited Mrs. Upchurch and—”

“That woman is evil! She'll say anything to cause trouble for her husband,” Mrs. Evans said, her composure slipping badly. “Is she the one who told you these lies about him?”

“No, Mrs. Evans,” Malloy said, startling Sarah. She'd almost forgotten he was there. “I already suspected something wasn't right between him and those boys. Mrs. Upchurch told Mrs. Brandt some things that made her think he had seduced Grace Linton, and I questioned him about it. I was pretty sure he wasn't guilty of that, but I still thought he was hiding something.”

“He must have told his wife about Mr. Malloy's visit,” Sarah added, “because in church on Sunday, Mrs. Upchurch told me I'd misunderstood her.”

“I knew it!” Mrs. Evans cried. “She made up these terrible lies.”

“She didn't make up the things Percy told me,” Malloy reminded her. “She knew what was happening, and she wanted someone to stop it.”

“If she knew, she should have done something sooner! How could she live with a secret like that?” she asked in outrage.

“The same way the boys could,” Sarah said. “She didn't think anyone would believe her, and I think she was right about that. Most people wouldn't even believe a man
could
do those things to boys. They'd probably accuse the boys of lying, and Upchurch might even accuse his wife of being insane. She could end up in an asylum.”

Mrs. Evans pressed her fingertips to her temples and squeezed her eyes shut. “I just can't . . . I don't know what to do. What do you
expect
me to do?”

“Help Percy stay away from him,” Sarah said. “He's also worried about his mother finding out. He knows she's very ill, and he's afraid the shock will be too much for her.”

Mrs. Evans looked up in surprise. “He said that? Oh, dear. We didn't think he knew. Well, it doesn't matter. She'll have to be told. She'd never forgive me for keeping a secret like that. And, of course, we'll keep him away. There's no question of that. But I think Mr. Malloy wants more of us than that. He wouldn't be here if he didn't.”

Sarah watched Malloy carefully consider his words. “Most people would want to keep this kind of thing quiet. The boys won't want anyone to know what Upchurch did to them.”

“Of course they won't!” she agreed. “Neither do I!”

“Thing is, that's how he's been able to get away with it all this time. We don't know when he started, but we know he's been doing it at least as long as he's been here. Isaiah was probably one of his first victims, and now he's too old, and Upchurch has moved on to younger boys. If the older boys had told someone in the beginning, we could have stopped him before he got to Percy. If we don't stop him now, he'll go on to other boys in the future.”

Her eyes seemed to burn as she glared at Malloy. “You want us to announce that my grandson has been . . .
violated
? You can't expect me to publicly humiliate the boy I love more than my own life!”

“Someone has to stop him, Mrs. Evans,” he said, making it sound perfectly reasonable.

“Not your way, Mr. Malloy. I won't destroy Percy.”

“Then you're going to let Upchurch keep abusing other boys?” he asked angrily.

“No, I'm not. I'll stop him.”

“
How
?” he challenged.

This time her eyes did burn, with a hatred so intense, Sarah had to look away.

“You'll see,” was all she said. “But he'll stop, I guarantee it.”

11

“
W
HAT IS YOUR MRS. EVANS GOING TO DO?” MALLOY asked Sarah when they'd found a coffee shop where they could sit, out of the cold, in relative privacy.

“She's not
my
Mrs. Evans, and I have no idea what she's going to do,” Sarah replied tartly.

They waited while the waitress served them cups of steaming coffee. Malloy ordered them each a slice of pie. Sarah wrapped her hands around the cup, warming her bloodless fingers. She wasn't certain if she was so cold from the temperature outside or because of the horrors they had just been discussing.

“You said you knew a way to punish Upchurch without sending him to jail,” Malloy reminded her. “What were you going to do?”

“I told you before, gossip. It's possible to ruin him without ever making a public accusation. In fact, it's more powerful because you have no idea what people are saying about you, so how can you defend yourself?”

“Mrs. Evans isn't going to start gossip about what he did to Percy,” Malloy said.

