Murder on Mulberry Bend (3 page)

“Danny, it’s the cops!” one of the other children yelled.

“I don’t want any of you guttersnipes,” Frank shouted. “Get out of here before I run you in!”

He didn’t have to warn them twice. As quickly as little hands could snatch up belongings, they were out the door and gone, off to find a doorway or a drain pipe or a stairwell in which to hide. The two girls sharing Danny’s bed were a little slower because they had to throw on enough clothing to make their dash for freedom somewhat decent, but in another blink of the eye, they were gone, too.

“Good business you’ve got here,” Frank remarked as the young man rose, cursing, from his stinking mattress and looked around blearily for his clothes. “How many kids you got working for you?”

Not bothering with drawers — perhaps he didn’t own any — Danny stepped into a pair of trousers that were clean enough to indicate they’d been recently stolen off someone’s clothesline. Buttoning his fly, he glared balefully at Frank. “I pay my protection money to the captain regular, so don’t try to shake me down for more. I got friends.”

“I’m sure you do.” They both knew even honest businessmen paid a fee to the police for the privilege of being allowed to operate unmolested. Danny would have to pay a hefty percentage of his income. “I’m not here to give you any trouble.”

“Then get the hell out.” He stepped forward belligerently, and Frank had to resist an urge to laugh at his feeble attempt at intimidation. The boy was probably no more than sixteen. His hairless chin and bony chest were those of a child. His eyes, however, were older than hell itself. Cleaned up, he’d be a handsome lad. His hair, beneath the dirt and grease, was fair and curly. His eyes were blue as a cloudless sky. His nose gave evidence of having been broken, but it lent character to an otherwise merely pretty face. He twisted his full lips into a snarl, revealing that he’d lost a few teeth along the way. The look he was giving Frank probably terrified the urchins who stole for him in exchange for the protection of living in his shack. Frank merely returned it tenfold.

To his credit, the boy hardly flinched. “I ain’t afraid of you. I’ve taken beatings before.”

“I really don’t want to get blood on my suit,” Frank said reasonably. “So if you’ll tell me what I want to know, you can go back to sleep none the worse for wear.”

The boy rubbed his head, which was probably aching. Frank reached into his pocket and pulled out a flask.

“Here, this should help.”

He looked at the flask suspiciously for a moment before snatching it unceremoniously from Frank’s outstretched hand. Still watching Frank, he pulled the cork and took a swig. He gasped as the liquor burned its way down his throat. “Mother of God, b’hoyo,” he said hoarsely. “You shoulda warned me it was the good stuff! Are you trying to poison me?”

This time when he showed his missing teeth, he was grinning with delight.

Frank grinned back, although it wasn’t from delight. “Now, tell me what you know about Dr. Tom Brandt.”

“Who?”

Frank knew he wasn’t being coy. It had, after all, been three years since Dr. Brandt had died. “Tom Brandt,” Frank repeated. “He was a doctor. Used to treat people in the neighborhood. Didn’t mind if you couldn’t pay.”

Most physicians who ministered to the poor insisted on being paid before even examining a sick person. Some people were forced to forgo food for treatment, and those who couldn’t pay at all were left to suffer. Consequently, doctors were universally mistrusted and despised by their patients in this part of the city. Dr. Tom had been different, however.

Frank watched Danny’s face as he forced his aching brain to work. It took a few moments, but the light of recognition finally brightened in his blue eyes. In the next instant he must have remembered what happened to Dr. Brandt, though, because the light vanished, replaced by wary fear. “Never heard of no Dr. Brandt,” he insisted. “Here, take your whiskey and be on your way.”

He tried to give the flask back to Frank, but he didn’t take it. “Have another drink. Maybe your memory will improve,” Frank suggested.

Danny shook his head violently, then instantly regretted the motion. He almost dropped the flask in his haste to grab his head and stop his brain from rattling around inside of it. Frank glanced around and saw one rickety chair leaning against the wall. He grabbed it and forced Danny to sit.

“I don’t know nothing,” the boy insisted, looking up at Frank beseechingly. “I was just a kid when it happened.”

“If you never heard of the good doctor, how do you know something happened to him?” Frank asked mildly.

