The Gilded Hour (67 page)

“Sophie and Cap were here right before they sailed,” Amelie was saying over her shoulder. “I hope you won’t be mad that they told me your news. And don’t start apologizing, I know how busy you are.”

“I should apologize,” Anna said.

“But don’t. Come in the kitchen, I’ve got cake.”

Anna followed the winding path to the back of the house, lined with bushes in flower and alive with bees and hummingbirds. As a little girl she had always thought of this house as she did of the cottages in fairy tales, full of secret cabinets and hidden stairs and most of all, stories. It was an odd structure, out of kilter at every corner, an old lady plagued by arthritis but cheerful, nonetheless. Front and kitchen doors and every window stood open to the breeze because as old-fashioned as the house and Amelie herself might seem, she was keen on new inventions and had screens installed everywhere, bought from a man in Chicago and shipped at great expense. And worth every penny, she said when people asked; she would have paid more for fresh air without the flies and mosquitoes that plagued man and beast on a farm.

While Amelie went about her business, Anna took the chance to study her cousin: the river of hair, iron and silver and black, in a long braid down her back, her clothes flowing and old-fashioned, worn soft and faded. In comparison her complexion was far younger than her years, supple and smooth, still unlined. She was the daughter and granddaughter of slaves and slave holders, of Mohawk and Seminole, and all those bloodlines had come together to a color that had entranced Anna as a very young child. It
still reminded her of burning sugar, caramel on the verge of something even deeper. She remembered, vaguely, tasting the skin of Amelie’s arm, and coming away with simple salt on the tongue where she had expected sugar.

Amelie disappeared into the pantry, raising her voice to be heard above the noise she was making, shifting through baskets and bins.

“Tell me about your Jack.”

“First tell me your news.”

Amelie always had news of her sister, who lived in Boston and had raised a family of ten children who had, in turn, produced eighteen children of their own, and of her brother Henry who was still working as an engineer on the railroads though he was almost seventy.

“Can’t slow him down. Takes after Da that way.”

Her head appeared around the corner of the pantry. “Stop stalling now and tell me.”

So Anna put together the story of Jack Mezzanotte while Amelie gathered what she needed, mashed boiled ginger root, sorted through dried peppermint leaves, and put both to steep.

“Mezzanotte, you say. Do his people keep bees, in Jersey somewhere?”

“Yes,” Anna said. “I should have realized you’d recognize the name.”

“I do indeed. All right, I approve.”

That made Anna laugh. “Because his parents keep bees?”

“Because you do nothing by halves,” Amelie said. “And because it’s clear to me that he did indeed sneak up on you, which means you let your guard down, and that tells me everything. Hand me that tin, would you?”

She put things on the table: a teapot with a mismatched lid, thick cups on chipped saucers, a jug of milk and a bowl of brown sugar lumps. Then she levered the lid off the cake tin so that the smells of browned butter and cardamom could slip out, like a genie released from a bottle.

Amelie said, “Do you have a case for me?”

“No,” Anna said. “Not today. But I have cases I wanted to tell you about, to get your opinion on.” She went to the sink to wash her hands, then dried them on the towel Amelie handed her.

Amelie leaned back in her chair. “Start at the beginning,” she said. “And don’t leave anything out.”

•   •   •

W
HEN
A
NNA
HAD
finished recounting all she knew about Janine Campbell, Abigail Liljeström, and Eula Schmitt, Amelie went about cutting cake. Anna let the silence stretch out, patient with Amelie because patience and patience alone would bring rewards.

“I read about the Campbell inquest in the paper,” Amelie said finally. “Tell me, why didn’t Sophie send the woman to me?”

“You know why,” Anna said. “We said we wouldn’t send anybody until Comstock stops this campaign of his. Mrs. Campbell’s husband actually works for Comstock. It was too dangerous, and in the end your safety was more important to us.”

“You thought Comstock would follow her here,” her cousin said.

“You know he does that kind of thing.”

She rocked her head from side to side, considering. “So you think that the Campbell woman went to somebody who advertised himself as a reputable doctor, but wasn’t. You know that happens every day.”

