Murder on Waverly Place (8 page)

“So that’s the famous Mrs. Brandt,” one of the officers standing in the hallway said when Frank came out of the office and closed the door behind him. “She’s a little long in the tooth, isn’t she?”

Frank gave him a murderous glare. Did every cop in the city know he was friends with Sarah Brandt?

“Sorry,” the cop said hastily. “I just thought . . . Well, she’s still a fine-looking woman for all of that.”

“Make sure nobody bothers her unless I say so,” Frank said. “And find the nearest call box and get Officer Donatelli over here for me.”

“The wop?” the cop asked in surprise.

The New York City Police Department had only recently begun hiring officers of any ethnicity besides Irish, and few of the old guard trusted them. “That’s right. Any more questions?” Frank added in a tone that said there better not be.

“No, sir. I’ll get Donatelli for you.”

Frank sighed and went back into the room where the body still lay. He’d done no more than glance around the first time to see who the victim was. He’d been in too much of a hurry to get Mrs. Decker out of sight.

The ward detective who’d been called to the scene first was still in there, waiting for Frank to finish with “Mrs. Brandt.”

“How’s the lady doing?” he asked politely.

“She’ll be fine,” Frank snapped, walking over to get a better look at the body.

“We already sent for the medical examiner,” Detective Sergeant O’Toole informed him.

Frank nodded. He hunkered down next to the woman. She looked to be middle-aged. Nothing unusual about her. Well dressed. She’d apparently been sitting in one of the chairs, and someone had slipped a stiletto between her ribs. He couldn’t see the blade, but he could tell by the design of the handle protruding from her back that it would be long, thin, and diamond shaped with a needle-sharp point. The kind of knife made popular by the Italian secret society, the Black Hand. Her body lay as if it had just slid off the chair of its own weight. When he touched her hand, it was only slightly cool and still flexible.

He pushed himself back to his feet and turned to where O’Toole still waited. “What do you figure happened here?”

“Can’t get much sense out of those people in there,” he said in disgust, nodding toward the front room, where the séance participants had been gathered. “Something about talking to ghosts or something.”

“Spirits,” Frank corrected him. “They were sitting around the table holding hands or wrists or something?”

“That’s what they said. Six of them, including that girl they call Madame, although she ain’t like no madam I ever saw.”

“In the dark,” Frank said.

“So they said.”

“Close that door,” Frank said. “Let’s see how dark it really is.”

O’Toole closed the door. He had to use some force. It fit very tightly in its frame. Frank reached up and turned off the gas jet.

O’Toole swore softly. “Can’t see my hand in front of my face.”

He was right. Whatever happened here, no one else would have seen. “Open the door.”

Frank found a match and lighted the gas again. He looked around once more, this time taking in all the details of the room. “There’s no window in here.”

“No,” O’Toole confirmed. “This here’s a false wall.” He indicated the wall opposite the door. “There’s a space about four feet deep between it and the outside wall of the house. Looks like that’s where they store stuff. A lot of junk in there.”

A large cabinet sat against the false wall. “What’s in there?”

“Nothing,” O’Toole reported. “Just an empty cabinet.”

Frank wondered why they had an empty cabinet in the room, but before he could figure it out, he heard a woman start to scream hysterically. Muttering a curse, he went back out into the hallway and into the front parlor. The cops O’Toole had set on guard were just staring helplessly as one of the women was having a fit. Frank had half expected it to be the young one, the spiritualist, but it was the other one. She was a woman about Mrs. Decker’s age and dressed like she had money and lots of it.

The girl was talking to her, holding her hands and trying to calm her down, and by the time Frank got there, she wasn’t screaming anymore, just sobbing uncontrollably. The door to the office opened and Mrs. Decker stuck her head out. Naturally, she’d want to see what was going on.

“Get back in there,” he commanded her in a voice very few people had ever disobeyed.

Her eyes widened in surprise, but she had the good sense to do what he told her. Everyone in the front parlor had looked up when he shouted at her. The three men who had been waiting there instantly all began talking at once.

“See here, you can’t keep us here like this!”

“I have an appointment this afternoon!”

