Murder on Mulberry Bend (14 page)

“I want to see them. Which flat is theirs?”

“We no do nothing wrong,” the woman said, the fear thick in her voice.

“Are you Mrs. Donato?” he asked, coming closer.

She cringed away. “We no do nothing wrong,” she insisted.

“I need to talk to you, about your daughter Emilia.”

“Emilia!”
she echoed scornfully. “I have no daughter. Go away.”

She certainly didn’t have a daughter any longer, but Frank didn’t want to break the news to her in the hallway, no matter how angry she might be with the girl.

“Is your husband at home?” Frank asked.

Now that his eyes were used to the darkness, he could make out her features more clearly. She wasn’t as old as her plodding gait had suggested, but the years hadn’t been kind to her. “He no here,” she claimed almost desperately. “Come back later.”

“Maybe I’ll just wait here for him,” Frank suggested. “Or go get the landlord to help me find him.”

This put the fear of God into her. Landlords didn’t like tenants who brought the police snooping around. “What you want?”

“I told you, I want to talk to you about your daughter Emilia,” he said patiently. His experience had been that most of the Italians avoided trouble whenever possible and were terrified of dealing with the police. Apparently, law enforcement in their native country was even more corrupt than it was in New York City. “I won’t keep you very long, but it’s not something I want to talk about here,” he added meaningfully.

She hated him. He could see it in her eyes, along with the fear. But she said, “Come,” and started up the stairs again. She was a short woman, but not small. Her breasts and hips were full and round. They were sagging now, but she’d probably had an appealing figure as a young girl, before the years and childbirth had taken their toll.

Fortunately, the Donato flat was only on the third floor in this five-floor walk-up. Frank found it difficult to question someone when he was completely winded.

The Donato flat was exactly like a million others in the city. A few pieces of furniture might have been carried from the old country, but the rest had been purchased here, as cheaply as possible, or scrounged from the trash heaps. Brightly colored curtains hung from the front window, and scarves were draped here and there to brighten up the place, but nothing could help the back rooms where sunlight never reached.

The door opened into the kitchen of the flat, and Mrs. Donato set her basket on the table, which was no more than planks laid over some wooden crates. Frank saw that tonight’s dinner would be some dried-up potatoes and turnips. What appeared to be dead weeds would probably become a salad. Beneath the recently purchased food, he could see a few paper flowers, and the kitchen table held the makings for more. Probably the woman made and sold them for extra money, as many wives in the tenements did.

“Tell me quick, before Antonio come home,” she advised him. “He want to help if she in trouble, so I no tell. We no help her. I have no daughter.”

Frank was beginning to wonder if that could be true. He could see now that her hair beneath the scarf was black, only slightly tinged with gray, and her complexion was the dark olive he would have expected. He wondered if Mr. Donato was blond. Sarah had said that Emilia must be from Northern Italy because of her blond hair, but her mother certainly wasn’t. “Your daughter was found dead this morning,” he said baldly, since she’d already informed him she didn’t care about the girl.

“Dead?” she repeated as if she wasn’t sure what the word meant.
“Guasto?”

“Yeah,
guasto,”
he replied, nodding so she’d understand.

“Emilia?” Was she trying to deny it, as most mothers would, or was she just trying to make sure?

“She had yellow hair,” Frank said. “She’d been living at the mission. She had a lover named Ugo.”

“Sì,
Emilia,” she confirmed with a sigh, sinking down into one of the mismatched chairs. She set her elbow on the table and rested her forehead on her clenched fist.

“I’m sorry,” Frank said, interpreting the gesture as grief.

But when she looked up, her dark eyes were blazing with fury. “She trouble, all a time, trouble. Is good she dead. No more trouble.”

Frank had seen reactions like this before, but usually it was because the deceased was a son who’d gone bad. Rarely did a mother react this way to the death of a daughter. Of course, he’d never had to inform a prostitute’s mother that she was dead. With women like that, nobody even knew who their mothers were.

