Murder on Mulberry Bend (20 page)

She’d wanted to come yesterday, but she knew Sunday wasn’t a typical day at the mission. Besides, she’d had a baby to deliver, and by the time she was finished, it was too late. Yes, Monday morning was better anyway. The beginning of a new week would be the perfect time to offer her services as an instructor. Volunteering her help was just what she needed to make her feel her life was serving an important purpose.

And if she found out more about Emilia Donato’s murder, too, well, that would be extremely fortunate.

A very small girl opened the door to her knock. She looked up at Sarah with big brown eyes, her expression solemn, and didn’t utter a single word. Sarah couldn’t help smiling.

“Is Mrs. Wells at home?” she asked.

The little girl nodded her head and didn’t move.

“Could I come in to see her?” Sarah asked.

The girl had to think it over. Apparently, she decided Sarah was acceptable, because she stepped back after a few moments and opened the door wide enough for her visitor to enter. The red-haired girl who had answered the door the last time was hurrying down the hallway from the kitchen. “Aggie, I told you not to open the door!” she scolded the child.

The little one looked up at Sarah, gave her a mischievous grin, and scurried away, dodging the older girl to scramble up the staircase and out of sight.

“I’m sorry, miss,” the red-haired girl said, a little breathless from her rush. “Aggie don’t pay much mind to anybody but Mrs. Wells. Can I help you?”

“I came to see Mrs. Wells, if she’s available. Would you tell her Mrs. Brandt is here?”

“Mrs. Brandt, how good to see you,” Mrs. Wells said.

Sarah and the girl looked up in surprise to see her descending the stairs.

“Aggie told me I had a visitor.” She gave the red-haired girl a look that appeared only mildly disapproving, but the girl paled noticeably, and her eyes widened with apprehension.

“I’m that sorry, Mrs. Wells, truly I am!” she said anxiously. “She don’t pay me no mind when I tell her not to do something.”

“Doesn’t,” Mrs. Wells said, correcting her. “She doesn’t pay you
any
mind, Maeve. In that case, you need to watch her more closely, don’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am,” she agreed eagerly and bobbed a curtsey. “I’ll do that, I will.” She hurried off up the stairs, presumably to find Aggie and watch her closely.

“One does try to teach them manners,” Mrs. Wells explained apologetically. “One isn’t always successful. Would you come in and sit down, Mrs. Brandt? I presume you’re here to discuss the party.” Sarah’s mother had scheduled the party to benefit the mission for Thursday evening.

Sarah followed her hostess into the parlor and took a seat on the worn sofa once more. “I’ll be glad to discuss the party, if you wish,” she began, “but I really came here to volunteer my services to you.”

Mrs. Wells was so self-contained that Sarah had a difficult time reading her reaction. She’d had one, of course, but it was so slight it might have been anything from pleasure to distaste. Sarah had no way of judging. “You said you are a midwife,” Mrs. Wells said, and Sarah heard the unspoken question.

“I’m sure you don’t have a need for a midwife at the mission, but I’m also a trained nurse. I was very impressed with the work you’re doing here, Mrs. Wells, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the mission. I want to help you in whatever way I can.”

“You’re already helping quite a bit by raising funds for our ministry here,” she reminded her.

Sarah folded her hands and leaned forward to show her sincerity. “I want to do more than that. I’d like to work directly with the girls.”

The expression on Mrs. Wells’s face looked almost like suspicion. “Doing what?”

“I could teach them a class in hygiene,” Sarah offered, glad she’d taken the time to think this through. “So many illnesses can be prevented by the simple application of soap and water, and you mentioned yourself how ignorant the people in the tenements are about the importance of cleanliness.”

“You’re right, of course,” she said, her voice carefully expressionless.

Sarah hadn’t really thought about what reaction she might get from her offer, but she’d certainly never imagined disapproval. “On the other hand,” Sarah said quickly, “if you have something else in mind, something you think would be more valuable, I would be happy to do whatever would help you the most.”