“What’s going on? I have to see Mrs. Gittings!”

“Quiet!” Frank shouted, and they all fell silent, even the hysterical female, who looked absolutely terrified. “I’ve got to ask each of you a few questions, and then you can go. Is there another room where I can meet with you in private?”

“The dining room,” the tall man who’d wanted to see Mrs. Gittings said.

“Do you live here?” Frank asked.

“Yes, I . . . I work for Madame Serafina. I’m Professor Rogers.” He was very pale and he was clutching his hands together in front of him, as if trying to keep them from trembling.

“I’ll talk to you first,” he said, indicating the hysterical woman. “And then you can go home.”

“But I don’t know anything!” she protested tearfully. “I didn’t see anything. None of us did.”

“Then it won’t take long for you to answer my questions,” he said reasonably. “Come along.”

“You’ll be fine,” the young woman assured her. She seemed very calm for having just witnessed a murder, Frank thought.

The older woman rose uncertainly.

“Come with me, please, Mrs. Burke,” the Professor said, and he escorted her out into the hallway toward the room where the dead woman lay.

She balked, but he took her elbow. “This way,” he said, and steered her toward the room across the hall. Sliding pocket doors led to a large empty room. Dust motes danced in the sunlight streaming through the large windows. Plainly, Madame Serafina had felt no need for formal dining. A chandelier hung forlornly from the center of the ceiling. It was an old one that had been converted to gas. Fortunately, the sunlight made artificial light unnecessary, at least in here.

“Get some chairs, will you, Professor?” Frank said.

He disappeared and returned with two straight-backed chairs that he’d probably fetched from the kitchen. O’Toole wouldn’t have let him into the séance room. Then the Professor closed the doors behind him and was gone.

Mrs. Burke sat down on one of the chairs, and Frank placed the other so he could face her. “I know this has been a shock, Mrs. . . . I’m sorry. What was your name?”

“Mrs. Burke,” she said, her voice a little steadier. “Mrs. Philip Burke.”

Frank pulled a notebook and pencil from his pocket and jotted it down, along with the address she gave him. She was a near neighbor of Mrs. Decker’s on the Upper West Side and a long way from home down here on Waverly Place. “Tell me what happened or at least what you remember happened.”

“Where shall I start?”

“Right before Mrs. Gittings . . .” He made a vague gesture with his hand.

She nodded and drew a steadying breath. “We were sitting around the table.”

“In the dark, I know. Holding hands. Talking to the spirits.”

“That’s right,” she said with some surprise.

“Who were you holding hands with?”

“Not holding hands exactly,” she corrected him. “We hold each other’s wrists. Madame Serafina was holding mine and . . .” She had to stop and swallow before she could finish. “And I was holding Mrs. Gittings’s.”

Frank nodded encouragingly. “And what was happening just before you noticed something wasn’t right with Mrs. Gittings?”

She gave a little shudder and for an instant Frank was afraid she would start screaming again, but she got hold of herself and went on. “Mrs. Decker was . . . Oh, dear! I mean, Mrs. Brandt . . .”

“I know who Mrs. Decker is,” Frank told her. “I won’t tell anyone. Go on. What was Mrs. Decker doing?”

“She was trying to get her daughter to speak to her.”

“Her daughter?” Frank echoed in surprise, wondering why Mrs. Decker would need a séance to talk to Sarah.

“She has a daughter who died,” Mrs. Burke clarified. “She wanted to contact her.”

“Oh, right,” Frank said, remembering now. “Go on.”

“As I said, Mrs. Decker was trying to get her daughter to speak to her, but there was a lot of confusion, and Yellow Feather couldn’t understand the message. Yellow Feather is—”

“I know, the spirit guide,” Frank said, managing to keep the sarcasm from his voice. “What did you hear?”

“Yellow Feather was shouting and there was some music,” she remembered with a frown. “I don’t think it was really a song exactly, just notes, discordant. There was so much noise, and we were all listening to find out what Mrs. Decker’s daughter would say to her.”

“What
did
she say?”

