Murder on Lenox Hill (7 page)

When they were seated, he said, “What kind of a crime is it?”

“A rape, I think,” she said, making him wince. He didn't like to think of her even knowing about such things. That was one thing on which he and her family would agree. “It's a seventeen-year-old girl in Lenox Hill. She's expecting a child in about three months, and her parents just realized it. But as far as her parents can determine, she's never even been alone with a man.”

“A seventeen-year-old girl can do a lot of things her parents don't know about,” Malloy said. “Even one from Lenox Hill.”

“Grace is seventeen physically, but mentally, she's more like a five-year-old, and she probably always will be. She still plays will dolls, and she has absolutely no understanding of what happened to her or what is going to happen.”

“Even a simpleton would remember being attacked,” Malloy said.

“I questioned her very carefully, but she insists no one ever hurt her in her entire life. I even . . .” Sarah hated to admit this, although she and Malloy had dealt with this very situation. “I even asked if her father had ever done anything to her, but all he's done is kiss her on the cheek.”

“What about servants?”

“All female, and she only leaves the house to attend church and go on visits with her mother to other women.”

“Do you think it's a miracle?” he asked with a hint of irony. “You'd need a priest for that, not a detective.”

“Of course I don't think it's a miracle. Someone took advantage of this poor girl, and he shouldn't get away with it.”

“And what if you do find him? Will her family charge him?”

“I doubt it,” she admitted. “Even if they would, Grace would be a poor witness.”

“Why try to find him, then?”

“There are other ways to punish someone besides putting him in jail,” Sarah said. “I've been thinking about this, and I realized that gossip can be a powerful tool of punishment. No one would ever believe a girl like Grace was involved in a romance of any kind. The man must have forced her. Most people would consider that despicable, and the word would pass very quickly in society. He'd never be welcomed at any respectable home again.”

Malloy stared at her as if he'd never seen her before. “You never cease to amaze me, Mrs. Brandt. I suppose you'd be willing to use your social connections to help ruin this man's reputation, too.”

“Of course. What good is it being a member of one of the oldest families in New York if you can't stomp out evil now and then?”

“Just be sure you get the right man.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean don't jump to conclusions. And don't overlook the obvious.”

“I haven't been able to find anyone obvious,” she reminded him.

He shook his head and gave her a pitying look. “You already told me there's only one man who has contact with her.”

“And I also told you her father isn't responsible.”

“Why? Because he's a respectable man who lives in a respectable neighborhood and makes a good living? We both know incest can happen no matter how respectable the family is.”

“I'd swear her father didn't do this. You didn't see him or talk to him, and you didn't hear what Grace said. I know how to find out these things, Malloy. I've delivered a lot of babies to unmarried girls, enough to tell when a girl is hiding something
from
her father and when she's hiding something
about
him, and enough to recognize when a father is outraged and when he's feeling guilty. Grace's father is outraged and heartbroken.”

“If he didn't do it, who could have?” Malloy asked.

“I told you, nobody knows!”

“The girl knows. You just didn't ask her the right question.”

Sarah wanted to smack him, but she knew he was right. “So what should I do now?”

“Why do you have to do anything?”

“What?”

“I said, why do you have to do anything?” he repeated patiently. “This isn't your daughter or your family, so you don't have to do
anything
about it. If her family wants to find the man and punish him, they can go to the police or . . .” He put up his hand to stop her when she would have sputtered in outrage over the unlikelihood of the police solving a crime like this. “
Or
they could hire a Pinkerton to investigate quietly.
They
can do whatever they want, but
you
don't have to do anything at all except take care of the girl and her baby.”

She hated it when he was logical, and even more when he was right, so she fumed for a minute before she could say, “Would you go and talk to the parents?”

“About what?” he asked suspiciously.

“To encourage them to find out who attacked Grace. I'm afraid they'll be so interested in protecting her that they won't even try.”

“Maybe they don't want to try. Maybe they don't want to know.”

“But they should. Don't you see?”

“I see that
you
want this man punished, even if it's just execution by gossip, but they're probably more interested in protecting their daughter. And don't forget, her father may be protecting himself, no matter what you think about him. If he is, he'll never call in the police.”

Sarah knew Mr. Linton was innocent, but she'd never convince Malloy of it until he saw for himself. “Will you talk to them or not?” she challenged.

“Only if they ask to see me,” he said stubbornly. “I can't just knock on their front door and tell them I heard their daughter had been attacked and I'm here to start investigating.”

“But if I convince them to speak with you, you'll do it?” she said.

He gave a long-suffering sigh. “You know I will.” Then his mouth quirked at one corner and his dark eyes gleamed. “At least it's not a murder.”

 
 
F
RANK TOOK TOM BRANDT'S PATIENT FILES HOME WITH him, and after Brian and his mother went to bed, he started reading them. He'd hoped that he wouldn't find the four women's files in Sarah's office, but Felix Decker's Pinkertons were the best money could buy. Of course they'd gotten that part right. They'd never seen the women's medical files, though, of that he was certain.

The four women seemed to have little in common except that they were all unmarried and all suffering from “hysteria.” Frank had seen many hysterical women in his time, but in his experience, it was a temporary condition brought on by anger or terror or some other strong emotion.

One of the women also supposedly suffered from
dementia praecox
. Frank knew what dementia was. It meant she was crazy. She wasn't in the crazy house, though. Her family had kept her at home, like the rest of them, which meant they must not be dangerous.

Frank read through the reports carefully several times, struggling with Tom Brandt's handwriting in places, until he was sure he understood as much as he was capable of understanding without medical training. One woman was thirty-four, one twenty-seven, another eighteen, and the demented one was twenty-two. Only the thirty-four-year-old had been Brandt's patient before she got sick. The others were women with the same problem she'd had whom he'd found through other doctors.