Sarah took a fortifying sip of her coffee. “I know. That's why I have no idea what she's planning. Maybe she's hoping to remove him from his ministry somehow, although that isn't likely to stop him from lusting after little boys.”

The waitress had just returned with their pie, and she almost dropped Malloy's into his lap in shock over what Sarah had just said. Malloy caught the plate just in time. He glared at Sarah, who smiled innocently at the waitress.

“Thank you very much,” she said. “This looks delicious.”

Her face still frozen in revulsion, the girl fled, probably to inform the rest of the staff what that respectable-looking lady at the corner table had been saying. Sarah sighed.

“At least keep your voice down,” Malloy advised, taking an enormous bite of the pie. Apple, his favorite.

“You did say Upchurch might commit suicide if he was exposed,” she remembered. “Do you think? . . .”

“That a sweet little old lady like Mrs. Evans intends to drive a man to suicide? No, I don't think that. She wouldn't have the slightest idea how to do it anyway, even if she could come up with an idea like that in the first place. Besides, Upchurch doesn't strike me as the kind to kill himself. He likes himself too much, and he could just move someplace where they don't know him and start over again.”

“So, I guess my theory that I could stop him with gossip isn't very good.”

Malloy gave her a look but graciously refrained from confirming her analysis.

“What
would
stop a man like that?” she asked.

“Death,” he said baldly. “Sometimes they get too old and feeble or too sick to go to the trouble of finding and tricking the boys, but then he'd probably just hire boys off the streets.”

Sarah shuddered. “I'd never thought of that. The street boys, I mean. I knew that girls sold themselves, but I never realized . . .”

“You don't need to know every ugly thing that goes on in the world, Sarah,” he said softly.

She looked up in surprise to see a tenderness in his dark eyes that she'd never seen before, but when she blinked, it had vanished. Had she only imagined it? “If I don't know about it, how can I do anything to change it?” she challenged.

“Changing it isn't your job,” he said, the usual gruffness back in his voice.

“Whose job is it, then? The police?” she scoffed. “They haven't had much success so far.”

“Do you think your missions and settlement houses are going to do any better?” he scoffed right back.

“At least we're trying,” she said belligerently, somehow angry that he'd shown her just a glimpse of his true feelings and now seemed determined to pick a fight with her. “We can't save them all, but at least we're saving a few.”

He opened his mouth to reply, and Sarah braced herself, but all he said was, “Eat your pie.”

Unable to think of a reason to argue with that command, she cut off the point with her fork and took a bite. It wasn't nearly as good as Mrs. Ellsworth's or even Mrs. Malloy's, but it would do.

When she'd swallowed it, she asked, “What are you going to do now?”

The look he gave her made her regret the question. “Nothing,” he said, although she could see he hated it as much as she did. “If the families don't file charges against him, there's nothing more I can do. And don't try to convince them they should, either. They won't thank you for it, and Upchurch might bring charges against
you
.”

“For what?” she asked in outrage.

“For not minding your own business,” he replied. “It's called slander. People get sued for it all the time.”

“Upchurch wouldn't dare do a thing like that!”

“Why not? He wouldn't have anything to fear. If the boys' families won't let them testify against him for abusing them, they aren't going to let them stand up in court and admit what happened just to protect you.”

Sarah gaped at him, so furious she wanted to hit someone, and even more furious because she knew he was right. “But . . .” she tried, “I can't just forget about it!”

“Think about it all you want. Just don't do anything.”

Sarah hated it when he was right. That's why she had to figure out some way she could still help.

 
 
S
ARAH HAD NEVER FELT GUILTY ABOUT ATTENDING church before. Usually, she felt guilty when she
didn't
go. Today, however, she had come only to see what might happen at the Church of the Good Shepherd, so she had left Aggie safely at home with Mrs. Ellsworth. Mrs. Evans wouldn't be at the worship service, of course, but could she have set her plan—whatever her plan was—in motion? Was she already working behind the scenes to punish Upchurch?

When Sarah arrived, the organ was playing as usual. Everything looked exactly as it had before—the winter sun streaming in through the stained glass windows, people sitting quietly in the pews, all wearing their Sunday best—but she sensed immediately that something was different.