Secret of the White Rose (7 page)

“He tried to take out Andrew Carnegie,” I reminded him.

“Carnegie together with an entire wedding party,” Alistair said. “And he would have succeeded, if the driver’s bomb hadn’t exploded prematurely.”

My gaze wandered to the street across from us, filled with myriads of people rushing about. The sky above us had grown dark with threatening clouds, and everyone was in a hurry to reach their destination before the sky opened.

“If Drayson didn’t kill Judge Jackson, then who do you think did?” I finally said.

“We must return to the crime scene,” Alistair said, not unkindly. “Remember, criminals reveal themselves through their crimes. So I ask myself: What kind of killer has chosen not just to kill but to kill in this particular way? Why use a knife? Why leave the judge with his hand on the Bible and a white rose nearby? These choices signify something important. Something personal.”

“You haven’t mentioned the music,” I said.

A perplexed look crossed his brow. “The musical score among the judge’s papers?”

I nodded, watching his reaction.

He laughed, then slapped me on the back, beaming. “By golly, you noticed it. You’ve got quite an eye for evidence, ol’ boy. I figured I was going to have to explain it to you and convince you of its significance.”

“If it’s important evidence,” I said, “we might have discussed it last night.”

“Yes, but what’s to discuss? It’s part of the puzzle, to be sure. But I can’t make sense of it at the moment.”

I stood, straightening my coat and hat. “I’ve got to get to the commissioner. We’ll talk later.”

“Let me know what the commissioner thinks. I don’t envy you: having to describe this complicated body of evidence and explain why Drayson is not the killer we seek.”

I gave him an incredulous look. “You expect me to tell Commissioner Bingham all this today? I’ll be kicked off the case, no sooner than I’m on it.”

But Alistair merely smiled, saying dryly, “If anyone can handle the commissioner, Ziele, it will be you. I’ve always admired your remarkable ability to sidestep the pitfalls of police politics.”

“Much the same way I marvel at how you’ve inserted yourself into the heart of the city’s most controversial criminal investigation in years.”

“True,” he said, adding, “though in this case I was brought in by the judge’s widow.” He caught his breath. “Good luck with the commissioner.”

Good luck, indeed. I’d need more than luck to keep my job after the grilling I was sure to get from Commissioner Theodore Bingham and the top police brass if I so much as hinted that the man they were certain was our killer—incidentally, the most reviled man in this city—was in fact as innocent of the crime as I was.

CHAPTER 5

Police Headquarters, 300 Mulberry Street. 1
P.M.

The chauffeured black touring car parked in front of 300 Mulberry Street signaled that Commissioner Theodore Bingham was in the building. I raced up the brownstone steps, entered the dilapidated lobby, and made my way to the third floor. The door to the conference room was closed. I pulled out my pocket watch to check the time. Ten till one. In my haste to get here, I had managed to arrive early.

The largest part of the third floor was occupied by the Bertillon Room—luckily empty at this moment, so I entered and looked around while I waited. It was named after the European scientist, Alphonse Bertillon, had insisted that criminals looked different from law-abiding citizens. Though most of us no longer believed that the size of a man’s head or the shape of a woman’s ear revealed anything about their propensity for criminal behavior, Bertillon’s standards for measuring and photographing criminals had proven useful as a system for identifying and cataloguing them. Now, as a result of his legacy, criminals were routinely photographed upon their arrest, face front as well as in profile, according to uniform standards.

We called the photographs “mug shots”—and many of them were displayed on the walls throughout the Bertillon Room. Dubbed the “Rogues’ Gallery,” its pictures featured the city’s most notorious criminals, from Scar Face Bill Stinzensky, who had robbed and tortured his victims with a blade, to Harry Thaw, who had murdered the architect Stanford White just this past May. Of course, Al Drayson, the most notorious of them all, was front and center.