He'd obviously been seeking them out, too, visiting with their families to win their confidence before beginning his treatment of the “hysteric.” Except Frank couldn't see that he'd actually treated any of them, if that meant doing something to make them better.

The most disturbing part, however, was that the major symptom of their disease was an unnatural interest in sex, accompanied by a romantic devotion to an individual man. They were consumed by passion for the man and obsessed with him night and day, and from what he could make of it, the women were all in love with Tom Brandt.

 
 
S
ARAH WAS CALLED OUT EARLY THE NEXT MORNING TO deliver a baby, so she couldn't get to the Lintons' house until late that afternoon. She wasn't surprised to learn Mrs. Linton had other visitors, since this was the proper time for company to call. She only hoped she could outlast them for a few private moments with the family at the end of the visit.

The maid showed her into the parlor where Mrs. Linton sat with two other ladies. When she saw Sarah, Mrs. Linton's welcoming smile dimmed to concern, but Sarah smiled back reassuringly. “I was just in the neighborhood and thought I'd stop in to say hello,” she lied.

“I'm so glad you did,” Mrs. Linton replied, still a bit uncertain of what to make of Sarah's presence. “Please join us, Mrs. Brandt.”

She introduced the other ladies as Mrs. Hazel York and her mother, Susannah Jessop Evans. Sarah remembered hearing Mrs. York's name mentioned when she'd been here before.

“Don't forget to introduce Percy, Mama,” Grace's voice called from the far end of the room.

Sarah hadn't noticed her sitting there, and when she turned, she saw Grace sharing a window seat with a boy. The boy rose to his feet, remembering his manners. His dark hair had been pomaded firmly against his well-shaped head but was fighting to get loose here and there, and he wore his visiting clothes with the air of one who couldn't wait to throw them off in favor of knickers and a baseball bat. He sketched her a little bow.

“Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Brandt,” he said in a voice that hadn't quite changed yet. Sarah guessed him to be several years younger than Grace, for all his gangling height.

“Mrs. Brandt is a nurse,” Grace announced proudly. “The kind that takes care of sick people, not the kind that takes care of babies.”

“I'm sure Mrs. Brandt can speak for herself, Grace,” Mrs. Linton said uncomfortably. She was probably afraid Grace would say too much about Sarah's visit the other day. “Why don't you show Percy the sketches you did last week?”

Easily distracted, Grace jumped up and fetched a sketchbook from a nearby cabinet. Sarah took the opportunity to study Percy more closely. His fond gaze followed Grace as she flitted across the room. She was a pretty girl, and he a boy on the brink of manhood. It would be only natural for him to notice her. Perhaps he even lusted after her in the awkward way boys did when they knew nothing definite about the mysteries of sex except that girls were involved.

For an instant, Sarah tried to imagine him as the father of Grace's child, but just as quickly she rejected the idea. Percy might feel the first stirrings of desire, but he was too young to know what to do about it. Since Grace would have been even more innocent, whoever had impregnated her had to know exactly what he was doing.

“Would you care for some tea, Mrs. Brandt?” Mrs. Linton asked, distracting her from her troublesome thoughts.

Sarah joined the ladies and accepted a cup of tea and a cookie. Hazel York was a rather faded-looking woman in her mid-thirties. Sarah recalled Grace mentioning Mrs. York had been ill, and she didn't look as if she'd completely recovered her strength. Her dress was stylish but a bit loose, indicating she'd lost weight since having it made. She wore her brownish hair plainly, either because she'd lost interest in her appearance or perhaps because she didn't have the energy to deal with it.

Unlike her daughter, Mrs. Evans appeared full of life and energy, although her hair was mostly white and her face lined with age.

“Did Grace say you are a nurse, Mrs. Brandt?” Mrs. Evans asked, probably wondering why someone of such a low social status was paying a call on Mrs. Linton.

“Yes, I am, much to my parents' regret.” Sarah rarely revealed her family background, but in this case, she knew she needed to make an exception.

“They didn't approve?” Mrs. Evans asked.

“No, they would have preferred to see me married to one of the Astor boys, I'm sure,” Sarah said, shamelessly referring to the wealthiest of the many wealthy families in New York.

Mrs. Evans wasn't sure whether Sarah was simply bragging. “And who are your parents, Mrs. Brandt?”

“Felix and Elizabeth Decker,” she replied.

Even Mrs. Linton's jaw dropped at this. She would have had no idea of Sarah's elite social connections.

Mrs. Evans needed a moment to absorb this information. “Well,” she said before she could completely compose herself. And then, “May I ask how you know Mrs. Linton?”

Once again, Mrs. Linton's face registered alarm, but Sarah said, “We have mutual friends. Are you neighbors of the Lintons?” she added to turn the focus of the conversation away from herself.

“Yes, and we attend the same church,” Mrs. Evans said.

“Percy seems to be good company for Grace,” Sarah observed, glancing at the window seat where their heads were bent together over the sketchbook.

“They've been fast friends ever since he and Hazel came to the city,” Mrs. Linton said with an affectionate glance at the two young people. “He was always kind to Grace, even when other children weren't.”

“Where did you move here from?” Sarah asked Mrs. York.

The woman seemed to rouse herself with effort to reply. “We lived in Boston. That's where my husband's business was, but when he passed away, Percy and I came back home to live with Mother.”

“And I've been blessed to have them,” Mrs. Evans reported. “Watching Percy grow up has been one of the greatest pleasures of my life.”

“He's growing into a fine young man, too,” Mrs. Linton said. “I know it must have been hard to raise a boy without a man in the house, but you've done a marvelous job.”

“Oh, we can't take all the credit for that,” Mrs. Evans assured her. “We never could have managed without Reverend Upchurch. He's our minister,” she explained to Sarah.