Secret of the White Rose (33 page)

“It was five years ago,” Alistair replied. “The four of us began receiving letters from someone angry about the Leroy Sanders case. The writer—who signed every letter ‘Avenge Leroy’—knew all about the case.”

“What did he threaten if you didn’t pay up?” Isabella’s voice was crisp.

Alistair made a wry half smile. “What do blackmailers ever threaten? Exposure of something embarrassing. Something you’d rather the world not know.”

“A real misstep in the Sanders trial,” I said, finishing for him.

“Exactly. And the four of us were at points in our professional lives where admitting our mistakes would be publicly humiliating. Whoever the blackmailer is, he correctly surmised that we’d rather pay up than have our past mistakes scrutinized.” His face flushed, filling with embarrassment, and then something resembling relief as he admitted it.

“Prosecutors get it wrong all the time,” I said. “I don’t understand why you would give in to a blackmailer—not over this.”

He shrugged. “Hugo had just been elevated to the bench. I’d just published a major paper. We wanted to avoid any embarrassment. And we didn’t want to revisit the past. Even if what happened wasn’t entirely our fault. The evidence was there.”

I let forth a deep sigh, frustrated that Alistair still wasn’t being completely honest. But rather than argue the point now, I decided to move on. “You mean the evidence offered by Leroy’s partner,” I said. “His testimony is what convicted Sanders.”

“Yes, but there was more, as well.” Alistair’s cheeks flushed again, and he sat up straighter. “We’d all studied under an eminent criminologist at Harvard who believed you could ascertain a man’s propensity for crime. He had tested his research and the results were astounding. Based on his methodology, no man had a greater propensity for crime than Leroy Sanders—particularly the sort of crime he was accused of committing. He shared all the common characteristics and behavioral patterns of others who have committed similar crimes.”

“You mean those who have violated and killed young girls,” I said.

“You’re rather blunt, Ziele,” he said with a glance toward Isabella, “but yes, that’s what I mean.”

“And in Sanders’s case, you were wrong.” I got up, crossed to the window, and opened the drapes. It was a cloudy day, but at least some light now entered the room.

“It turns out we were, yes. But we didn’t know it at the time.” He let forth a heavy sigh as he ran his hands through unwashed hair. “We found out years after the fact. A series of murders happened that were eerily reminiscent of the Sanders case. They caught the man responsible—and he admitted he had been killing young girls for years, first in New York, then in his native Canada. They caught him when he returned to New York after a fifteen-year hiatus.”

“So you worked to clear Leroy Sanders’s name.”

A guilty expression crossed his face. “There was no point.”

“Why not?” I pivoted away from the window to face him. “It seems the least you would owe an innocent man!”

Alistair’s voice grew rough. “By the time we understood everything, Sanders was dead. You see, he died in prison. We were too late.”

We remained silent.

Alistair finally spoke again. “You have to understand that we were absolutely convinced of Leroy Sanders’s guilt at the time. Especially Hugo Jackson—and no one knew the case better than he did.”

“But none of you ever had the slightest inkling who the blackmailer was?”

“Never,” Alistair said.

“Did you ever find Leroy’s next of kin?”

“I’m ashamed to say, I never tried to find out,” he said with a sheepish look.

“That would be a place to start,” I said, and suggested to Isabella a number of sources where she might look. “Begin with the death records at Auburn Prison,” I said. “I’ll check the newspaper archives.”

She nodded, making a note of it.

“We need to look seriously at the Swede,” I said, and explained how his use of the name Leroy Sanders—at both the Breslin and Funke’s gun shop—connected him firmly to Angus Porter’s murder. “There was a matching ballistics test, as well,” I added, explaining the results.

We talked more of different theories and possibilities but always came back to the Swedish man and his likely connection to Sanders.

“We need to go,” I finally said, exchanging a look with Isabella.

“Not me. I’m staying here.” Alistair planted himself in the desk chair, almost gripping its sides.

“Only if you take care of yourself,” I warned, my voice stern. “You’re staying in a world-class hotel and believe me—no one except us would think of looking for you here. I’m sending a housekeeper up to get rid of this mess.” I made a face of disgust as I gestured to the liquor bottles and food trays that surrounded us. “And no more scotch. You should eat a decent meal and take a bath.”

He started to interrupt me, but I wouldn’t hear him. “If you do these things—then we will keep your whereabouts a secret.” I let out a heavy sigh and glanced at Isabella. “Just one more question. Why didn’t you confide in one of us?”

He glanced out the window at the view of Fifth Avenue and its slow-moving traffic. “I told you already. I didn’t want you to worry.”

I stepped closer to him. “No. I’m asking for the
real
reason.”

He caught my eye briefly, then looked away. “You’ve never been blackmailed, Ziele. There are no words to describe—” His voice cracked. “It makes you feel trapped. Completely helpless.”

“But we could have helped you, from the beginning,” I said.

“I didn’t want your help.” He looked down at the floor. “I couldn’t bear you seeing me this way. Weak.” His voice shook with disgust.

I nodded. At least I now understood. It wasn’t the mistake from his past that had shamed him. He was proud, and the humiliation caused by the blackmail had been too great.

He looked up, his eyes filled with concern. “Are you sure you weren’t followed?”

“We weren’t,” I said, my voice flat. “We’ll stop by tomorrow to check on you. Meanwhile, try to help us think of the best strategy for solving this matter.”

“Good night, Alistair,” Isabella said, her voice a whisper.

Alistair didn’t answer—but his expression was one of complete remorse.

And the look of disappointment on Isabella’s face was unbearable, so I turned away.