Frank heard the sound of footsteps climbing the stairs. It could have been anyone, but Mrs. Donato must have recognized them. She jumped to her feet. “You go now,” she said urgently. “I have no daughter. You go.”

But Frank hadn’t quite finished his business here. He wanted to get a look at Emilia’s father, just to satisfy his curiosity. He stepped out onto the landing and waited. Mrs. Donato hovered anxiously in the doorway. Frank figured her husband might not be as glad as she was that the girl was dead. He wondered why.

The man who emerged from the gloom of the stairway was a little shorter than average height, his body stocky and muscular from heavy labor. His swarthy face had been darkened even further by the sun, and beneath his workman’s cap, his hair was as black as his wife’s. He stopped in alarm when he saw Frank standing there and glanced at his wife with a silent question.

“Polizia,
” she said as a warning.
“È venuta dirci che Emilia fosse guasto.”

Frank wasn’t certain exactly what she’d said but recognized enough words to know she’d warned him Frank was from the police and Emilia was dead. The man showed the shock his wife had not.

“Emilia?” He didn’t want to believe it, and he looked to Frank for confirmation.

“Someone stabbed her to death this morning in City Hall Park,” he said.

“No,”
he said desperately. “No true!”

“I’m afraid it is. Someone who knows her already identified the body.”

“Who?” he challenged.

Sarah’s name would mean nothing to them. “A lady who met her at the mission.”

“Mission,”
Mrs. Donato repeated and spat on the floor to show her contempt. Donato’s shoulders sank in defeat, and he looked as if he might pass out.

This wasn’t going the way Frank had expected. The man of the house was shocked senseless and his wife was spitting on the floor. “Sit down, Mr. Donato,” he tried, guiding the man into the flat and pulling out a chair for him. He sank down as his wife had, but he was suffering from grief, or something very like it. Frank still wasn’t sure.

Donato rubbed a calloused hand over his face. When he looked up, Frank saw strong emotions but none he could identify. “You say she stab?”

“Probably with a stiletto,” Frank said, watching for a reaction.

Donato frowned, and his wife started muttering invectives in Italian.

“Do you know anyone who might have wanted to kill Emilia?” Frank asked.

“We no see her, long time,” Mrs. Donato said firmly.

“What about her brother? Has he seen her?”

“No,” Mrs. Donato said firmly. Her husband said nothing.

“Maybe I should ask him myself. When will he be home?”

She crossed her arms beneath her heavy breasts and just glared at him.

“What about Ugo?” Frank asked casually. “You wouldn’t mind if he went to jail, would you?”

Frank expected Mrs. Donato to spit on the floor again, but she just continued to glare at him furiously. He looked down at Donato and gave the leg of his chair a slight nudge.

Donato made a squeak of surprise and looked up, terrified.

“What’s this Ugo’s last name and where does he live?” Frank asked.

“Ianuzzi,” Mrs. Donato hastily offered and added an address farther down Mulberry Street. “He bad,” she added helpfully. “He kill sure.”

“Was he angry at Emilia for leaving him?” Frank tried.

“Si, he hate Emilia. He kill, you see.” She was much too certain, as if she were trying to convince herself, too.

Frank looked at Donato. He wasn’t saying anything, just staring at the table. Frank would have to catch him without his wife. He’d need to see the son, too. They had no intention of telling the police anything. They thought they were well rid of Emilia and her “trouble,” and they weren’t going to let any other family member get dragged down with her.

“I’ll be back,” he warned them and took his leave. Making his way carefully down the dark stairwell, he silently cursed Sarah Brandt. Only she could have compelled him to make such a ridiculous promise. No one was going to be able to find Emilia’s killer. Not only didn’t these people speak English, they were too terrified to tell the truth to the police. They’d also lie to protect each other, even if they were innocent.

He could probably beat a confession out of someone, but he made a point of saving that tactic for people he knew were guilty. In this case, he’d be lucky to find someone who even knew she’d be in the park this morning. On the other hand, she
must
have been killed by someone she knew. She’d had nothing of value, so she hadn’t been robbed, and she hadn’t been molested, either. Someone who had wanted her dead and knew exactly what he was doing had stabbed her quickly and neatly and walked calmly away, leaving her to fall to the ground and die.