“Nothing,” she admitted sadly. “Or at least nothing I could understand. I was distracted, you see. I was holding Mrs. Gittings’s wrist.” She held up her left hand and looked at it in wonder.

“How exactly do you do that?” Frank asked, trying to picture it in his mind. “Hold each other’s wrists, I mean.”

“Oh, well, you hold the wrist of the person on your left, and the person on your right is holding your right wrist.”

Frank nodded, understanding at last. “All right, go on. You were holding Mrs. Gittings’s wrist.”

“Yes, and she was very still, although I didn’t think about that at the time. But then she leaned over toward me, or at least I thought that’s what she was doing. Her shoulder touched mine.” She instinctively grabbed her left shoulder with her right hand, as if she could still feel the pressure from the dead woman. “And then . . . and then . . . she just kept coming.” Her voice caught on a sob and she was weeping again, her shoulders shaking as she bawled into a fine, lace handkerchief.

Frank sighed and sat back, letting her cry for a few minutes. “I’m sorry to put you through this, Mrs. Burke, but I only have a few more questions and then you can go,” he said when she’d slowed down a bit.

She looked up, her eyes red-rimmed and full of horror. “She fell on me! I’ll never forget how that felt. I tried to catch her, but she was too heavy.”

“And then you screamed,” Frank said.

“I did?” she asked in surprise. “I don’t remember. I was just trying to tell everyone she fainted, trying to make myself heard over the din.”

“What happened next?”

“I don’t know . . . Someone opened the door, I guess. I didn’t see who. Then I could see her lying there, in the light that came in from the hall. Her face . . . She looked surprised. Her eyes were open, and she just seemed surprised. I asked her if she was all right,” she remembered with another shudder.

“What happened then?”

She tried to remember. Frank could see her making the effort, picturing the scene. “Everyone was talking at once. Someone . . . Mr. Sharpe, I think, he knelt down to help her. Madame was calling for the Professor to bring smelling salts. We thought she’d fainted, you see. Then someone said, ‘My God! Look at her back.’ ”

“Do you remember who that was?”

“I . . . No, I’m sorry. I looked at her back, and I saw . . .” She shuddered again. “And then everything is all confused. I just wanted to get
away
. The next thing I remember clearly, we were all in the parlor, and the Professor told us to wait there while he got the police.”

“This Mrs. Gittings, was she a friend of yours?”

“Oh, no, not at all,” she said too quickly. “I met her here. She was at the first séance I attended.”

“Do you know anything about her?”

Mrs. Burke had to think about this. “I believe she was trying to contact someone in her family, but I can’t think who. Isn’t that strange? I know who everyone else in the group wanted to contact.”

“You don’t know where she lived?”

She bit her lip, and Frank realized she was lying, although he couldn’t imagine why. “No, I don’t. I’m sorry. I’m sure Madame or the Professor could help you.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Burke.”

“May I go now?” she asked eagerly.

“Yes, you can. Do you have a carriage waiting for you?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Stay right here. I’ll have the Professor escort you out.” She looked as if she might not even be able to walk back to the parlor, and if she did faint, Frank wanted no part of it.

The Professor was only too glad to do Frank’s bidding. Frank returned to the parlor to select the next witness. Once again, everyone looked up when he walked into the room. The two remaining men had been conferring in the corner, and they both started toward him. Frank instantly chose the older man as the one most likely to have power and influence and therefore the most likely to cause him trouble.

“I’ll see you next,” he said and turned away before the other one could argue. As he’d expected, the older gentleman followed him. They passed Mrs. Burke and the Professor on their way out.

“Are you all right, Mrs. Burke?” the man asked solicitously.

“Yes, thank you, Mr. Sharpe.”

“If you need help getting home—”

“Oh, thank you, but my carriage is waiting outside. I’ll . . . Well, good-bye.”

“Good-bye,” he replied and watched until the Professor had gotten her out the front door before following Frank to the empty dining room. Frank closed the doors and indicated he should take a seat.

Sharpe was well dressed and well groomed, the masculine equivalent of Mrs. Decker and Mrs. Burke. He could probably have been welcomed into Felix Decker’s home and conducted himself well.