Danny’s eyes darted wildly as he searched for some means of escape, but Frank stood between him and the only door.

“No one will ever know you told me,” Frank said.

That challenged his manhood. Danny stuck out his chin defiantly. “I ain’t scared of nobody! Not even you, lousy copper!”

Frank simultaneously took hold of the flask that Danny still held and hooked his foot around the front leg of the chair. When he jerked his foot, the chair fell over backward, slamming Danny into the floor along with it. Frank still held the flask safely in his hand.

As soon as he got his breath, Danny started cursing and howling with pain. The chair hadn’t survived the fall, so Frank kicked the pieces out of the way and gave Danny a slight nudge, too, just to get his attention.

“Ow! Whadda you want from me? I told you, I don’t know nothin’!” the boy protested.

“And
I
told
you
I didn’t want to get blood on my suit, so if you make me do it, you’re going to be real sorry. Now just start talking, and I’ll let you know when I’ve heard enough.”

Danny protested only once more, so Frank had to nudge him only once more before he started talking.

“I was a newsboy then,” he said through gritted teeth, resentment darkening his too-old eyes. “I had a real good corner, right by an El station.” Newsboys fought each other regularly for the best corners. Most of them were homeless, and having a good corner might mean the difference between eating regularly and not. A spot by a station of the Elevated Train would be prime. Having such a spot proved Danny had been a tough kid even then.

“Go on,” Frank said.

Danny sighed with resignation. “This swell comes along. He buys a paper from me. He asks me do I want to earn some extra money. I say sure.”

“What did he look like?”

“I don’t know. A swell. You know, fancy suit, silk hat, walking stick with a big silver handle.”

That could describe half the men in the city. “Was he old or young? Tall or short? Fat or thin?” Frank asked impatiently.

“I don’t remember. I wasn’t paying much attention!”

Frank had to give him another nudge of encouragement.

When he stopped howling, he said, “Old, I guess. Older than you.”

“What color was his hair?”

The boy screwed up his face in the effort to remember. “He had on a hat.” Frank drew back his foot again, but Danny quickly recalled, “He had some gray around here, I think,” he said, pointing to his temple.

“You’re doing better, Danny. That’s the kind of information I’m looking for. Tall or short?”

“A little taller’n you, maybe. Not fat, not thin.”

“How much did he pay you to kill Dr. Brandt?” Frank asked mildly.

“I didn’t kill nobody! I swear!” He was genuinely frightened now. Most cops wouldn’t hesitate to solve a case by arresting the most convenient suspect, and Danny was certainly convenient at the moment. “I told you, I was just a kid. All he wanted me to do was take a note to this Dr. Brandt.”

“What did the note say?”

“I don’t know. I can’t read!”

This, Frank knew, was probably true. “What was Dr. Brandt supposed to do when he got the note?”

“I told you, I couldn’t read the note. I don’t got no idea.”

Frank shook his head in disapproval. “You’re trying my patience, Danny. You were supposed to take him someplace, weren’t you?”

“Who told you that?” Danny demanded, the fear in his voice just a little stronger than his feigned outrage.

“Never mind who told me. Where were you supposed to take Dr. Brandt?”

A shadow darkened the doorway, and Frank looked up to see another boy about Danny’s age peering in.

“Are you pinched?” he demanded of the boy on the floor.

“Yes, he is,” Frank replied, “and you will be, too, if you don’t get the hell out of here.”

“You come here alone, copper?” the boy asked incredulously.. He was bigger than Danny, stocky beneath his ragged clothes. “You should know better.”

With the light behind him, Frank couldn’t make out his features, but he saw the glint of the boy’s teeth as he grinned, and almost too late he saw the flash of the knife.

He threw up his arm to block the blow, and the blade slashed through his coat sleeve. Danny was scrambling to his feet, and Frank shoved the boy with the knife, sending him sprawling out into the alley. The knife clattered on the cobblestones, but before Frank could turn to deal with Danny, the boy barreled into him, knocking him to his knees. Frank made a grab for him, but the bare flesh of Danny’s skinny arm wrenched from his grasp as he darted out of the hovel.