Five minutes later, I returned to the conference room where this afternoon’s meeting would be held. Two other men now waited outside the door, deferring to a rule that was no less strict because it was unwritten: meetings with the commissioner began exactly on time—never early, never late. I had always supposed it was because of his lame leg, an injury caused by a falling derrick when he was a brigadier general in the army. Now, his arrivals and departures from official meetings were carefully choreographed, for he was a proud man who didn’t care for the world to observe his weakness.

A man with oil-slicked black hair pulled out his gold pocket watch. “It’s time,” he said with a grim nod. I recognized him as Tom Savino, a serious, hardworking man I’d met when I first started at the Fifth Precinct.

I took a deep breath and entered with no small amount of trepidation. The commissioner—or the General, as he preferred to be called—was, by all reports, not an easy man under the best of circumstances. And I had the distinction of being the one detective in the room not of his own choosing. Mulvaney had said this opportunity would make or break my career. At this moment, the latter seemed a real possibility.

General Bingham sat at the head of the massive oak table that spanned the length of the room. He was a distinguished man with sandy gray fringe on the sides of his bald head, a handlebar mustache, and piercing blue eyes behind wire spectacles. Surrounded by his deputies and favored advisors, he appeared almost regal in the wheelchair that might have been his throne.

“Damn foreigners,” one deputy said. “They’ll destroy this city if we let them.”

“Which is exactly why we’ve gotta stop ’em,” boomed a man with a loud bass voice and a large gut. I recognized him as Big Bill Hodges—the officer credited with breaking up several gangs, including the notorious Eastman gang.

“Yeah, but there’s too many of them,” said another man with a high-pitched twang. “If it’s not the filthy Italians throwing dynamite, it’s the Russian Jews.” He made a noise of disgust.

General Bingham cleared his throat before speaking. “Gentlemen, I tell you: they’re responsible for eighty-five percent of the crime in this city.”

“We oughta just ship ’em back to where they came from,” Hodges groused.

I took a seat at the side of the table next to Howard Green, another officer I recognized from previous cases. He caught my gaze, leaned in close, and muttered, “It’s like they don’t know they’re talking about us.”

Tom Savino, overhearing, turned to give him a scathing look. “Don’t be ridiculous. We’re Americans, now.”

Except that we weren’t. Men like Savino might choose to deny it, but the reality was that our immigrant past stayed with us—and the General’s words only reflected broader department policies. There had yet to be a police commissioner or top deputy who wasn’t of English or Irish background—and I doubted there would be in my lifetime. Men like Green, Savino, and me were here only because of President Teddy Roosevelt’s efforts when he was New York City’s police commissioner ten years ago: he had implemented the entry exam now required of all new patrolmen, replacing the old patronage system that had relied upon bribery, connections, or both.

General Bingham fancied himself a reformer, too—but he was no Teddy Roosevelt. The General’s manner was brusque, his speech was blunt, and he lacked the unique blend of enthusiasm and discretion that had enabled then Commissioner Roosevelt to accomplish sweeping changes. The others might be angry that Roosevelt’s successors hadn’t done more, but I’d decided long ago that resentment accomplished little—and I didn’t care to waste my own efforts on what couldn’t be changed. Life never would favor all of us equally. And the crime victims I encountered through my job were a frequent reminder that the common goal I shared with my fellow officers—that of solving violent crimes—was far more important than the differences that separated us.

A slight man with hunched shoulders scurried into the room and took the seat beside me, glancing nervously at his pocket watch. The General addressed him loudly. “Couldn’t make it on time, Petrovic?” He fixed an icy gaze on the latecomer.

“Sorry, sir,” the man mumbled in embarrassment.

“We’ve got important business this morning.” The General’s speech was clipped, and he almost swallowed his every word. Pounding his fist on the table with such energy that his wheelchair spun back at least two feet, he said, “Last night, an esteemed judge—an honorable man—was brutally murdered in his own home. We needn’t look far to find a compelling motive. Judge Hugo Jackson was presiding over the Drayson trial. In fact, many of you here in this room were involved in the aftermath of the bombing Drayson is accused of orchestrating.”