*   *   *

I escorted Isabella back to the Dakota, buying three papers along the way: the
Times,
the
Tribune,
and the
Post.
Each paper was filled with stories about Drayson’s capture, together with that of “masterminds” Paul Hlad and Jonathan Strupp.

I inwardly groaned, though I was careful to give Isabella nothing new to worry about. This case seemed destined to end badly. And I was becoming convinced that there would be no satisfactory conclusion for any of us.

Not for me, with my investigation running counter to the commissioner’s designs.

Not for Isabella, with her trust in Alistair broken.

Certainly not for Alistair, least of all.

Saturday,
October 27, 1906

CHAPTER 27

Green’s Printing Shop, Hudson and Leroy Streets. 8
A.M.

It was the crack of dawn on Saturday morning when Mulvaney telephoned to summon me downtown. “We have a lead. Remember those pink flyers we found after the Tombs bombing?”

I remembered; they had been everywhere outside the building, and their message was ingrained in my memory.
Our acts of destruction will rid the world of your institutions
.

“Turns out the Swede works for the print shop we traced them to,” Mulvaney said.

“Which one?”

“Green’s Printing Shop on Hudson Street off Leroy, if you can believe it. Meet you there in twenty minutes?”

“What about the Swede himself?”

“I’ve sent six men out in search of him; we have a list of rooming houses where he’s stayed. You and I ought to talk with the owner of Green’s Printing. He makes it sound like there’s a treasure trove of evidence at his shop.”

*   *   *

Mulvaney had been misinformed on that count, for there was scant physical evidence at Green’s Printing Shop. But Lew Green and his son, Richard, were anxious to help: they welcomed us into their family business with open arms and shared what information they had about the Swede.

“Lars Halver was his real name—or so he said,” the print shop owner explained.

He was a large, affable man with a ready smile beneath a bushy salt-and-pepper mustache. He sat in a spacious room with the high ceilings required to accommodate two mammoth printing presses. His son, a gangly boy of about seventeen, all arms and legs, was occupied at a table filled with what resembled black bricks. Tools in hand, he was at work creating new cuttings to go into the machine.

“Lars was a good worker, an expert at working my Chandler and Price job press.” Lew Green patted the side pole of the black press machine. “We print note cards and small flyers, and cut the occasional advertisement for the newspapers, as Richie is doing now.”

I took a step closer and saw that Richie was crafting the imprint that would advertise Hood’s sarsaparilla. Based on his paper model, it would be an elaborate creation, showing a lady toting an umbrella and box of medicine leaving a pharmacy. Underneath, the text of the advertisement read:

If you suffer from any disease or affliction caused by impure blood, or from dyspepsia, headache, kidney or liver complaints, or that tired feeling, take Hood’s sarsaparilla. It purifies the blood, creates an appetite, makes the weak strong. Sold by all druggists.

“This ad is typical of your work?” I asked.

The boy nodded. “We do a lot of advertisements for Hood’s and other medicines. See, we make the cutting here.” He gestured to the black, bricklike box on which he worked. “Then we put it in the machine, there.” He showed me how.

“But no official work for anarchists,” I said, giving him a smile.

He shook his head in embarrassment. “Lars must have come in overnight to do it. We work long hours and keep busy during the day.”

“How long had he worked for you?” Mulvaney asked, walking the perimeter of the room with some difficulty, for he still leaned heavily on his cane. The place was large but spare, comprising only windows, machinery, and tables filled with black cuttings.

“Lars worked here the better part of two years,” Lew replied.

“You knew he was an anarchist?” I asked.

“Of course not. But I don’t ask many questions of the men who work for me so long as they do a good job.” He frowned. “Maybe I should. I’d no idea Lars was running his own side operation at night, printing anarchist newsletters and flyers. I’d have fired him, had I known.”

“And you never saw any indication of it, either?” I turned back to Richard.

The boy flushed as he looked up from his work. “No, I didn’t. The only thing is, he did carry a heavy bag filled with papers. Now that I know, I wonder if that’s where he kept the cuttings he stole from us.”

“As you look back now, were there any warning signs that you missed?” Mulvaney asked.

Lew thought for a moment. “I don’t think so. He was a man who came on time, did his job, and said little. He was a recent immigrant, and I just assumed his command of English was weak.”

I recalled that on the elevator ride at the Breslin, I’d assumed the same thing. I now realized that I might have been wrong.

“Any of his friends ever come around?” Mulvaney asked as he continued to hobble around the perimeter of the room, surveying everything.

“Just one,” Lew said with a broad grin. “A lady—and a real looker. Always dressed up. And exotic-looking. Made me remember the Creole women I used to see down in New Orleans.”

“She reminded you of a Creole woman—or she was Creole?” Mulvaney demanded.

“She never came in, so I never heard her say a word or got a good look at her. But from the street … Well, that was my assumption.”

Funke the gun seller had mentioned a similar woman, I recalled. “Exotic-looking” had been his phrase, as well.

“How often did she come by the shop?” I asked, walking back toward the machine that Lars had operated.

He shrugged. “Twice a week maybe. Always near quitting time.” He paused. “I wish I could tell you more, but he was a regular worker who gave me no cause for concern. It’s why I’m shocked,” he said, rubbing his forefinger over his chin, “absolutely shocked that he used my shop to create such a vile message.”

“So no unusual habits?” I surveyed Lars’s workspace as I listened. “Nothing at all that might lead us to find him?”

Lew’s son piped up. “Just this: I don’t think he liked it here much. He might have come to America to earn a living, but he was a Swede through and through. He only ate Swedish food. Only read Swedish newspapers and stayed in Swedish rooming houses, so far as I could tell. So if he’s not at the rooming address we gave you, then check out the other places in this city that cater to Scandinavian immigrants. I’d wager you’ll find him at one of them.”