“It’s more than that,” Anna said. “Whoever did Janine Campbell’s procedure was angry. It was more like a stabbing than anything else. I didn’t see the postmortem, but I did read the Liljeström autopsy report, and the similarities are hard to deny. Then this third case, and more of the same.”

“What does your Jack think?”

Anna took a few moments to gather her thoughts. “He thinks there’s a man, maybe a doctor, maybe not, who has a compulsion to do this to women. Somebody very intelligent, who plans ahead.”

“Does Jack know about me?”

Anna had been waiting for this question, and she shook her head. “Not yet.”

“He’ll disapprove.”

“I think he’ll withhold judgment until he meets you, and then he’ll be satisfied.”

That got her a smile. “Now, that you’ll have to explain.”

“He’s unusual, Amelie. Because of his family background, he doesn’t jump to condemnation and he tries to see below the surface. It’s the reason we were drawn to each other, I think.”

“A perfect man.”

“Hardly,” Anna said, laughing. “And I still haven’t met all his family, so
there may be trouble waiting there. In fact, I know there is.” This was not the time to talk about Bambina, though she would have liked to.

“If you want my opinion, Jack may well be right in his suspicions about the way these three women died,” Amelie said.

Anna had been expecting something less definitive. “Can you explain to me how you come to that conclusion?”

“It just feels off to me, based on forty years of looking after women.”

“Do you have any suggestions on where to start? Any names?”

Her cousin studied her teacup for a good while. “There was one doctor, thirty years ago or more. He wasn’t young then, so he’ll be long gone. But he was brutal with his patients, more bent on purifying their souls than saving their lives. I could imagine him letting a woman die. I think he probably did, and more than once. But that’s a far cry from these cases of yours. Something like this takes a special kind of monster.”

Anne retrieved the page of the newspaper she had brought with her from the city and, laying it in front of Amelie, pointed to the advertisement that had raised her suspicions.

To the refined, dignified but distraught lady departing Smithson’s near the Jefferson Market yesterday morning: I believe I can provide the assistance you require. Write for particulars to Dr. dePaul, Station A, Union Square.

When Amelie finished reading and looked up, Anna asked her question.

“Isn’t Smithson the druggist who takes messages for Sarah?”

“It is. Or it was. Sarah moved to Jersey to live with her son’s family.”

“She’s unwell?”

“She’s seventy-eight this past November.”

Anna gave her an apologetic half smile. “I didn’t realize. Did someone take over her practice?”

“I thought Nan did,” Amelie said. “You remember Nan Gray.”

“Vaguely. Is she one of yours?”

Over the years Amelie had trained or mentored a hundred midwives, and she tried to keep track of all of them.

“Not mine. She came up from Washington, maybe twenty years ago. But maybe she’s not the one who stepped in for Sarah. You’re thinking that
this Dr. dePaul, whoever he is, watches for women coming out of Smithson’s? That seems a very chancy way to set a trap. If that’s what’s going on.”

Anna said, “But it’s written in such vague terms, anyone might think themselves the target of his attention. If he only gets one response a month, that’s probably more than he can deal with. I hope.”

Amelie hummed to herself as she poured more tea. “Practicing medicine requires a cynical turn of mind, but this—” She shook her head. “Let me understand you correctly. You think there’s a man who trolls for women in distress, offers them his services, and operates in a way that assures that they don’t survive, and even that they die in terrible pain. That his purpose is what—to punish them? To make examples of them?”

“I don’t know,” Anna said. “But I have this sense that it would be a mistake to dismiss the possibility.”

Amelie went quiet, her head turned away as if she were looking out into the garden, but in fact Anna knew she wasn’t seeing anything at all. Her cousin had a way of climbing right inside a problem and sitting there until she found a way out. She had been trained by her own mother, Anna’s aunt Hannah, a doctor of almost mythic fame on the New York frontier, and it seemed to Anna that Amelie understood the minds of doctors as well as she did the women they cared for.

She tapped the newspaper advertisement. “You know where to start.”

“I was thinking the same thing, but it helped to talk it through with you. I’ll send word if I make any progress. Now I have to go meet some fifty Mezzanottes, so please wish me luck.”

“Luck is greatly overrated,” said Amelie. “Your native good sense will serve you far better.”