By the time Frank pushed himself to his feet, both boys were disappearing down the alley in the direction of the street. Cursing his carelessness, Frank checked his coat sleeve and was furious to see blood already staining the fabric. It wasn’t bad enough that the coat was ruined, but he’d probably need stitches. He pulled out his handkerchief and awkwardly tied it around his arm as he made his way quickly back to the street. The creatures who occupied the tenements around him could sniff out weakness like a pack of jackals. He needed to get to a safer part of town as quickly as possible.

His mother would howl like a banshee when she saw the damaged coat, and now he was staining the handkerchief, too. The worse part, however, was that he’d let Danny get away. At least the old drunk hadn’t been lying. The boy did know something about Tom Brandt’s death. Something more than that he’d been beaten and left to die alone in an alley one dark night three years ago. Someone had hired him to lure Dr. Brandt to his death, which meant his murder hadn’t been a simple robbery as the police had determined at the time.

Frank had known the minute he read the account of Brandt’s death in the police files that robbery hadn’t been the motive. Brandt’s black doctor’s bag hadn’t been taken, nor had his wallet or watch. Even if a thief had been frightened off before being able to gather his loot, the poor of the city wouldn’t have hesitated to relieve a dead man of his valuables. He wouldn’t be needing them anymore, would he? Yet no one had touched Brandt’s body until the beat cop found him the next morning.

No one on the force had cared to investigate further, however. Sarah Brandt hadn’t understood then that she needed to offer a “reward” for finding her husband’s killer, and apparently her wealthy family hadn’t either. Without such a motivation, the detective on the case had simply concluded Brandt had been killed by an unknown assailant and closed the case. Many people got away with murder every day in the city. The chances of finding who had killed the good doctor after three years were worse than slim.

But miraculously, Frank had located someone who knew what had happened that night. True, he’d foolishly let the boy get away, but that was just a temporary setback. The boy would surface again. Danny knew no other life, so he wasn’t going to be leaving town. And just as someone had betrayed the boy once already, someone would again.

Frank cursed and hurried his steps. His arm was beginning to ache. He needed to see a doctor, and he didn’t want to waste his time with any of the saw-bones in this neighborhood, assuming he could even find a sober one.

Sarah Brandt was causing him a lot of trouble. If he had any sense, he’d forget what he’d heard today. She’d never know what had happened with Danny, so she’d never be disappointed in him for giving up the search for her husband’s killer.

Then he thought about his son. Brian was getting his cast off in a few days, and he might be able to walk for the first time in his life. The best surgeon in the city had operated on his club foot — because the surgeon was a friend of Sarah Brandt’s.

No, Frank wouldn’t forget what he’d learned today. Danny and he would meet again soon, and this time, he’d find out exactly what he needed to know.

“G
OOD MORNING, MRS. BRANDT!”

Sarah waved a greeting to her neighbor, Mrs. Ellsworth. In spite of the Sabbath being a day of rest, Mrs. Ellsworth was out sweeping her front porch. This enabled her to keep an eye on all the activities on Bank Street. She had the cleanest porch in New York City.

“Is that a new hat you’re wearing?” the old woman asked.

Sarah reached up to touch the hat in question. “As a matter of fact, it is.”

“Very stylish,” Mrs. Ellsworth said in approval.

“It should be,” Sarah replied with a grin. “It was my mother’s.”

“Your mother’s?”

“Yes, she decided I needed some more presentable clothes, and she made me take my pick from her closet.” The gown she’d worn to the opera last night had been only one of her new acquisitions. Mrs. Ellsworth hadn’t noticed that her suit was “new,” too.

“That was very nice of her. Now I suppose you’re taking your old things to be laundered, but where are you taking them on a Sunday?” Mrs. Ellsworth asked with a puzzled frown at the bundle Sarah carried. “Or are you taking something to poor Mr. Prescott?” Webster Prescott was a newspaper reporter who had been injured while investigating the murder Sarah had just helped Malloy solve a few days earlier.

Sarah glanced down at the bundle. “No, this isn’t for Mr. Prescott. His aunt is taking very good care of him, and she assured me he doesn’t need anything. And it’s not my laundry, either. I’m paying a visit to one of the missions on the Lower East Side, so I thought I’d take my old things down to them as a donation.”