Secret of the White Rose (14 page)

“What brings you here tonight, Simon?” Hans Strupp finally asked. He gripped the sides of his chair, bracing himself firmly, and I realized they both probably assumed I was here to tell them I was engaged to another woman—or similar news.

Wanting to spare them that at least, my words tumbled out of my mouth in a rush. “I came because of your son. Jonathan is in trouble.”

*   *   *

Mrs. Strupp’s face collapsed, but it was Mr. Strupp who answered.

“Has he been arrested—or hurt?” He phrased it as though those were the only alternatives—and it was clear that he was resigned to either one, for he had apparently been expecting bad news about Jonathan for some time.

“As far as I know, he’s fine right now,” I said, quickly reassuring them. Then I paused, knowing that once they had been regular readers of both German and American papers. “I’m not sure how closely you’ve been following the news, but a judge was killed on Monday night.”

I saw the flash of recognition in Hans Strupp’s eyes. “The judge in the child-killer case,” he muttered.

I confirmed it.

His face went white. “They think the anarchists are involved, don’t they? Is Johnny…?” He couldn’t bring himself to say the words.

“I need to talk with him,” I said. “I understand that he’s involved with the anarchists—that he’s in a position of authority within the New York organization.”

Hans Strupp balled his right hand into a fist, gripping it with his left. “It’s true.”

“From the beginning, we’ve tried to stop him. We’ve told him he’ll come to no good with that group,” Mrs. Strupp said, her expression pained.

I pushed my half-finished bowl of soup away from me and took my notebook and pencil out of my satchel. “Can we start at the beginning? I need to know how Jonathan came to be part of the anarchist movement.”

*   *   *

Half an hour later, we were still talking—mugs of coffee in hand. The Strupps still favored Lion’s Coffee, a brand that unabashedly targeted German-Americans with the slogan “All Germans Like It.” It was once a favorite of mine, and I was surprised by how bland it tasted now—lacking the rich, deep flavor of the Italian brands I’d come to prefer.

They told me all about how a Czech man named Paul Hlad had befriended Jonathan—first pretending to share Johnny’s scientific interests, then encouraging him to attend anarchist meetings at various German beer halls in the city, and finally convincing him that, when put to use, the anarchist ideals would allow him to avenge his sister’s death. Still, I remained puzzled.

“Johnny was a scientist,” I said. “All he talked about was Svante Arrhenius and Marie Curie, as well as college and the scholarship he hoped to win.”

I searched their faces for some sign, some explanation—but none was forthcoming.

“He changed,” Mr. Strupp said, twisting the button on his left shirtsleeve. “One day, he talked of nothing but Pierre and Marie Curie and what they did for chemistry … then the next, he was raving about the capitalists and how they killed his sister.” His voice, bitter, choked when he added, “You know the charge as well as we do: how greed led the
Slocum
’s owners and captain to cut corners on safety and bribe the inspectors.” His button snapped, flying across the room. “Would it have cost them so much to buy new life vests when the old turned to dust? Hundreds might have lived, if only—” He broke off, unable to continue.

Countless others, and perhaps Hannah among them, could have been saved. But the steamship’s owners were focused solely on profit, not safety, and so they had set out that day with rotten life vests that drowned those they should have saved—not to mention lifeboats that had been painted and wired onto the decks so that no one could detach them. The owners of the
Slocum
as well as the inspectors who had taken a bribe were equally at fault, but only Captain Van Schaick had been made to answer for this negligence with a ten-year prison term. The owners and managers of the company had escaped charges, untouched by the disaster that had killed so many.

Mrs. Strupp silently crossed the room and searched for the missing button as her husband continued to talk.

“Well over a year ago,” he said, “when it seemed no one responsible would see jail time, Johnny became obsessed with how none of the ship’s owners had to face up to their misconduct. He started spouting nonsense about the evils of capitalism, and how that was what killed Hannah. No individual person, see—but ‘the system.’ He started going to workers’ meetings regularly. He made new friends … and abandoned his old ones entirely.”

I was silent for some moments. I had been angry for a long time, too—but my own rage centered on those individuals who had made bad decisions. Their judgment—or lack thereof—had cost over a thousand people their lives. That was human error, not the capitalist system. And yet Johnny, feeling similar emotions, had come to a different conclusion.

“The anarchists focused Johnny’s anger and gave him a target,” Mrs. Strupp explained. “Now it’s all he does. We barely see him anymore.”

“So he doesn’t live here?” I asked.

“Hasn’t for over a year,” his father responded.

“How often do you see him?”

“He came for Hans’s birthday in August,” Mrs. Strupp said, her voice dull. “We’ve not seen him since. Only the occasional letter, sometimes with money.”

“He has regular work?”

“No.” Hans Strupp shook his head. “I think he lives off what the membership contributes. He’s high enough up that they pay him. Or maybe he just takes what he needs.”

“Do you know any of his associates other than Paul Hlad?”

“A few. We can give you their names,” Mr. Strupp offered.

“If you would,” I said. “Do you have any idea where I might find him?”

The Strupps exchanged a look but were silent.

“The commissioner has asked me to talk with him.” I continued to press them, slightly annoyed that they were holding something important back. “But if I don’t, someone else will come looking for him.” I let the implication linger.

Finally, Hans Strupp cleared his throat. “We have an arrangement, but for emergencies only.”

“Your son is a suspect in a high-profile murder case. If that doesn’t constitute an emergency…” I trailed off, mincing no words.

Mr. Strupp, with a guilty look, apologized. “We will contact him for you. Ask him to meet you at a specific time and place.”

He was about to continue when a loud wail came from the back room. With a start, Mrs. Strupp got up and scuttled across the room.