•   •   •

T
HE
ANNUAL
I
TALIAN
Benevolent Society picnic and band concert was a popular event, one that might even overflow the boundaries of Washington Square Park. Since early in the morning groups had been coming in on foot carrying baskets or pushing wheeled carts, by omnibus or streetcar, others driving their own rigs. There were families from as far away as Long Island and Jersey City, street urchins watching for unattended purses and free meals, and police and roundsmen who strolled at a leisurely pace, stopping to watch a game of horseshoes.

Elise sat with Chiara and Bambina on a bench on the corner opposite New York University, where the Mezzanotte family was busy getting ready. A familiar freight wagon stood at the curb, with
Mezzanotte Brothers, Greenwood, N.J.
painted on its side. Elise had first seen it waiting to cross an intersection not a block from where she sat now. Then it had been filled with flowers, but this time it carried benches and planks and barrels, boxes of linen and dishware, and baskets of food. The unloading was happening under the sharp eye of one of the Mezzanotte aunts, all in black, bent low by age. She ordered young men around with all the authority and finesse of Sister Xavier.

The three of them had been spared physical labor, assigned instead to supervision of the run-arounds, all the Mezzanotte children or the children of Mezzanotte cousins old enough to walk, but less than four. They tumbled and rolled around on the grass, and occasionally made a break for freedom, often for no other reason than the joy of being chased by Chiara or Elise. Bambina stayed where she was, knitting lace from fine white thread as quickly and evenly as a machine. Knitting didn’t slow down her conversation, though. Together with Bambina they were giving Elise an education on all things Italian.

Bambina pointed out families: the barber Amadio, a widower with four married daughters who lived in the same building and competed for his favor by feeding him multiple times every day; Maria Bella, who was already twice a widow at age thirty; Signore Coniglio, who taught at the Italian school and talked all the time about becoming a priest, though he was more than forty; Joe Moretto, who had lost both legs fighting under Grant, but had managed to produce seven sons anyway. Elise paid attention but knew that most of the names and faces would blend together by the end of the day.

Just a little farther away, under trees in a pool of shade, the older ladies sat together gossiping and tending to the very youngest. Mrs. Quinlan and Margaret were there too, because the detective sergeant had made sure to find places for them next to his aunt Philomena. There seemed to be a law that dictated black clothing for Italian women over a certain age, but Mrs. Quinlan wore a simple day dress of sprigged cotton, white flowers against a turquoise background, and looked like an exotic bird among the crows.

The older men were playing a gentle game that reminded Elise of
horseshoes, but with a ball. It looked interesting, but Italians were like everybody else, with strict ideas of where women belonged, and where they didn’t. Her place was here looking after the little ones.

Beyond the very old and the very young, everyone had something to do. Every once in a while Elise got a glimpse of Rosa and Lia in the middle of a small group of girls who had been given rags and piles of dishes to wipe. They were completely absorbed in this work, chattering with the other kids as if they had all grown up together. Children survived, if they had half a chance. Children who could form attachments survived best.

“Look,” said Chiara. “Cesare is going to fall off the ladder and break his head.”

The band pavilion was crowded with people arranging chairs and music stands. Younger men stood on ladders, hanging red, white, and green bunting on a frame. One of them was reaching so far that it did seem as if the ladder would tip.

“Sicilian,” Bambina said, frowning at her knitting. “Made of rubber. They bounce.”

Her tone was not complimentary. Elise considered for a moment and then asked, “You don’t like Sicilians?”

A pained expression crossed Bambina’s face. “I’ve got nothing against them, as long as they stay away from me.”

Elise decided that it would be better to ask Jack about this. Bambina seemed to want to change the subject, too, because she decided that Elise needed to be able to identify all the band instruments being taken out of cases. She pointed out a sousaphone, trumpets, bassoons, clarinets, and three kinds of drums, every bit of brass and copper polished so that it reflected in the sun.

At home in Vermont Elise had known only fiddles and pennywhistles and Mr. Esquibel’s fipple flute, brought out at parties. Once she entered the convent she had heard no musical instruments beyond the organ. She knew that there were other kinds of instruments but had never given them much thought. Certainly she hadn’t imagined anything like this, especially when the band began to tune their instruments. All the sounds wound together like a badly pieced quilt, wavering up and down and finally settling.