“My dear Mrs. Brandt, please don’t think I’m ungrateful for your offer,” she assured Sarah with one of her sweet smiles. “I didn’t mean to give that impression. I’m afraid ... Well, quite frankly, people are often inspired when they see the work we do here and enthusiastically offer to help. Their enthusiasm seldom survives a few additional visits to the mission, however. You see, the idea of helping the poor is far more appealing than actually doing the work. The poor aren’t especially anxious to be helped, and they are seldom grateful.”

Now Sarah understood. She wasn’t the first upper-class woman to impulsively offer her assistance. “I’m not as innocent as you imagine, Mrs. Wells,” Sarah assured her. “My husband was a physician who worked with the poor, and I’ve delivered many babies right here in this neighborhood myself.”

“In that case, you understand the situation. I’m also reluctant to introduce someone new to the girls who might not ever return. If that happens frequently, the girls begin to believe they are repulsive in some way. God’s creatures should be humble, Mrs. Brandt, but not humiliated.”

Sarah nodded her understanding. “I promise you, I won’t disappear after one visit.”

This time Mrs. Wells folded her hands and leaned forward, her eyes dark with the soul-searching intensity Sarah had noticed before. “Mrs. Brandt, why are you doing this?”

Sarah thought she’d already explained herself. “I want to do something important with my life.”

“Why?”

Sarah hadn’t expected to be challenged, and she was surprised to realize she didn’t really have an answer to that question. “I ... I guess it’s because of Emilia.”

“Because of her death?” Mrs. Wells asked.

Sarah knew this was a large part of her motivation. “Yes, that’s it. It’s difficult to accept that such a young girl with so much promise will never get the chance to fulfill her destiny.”

Mrs. Wells smiled kindly. “On the other hand, she’ll never fall back into a life of debauchery again either. If you are going to mourn for what might have been, you should know how few girls succeed in fulfilling the goals you had for Emilia.”

“But she was determined to have a decent life,” Sarah argued.

“They all are, when they arrive here. For every girl who stays pure, a dozen more backslide, and a thousand never come to us at all. Emilia had already failed once, and she might well have failed again. This time at least she was fortunate that she died in a state of grace and will spend eternity in heaven.”

“Are you saying her death was a blessing?” Sarah asked in amazement.

“Death can be a blessing, Mrs. Brandt. We should trust the Lord’s judgment.”

“But the Lord didn’t kill her,” Sarah pointed out. “A human being took matters into his own hands.”

“Then we must trust the Lord to be the judge of that, too.”

“I’m afraid I can’t be as forgiving as you, Mrs. Wells,” Sarah said. “I’d like to see justice done.”

“ ‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord,’ ” she quoted.

Sarah would have to be sure to tell Malloy that he and Mrs. Wells agreed about the necessity of catching Emilia’s killer. “I suppose I’m going to have to learn to accept your point of view.”

“Because you’ve seen the wisdom of it?”

“No, because the police have closed the investigation into Emilia’s death.”

“Closed it?” Mrs. Wells echoed as if she didn’t understand.

“Yes, they aren’t particularly interested in who killed her or why, and since no one else is either, they’re not going to waste any more time on it.”

Mrs. Wells was staring intently at Sarah. “Your friend Mr. Malloy seemed very determined to solve the case, and you were certain he would.”

“He was ordered to stop the investigation,” Sarah said, trying not to sound bitter. “I’m very much afraid no one will ever find out who killed Emilia.”

Mrs. Wells closed her eyes as a spasm of pain twisted her features. It was the first strong emotion Sarah had seen her display, and it lasted only a moment. Then she lowered her head, and Sarah realized she must be praying. Even though she hadn’t betrayed her grief at Emilia’s death, Sarah now knew she had been concealing her true emotions, holding them tightly in check as well-bred females were expected to do. Perhaps she had been hurt so many times, she could no longer allow herself to feel the true depths of anguish and loss at all. Even still, losing Emilia was a blow, and her grief was just as real as if she’d collapsed on the floor in hysterics.

When she raised her head, Sarah saw how fragile was her self-control and how strained the smile she managed. Her eyes were moist with unshed tears. “We must accept God’s will,” she said softly, as if trying to convince herself. Obviously, she wasn’t as resigned to Emilia’s death as she’d wanted Sarah to believe.

“The question is, will you accept me?” Sarah asked. “I couldn’t do anything for Emilia, but perhaps I can help the next girl. I’d like the chance to try.”