I raised my eyebrows, giving Hans Strupp a searching look.

He stared down at the floor.

“You have a baby here?” I asked, knowing it was a stupid question.

He remained silent, at a loss for words, while my mind raced through the possibilities. I had just settled on the most likely possibility—that Mrs. Strupp had taken work as a baby nurse to earn extra money—when my answer arrived in the form of a small bundle, swathed in pink and cream, nestled in Mrs. Strupp’s arms. The baby, now content, clutched at an earthenware feeding bottle. Mrs. Strupp brought the baby closer.

She hesitated, then spoke—her words coming out in a rush. “I was thinking, Simon. Maybe it’s not too late for Johnny.”

“Too late?” I repeated, wanting to follow her.

“When you meet him, you can try to bring him home,” she pleaded. “He always looked up to you. Maybe you can convince him there’s another way.”

“You want me to convince him to leave the anarchists?” I said, knowing what she asked was futile.

But she nodded. “He still thinks of you as a big brother. He’ll
listen
to you. I know he will.”

I wasn’t so sure, but I promised to try.

I glanced at the baby, who sucked at the bottle in grasping, hungry slurps. She had rosy pink cheeks and delicate features; Mrs. Strupp was clearly taking good care of her. It no doubt brought back happy memories, now that her own children were no longer with her.

I had grabbed my coat and was preparing to say good-bye when I looked at the baby again. Now done with her bottle, she regarded me with sober brown eyes.

Hannah’s eyes.

I took two strides closer and stared, then swore softly under my breath.

Startled, Mrs. Strupp took a step back, and the baby’s dark-skinned face wrinkled up as if to cry. Mrs. Strupp offered the milk yet again, which worked as a distraction to grab the baby’s interest.

“Hannah,” I said stupidly. “She has Hannah’s eyes.”

Mr. Strupp cleared his throat. “And that’s what we call her. Our Hannah. Johnny has rejected everything we believe, but he named her according to our customs. I believe that secretly he still believes; he wants his sister’s spirit to live on in his own child.”

“His child,” I repeated.

“Born six months ago,” Mrs. Strupp explained. “We’ve cared for her from the beginning. He claims he’s still close to the mother, but I have no idea. We’ve never met her. I suppose he’s embarrassed to bring her by. Though it wouldn’t matter to us.”

“So you’ve no idea who she is?”

“No, though…” She paused a moment, her voice cracking. “Though it would be nice to have some connection…”

That was when a host of realizations came to me, all at once, jumbled together, with only two facts clear. Jonathan Strupp was a father, and his child was now being raised in Mrs. Strupp’s care.

Little Hannah—with jet-black hair and my own Hannah’s eyes—stared up at me. It was too much.

I passed Hans Strupp my card and asked him to call me when he had contacted Jonathan. He would waste no time, I was sure.

My heart was pounding. It was all I could do to manage a formal good-bye before I raced down the stairs and into the night, my feet carrying me farther and farther away from the long-buried, heartrending memories this night had reawakened.

Wednesday
October 24, 1906

CHAPTER 9

The Nineteenth Precinct Station House, West Thirtieth Street. 8
A.M.

“Looks like you could use some help,” Mulvaney said, casting a skeptical eye at the ten brown boxes stacked haphazardly behind me. Piled high, they created a makeshift wall between my own desk and that of Tim Gallagher, my neighboring detective. Each box was chock-full of documents from Judge Jackson’s trial docket over the past five years—and I’d made little progress, though I’d been working diligently since just past five o’clock this morning.

I’d had no more than a few hours of restless sleep after last night’s visit to the Strupps, for it had reawakened emotions that I’d done my best to suppress the past few years. Finally, I had surrendered to my insomnia and decided to get a head start reviewing the cases Judge Jackson had presided over in recent years, in hopes that I might learn something—anything really—to provide a connection to Judge Jackson’s murder.

As promised, Alistair had used his influence to secure the judge’s case files and have them delivered to my office. While sifting through their contents was certainly a long shot, I believed it would be more productive than Commissioner Bingham’s efforts to round up New York’s anarchist leaders. After all, my training as a detective had taught me to focus any murder investigation on the victim—so with the exception of tracking down those anarchist suspects the commissioner had ordered me to find, that was exactly what I intended to do.

“I’m not even sure what I’m looking for,” I said, adding with a grin, “except that I feel confident I’ll know it when I see it.”

I brought Mulvaney up to speed on the case, explaining how the commissioner had wanted me on his team, not for my skills or expertise but instead because of my relationship with Hannah’s brother, now a prominent anarchist. “Remember Tom Savino? He was at the meeting, too. It seems he has a connection to another anarchist suspect—a link that General Bingham wants to exploit.”

Mulvaney, shaking his head, looked concerned for the first time. “You’d better be careful. The General may think the both of you would make useful scapegoats if someone isn’t arrested soon.”

He glanced at his beaten-up gold pocket watch, then pulled Detective Gallagher’s chair over and sank into it. “I’ve got half an hour to spare. Can you give me a little more detail as to what I should be looking for?”

“All cases associated with known anarchists,” I said, passing him a stack of files, “as well as anything that strikes you as unusual.”

“Unusual, how?” He shot me a skeptical look. Mulvaney liked specifics, but today I had none to give him. It was pure gut instinct that I was relying on now. And though some called it nothing more than dumb luck, I’d learned that I had an uncanny knack for uncovering hidden facts, a sixth sense that led me to discover answers in places more straightforward methods would never take me.

Giving it some more thought, I replied, “I guess I’m looking for cases where one party harbored an intense anger or a particular grudge, directed toward Judge Jackson.”