Comments like “damn anarchists” reverberated throughout the room as several heads nodded.

“Judge Jackson was on the verge of sending Drayson to the electric chair—a powerful motive for Drayson to orchestrate the judge’s murder from his very jail cell. Of that, I have no doubt.” The commissioner paused dramatically. “The challenge for us will be to round up those anarchist scum who are helping him.”

“Round up?” Big Bill Hodges arched an eyebrow. “No offense, General, but when these men know we’re looking for them, they disappear. Think how long we’ve been trying to arrest Max Baginski. The worst of ’em all, and we can’t catch him.”

“That’s why we need a different approach,” the General responded with a broad grin. “It’s why you men are here.” He turned his icy blue stare toward the four of us. Was it my imagination, or did it linger just a moment too long on me?

He turned to the deputy on his left. “Bring in the boy.”

The deputy disappeared, returning moments later with a young man of about seventeen, his hair a tangled mass of straw curls. He came to stand awkwardly beside the General, hands shoved deep into his trouser pockets.

“This is Oliver,” the General announced. “We recruited him last summer after the bombing—and I’m pleased to say that he has successfully infiltrated a group of anarchists who meet regularly at Philipp Roo’s beer hall. He’s got names for us.” He clapped the boy on the back. “Specific names. And if we can’t find the men who are named, then we’re going to target their families. We’ll make their lives a living misery till the men we seek turn themselves in.”

The tall deputy beside him looked troubled. “General, with due respect—I’m not sure I’d put it quite like that.”

“Balderdash,” the General replied. “You forget that I am the law in this town. I don’t mean anything beyond what the law allows. But we can put them under surveillance. They won’t make a move without our watching them. We’ll be outside the businesses they run, making note of their customers,” He grinned. “That’ll hit them where it hurts. They’ll see how many patrons want to shop when they’re watched so closely.” His eyes narrowed. “Then if they know where our wanted men are, they’ll give them up.”

“You mentioned you had names, sir?” Savino asked quietly. “Men you want us to follow?”

“Not follow,” the General blustered. “I want you to hunt them down like the animals they are. Boy, write the names on the board and tell us about them.”

“I—I can’t,” Oliver stammered.

“I forgot. You’re illiterate. But you’re street-smart, not like the fat and stupid boy I hired last time.”

Oliver flushed a deep red, as Bill Hodges grabbed the chalk and addressed us. “We called you four detectives here because of your connections to our prime suspects.”

The hackles on the back on my neck were immediately raised. “Connections, sir?” The question burst from me before I was aware of it.

“That’s right, Detective … Ziele, I believe? Each one of you has some connection to the men we seek today.” The General turned toward me with a penetrating stare. “I won’t deny that I was annoyed when the widow first insisted you join my case. I don’t care who her family is, I don’t like people interfering with how I do my job.”

“No one does, sir,” I replied evenly, still on my guard.

He smiled. “Well, sometimes Providence has a strange way of looking out for us, Detective. I discovered you’re actually the perfect man for this case. A necessary Fourth Musketeer, so to speak. Oliver will explain.”

I said nothing more but looked warily at Oliver as he began to talk. I noticed the three detectives who had joined me seemed equally ill at ease. Now it was clear to me why the top brass had so readily agreed to Mrs. Jackson’s request to involve me in the case: my background—a childhood spent living in the tenements of the Lower East Side, the breeding ground of criminals and anarchists alike—had suited their purposes. Apparently, one of my boyhood associates had grown into a man now suspected of this crime. I realized with a pang of disappointment that it wasn’t quite the opportunity that Mulvaney had thought. Still, perhaps that was for the best. Too much personal interaction with the General himself was not necessarily something I desired.

“I’ve been going to meetin’s at Philipp Roo’s since August,” Oliver said haltingly. “I told everyone there ’bout how my mother died of overwork in a factory, and that I wanted to do my bit to improve working conditions. Now I hear ’bout all the latest news, including when and where meetin’s are planned and who’s leadin’ them.”