How many enemies so cold-blooded could a girl like that have? And although she’d obviously had at least one, how on earth was Frank ever going to find him when her own mother thought he’d done them a favor?

 

Sarah could tell by the way Frank Malloy was pounding on her door the next morning that he hadn’t liked getting a message from her at Police Headquarters. She opened the door and said, “My only other choice was to go by your flat and leave a message with your mother,” before he could even open his mouth.

Whatever angry words he’d been about to say died on his lips, but his glare was still fierce. “At least my mother wouldn’t have laughed,” he informed her grimly.

She could only imagine how much teasing he endured each time she contacted him there. “I’m sorry, Malloy, but I didn’t know how else to get you over here. You made it very clear you didn’t want me to get involved in the case, so I knew you weren’t going to drop by to consult with me.” She stepped back and allowed him to enter.

He pulled off his hat and hung it up without waiting for an invitation to stay. “Don’t think for a minute that I’m here to
consult
you,” he warned. “You aren’t getting involved in this, and that’s final.”

“Of course,” she agreed cheerfully. “I’m sure you’ll find Emilia’s killer all by yourself in a day or two, so I won’t even have time to get involved. I just wanted you to know one thing that Mrs. Wells forgot to tell you.”

This time he looked so angry that Sarah began to feel a little uneasy.

“When did you see Mrs. Wells?” he asked her in a voice that raised the hair on her arms.

“I went to see her yesterday afternoon,” she said, refusing to be cowed. “I had to tell her that my mother offered to hold a party to raise funds for the mission.”

He needed a minute to absorb this information. “Your
mother?”
he repeated incredulously. “What does you mother have to do with this?”

“Nothing at all. I just thought I’d like to do something to help Mrs. Wells with her work at the mission. Places like that always need money, and my mother knows lots of rich people.”

“Does you mother know she’s giving a party for the mission?” he asked suspiciously.

“Of course she does!” Sarah replied huffily. “She was only too happy to do it.”

“What about Richard Dennis?”

“What about him?”

“Does he know about this party, too?”

Sarah knew Malloy had no love for Richard Dennis, but the expression in his voice when he said the man’s name went far beyond simple dislike. She remembered her suspicion that Malloy was jealous of Richard, but she didn’t dwell on it. She didn’t need to, because now she was certain of it. “Mr. Dennis’s wife worked as a volunteer at the mission before her death. He is also very interested in helping them.”

“Was he with you on Sunday when you visited the mission?”

He was acting as if he had a right to question her like this! She could, of course, point out that it was none of his business, but she said, “Mr. Dennis asked me to accompany him so he could see what kind of work they do there.”

She gave him a moment to digest this, but before he could come up with another intrusive question, she said, “Would you like some coffee?” Without waiting for his answer, she turned and walked off toward the kitchen, perfectly confident that he would follow.

He did.

“Have a seat,” she offered, busying herself with finding some cups. The pot was still warm from breakfast, so she poured them each a cup and set them on the kitchen table. Only then did he deign to sit, and once again she spoke before he could.

“Mrs. Wells told me that Emilia was very proud of her new outfit. The one I’d donated to the mission,” she added, knowing full well he already knew which outfit Emilia had been wearing. “One of the other girls heard Emilia say that she wished Ugo could see her. Ugo was her lover, the one who beat her and threw her out.”

“I know who he is,” he snapped.

“Have you talked to him already?” she asked.

“He wasn’t home when I called,” Malloy said sourly.

“That’s good. You probably needed to know this information before you question him.”

“What
information?”

“That Emilia was thinking about showing Ugo how beautiful she looked,” Sarah said, amazed he couldn’t figure that out. “It’s a normal, feminine reaction. She’s feeling confident and irresistible, so she seeks out the man who rejected her.”

“Why? So he’ll take her back and beat her up again?”