“Certainly, Mrs. Brandt,” she said, shedding her grief by force of will. “We would be honored to have you here.”

 

Frank shouldn’t have felt guilty. He didn’t have any reason to feel guilty. Nobody could find Emilia Donato’s killer. Even if someone knew something, the Italians didn’t trust the police. They’d carry a secret like that to their graves before sharing it with the cops. All things considered, the killer had probably spared the girl a life of misery anyway. Not that he approved of murder, of course, but some deaths were more tragic than others. This girl’s was less tragic than most.

And it wasn’t that he’d just given up or anything. He’d been
ordered
to close the case. He could lose his job if he disobeyed. Which was why he didn’t feel guilty, not a bit.

He just wished he could forget the expression on Sarah Brandt’s face when he’d told her they’d never find Emilia’s killer.

So now he was back in the alley where he’d found the mysterious Danny, the boy who supposedly knew who’d killed Sarah’s husband. This time he’d brought some help, though. He’d had to hunt down these two cops from the night watch and wake them up. When things were quiet, the beat cops found a safe hideyhole and nodded off. They weren’t too happy about being disturbed, but since he could’ve reported them for sleeping on duty and Commissioner Teddy Roosevelt had been cracking down on malingerers on the force, they weren’t complaining too much.

“You sure he’s back? I ain’t seen him around,” one of the cops asked as they groped their way through the alley to the rear of the tenements.

“He’s back,” Frank said with more confidence than he had a right to feel. What he knew for sure was that
somebody
was living in the hovel where he’d found Danny the last time. An empty space where no one would charge rent, no matter how humble, wouldn’t stay vacant for long. Probably the most he could hope for was that someone inside would know where to find Danny now. A slim possibility, to be sure, but the only one he had.

Frank cursed as he tripped over a drunk sleeping it off in the alley. “Light your lantern,” he told one of the cops irritably. “We’ll need to see who’s in the house.”

After some fumbling and some more cursing, the cop got the lantern lit. It made an eerie glow in the shadowy courtyard, revealing more sleeping forms on the ground here and there, drunks taking advantage of the relative shelter.

Frank sent one of the cops around behind the shanty in case someone tried to create a new exit through the rear wall when the trouble started. Then he stationed the other cop on one side of the crude doorway, holding the lantern up to illuminate the inmates, and he took the other side himself. When they were in position, he nodded to the cop with the lantern. The fellow raised his nightstick and pounded on the door, nearly shattering the flimsy structure with the force of his blow.

“Police!” he shouted. “Everybody out!”

The other cop began pounding on the back wall of the structure to hurry the evacuation process along.

The place came alive like a disturbed beehive. Shouts and screams and the sounds of bodies thudding against walls and each other erupted from within. In another second, the door swung open and small forms spewed out, arms covering heads to ward off blows from the dreaded locusts. They ran in every direction, disappearing into the darkness.

Frank waited like a patient fisherman, letting the little ones go. Finally, a larger figure emerged. The cop brought down his locust, and the taller boy fell to his knees with a cry of pain. He wasn’t Danny, but Frank grabbed him and dragged him out of the way, holding on to the limp form in case he was only faking injury. They watched until the last of the children had vanished, but Danny didn’t come out. Frank sent the cop with the lantern inside to make sure no one else was lingering, then he jerked his prisoner to his feet and slammed him up against the wall of the hovel.

The cop shone the lantern light directly in the boy’s face. He squinted in pain, but Frank recognized him as the one who had sliced his arm so Danny could escape. “Do you remember me, b’hoyo?” Frank asked menacingly.

The boy blinked, trying to focus, but having little success. He stank of beer, among other things, and the blow from the cop’s locust had scattered whatever brains he’d had left.

“Let’s take him down to Headquarters so he can think about his situation for a little while,” Frank suggested and turned him over to the two cops. They each took an arm and began dragging the protesting boy toward the alley that led to the street.

Frank followed, absently rubbing the cut on his arm. The stitches still itched like crazy. His mother said that was a good sign, but it didn’t feel good. It just made him angry. This kid would bear the brunt of his anger. Frank couldn’t help hoping the boy didn’t betray Danny too quickly.