Murder on Astor Place (12 page)

She turned to Will, who looked a little worried. “What kind of business proposition you got for me, Mrs. Brandt? I know people say things about me in the streets, but I want you to know, I’m an honest man. I never done none of the things—”

“I just need some information, Will. I need to locate a person, and you might have the contacts to help me find him.”

“What’s this person done?” Will asked suspiciously.

“Nothing that I know of,” Sarah lied. Actually, he might be perfectly innocent, although an innocent man wasn’t likely to behave as this fellow had. “I’d just like to ask him some questions. About a friend of mine.”

Will nodded wisely, as if he received requests like this all the time. “Who is this bugger you want to find?”

“His name is Hamilton Fisher. He’s a tall fellow. Not very handsome. His hair is blond and his teeth stick out in front. I think he might be a cadet.”

Will frowned. Plainly, he considered such work beneath him. “And you want me to bring him to you?”

“Oh, no, nothing like that,” Sarah assured him hastily. “I just need to know where he is. Then I’ll send someone to talk to him.”

Will nodded, sure he’d figured it out. “I see it now. You’re trying to find some girl he recruited.”

“Something like that,” Sarah agreed. She was getting far too good at lying.

“And when I find him, I let you know, and we’re square?”

“We’re square for this baby, and the next one, too. The boy you want so much,” Sarah added.

Will scratched his chest absently as his gaze drifted toward the back of the flat where his wife and child slept. “Sure would like to get me a boy.”

“Girls are nice, too. You’ll see. And you’ll find this fellow for me?”

“I’ll find him.”

Sarah hoped he could. Finding Hamilton Fisher would bring her one step closer to finding Alicia’s killer.

In fact, it might bring her face to face with him.

5

F
RANK COULDN’T BELIEVE HE WAS STILL IN THE same state as Manhattan. The wagon he’d hired at the train station in the picturesque little village of Mamoraneck had carried him down winding country lanes through lush fields rampant with wildflowers and past stately lawns that graced enormous mansions. When he thought of the squalid tenements of the Lower East Side and the dives of the Bowery, Frank wondered that they could exist in the same
world
as this place that looked like something out of a fairy tale.

On the other hand, he knew that the rich must have a haven outside the city that the poor could never invade. In the city, no matter how wealthy you were, you couldn’t be very far from those who weren’t. Fifth Avenue had become home to the wealthy because it was as far as you could get from either of the island’s waterfronts and the slums and the vice found there. Even still, it was only a few short blocks away from that vice and could go no farther. Blocks that anyone, no matter how poor or depraved, could walk in a matter of minutes. Trapped on the tiny island of Manhattan, the rich could never hope to have a world completely unto themselves.

This is why, for decades, the rich had been going north to where the land opened wide and could be purchased in huge parcels that would ensure no encroachment by the unworthy. They had come here to escape the unhealthy air and the unhealthy inhabitants of the city and to live in stately splendor.

And here they could send their daughters when they wanted to hide them, as the VanDamms had wanted to hide Alicia.

Frank glanced at the fellow driving the wagon. He was dressed in rough clothes, obviously a farmer, except instead of being in the fields on this unseasonably warm spring day, he was driving Frank to the VanDamm’s summer home.

“Do you farm?” Frank asked.

The fellow looked over at him suspiciously. He was past middle years, his hair white where it straggled out beneath his farmer’s hat, and his face was as brown and withered as an old potato. “Used to,” he offered.

“But you don’t anymore?” Frank said by way of encouragement.

“I drive this wagon. Make more money carrying the swells from the train to their fancy houses than I ever did behind a plow.”

This made sense to Frank. “Do you ever drive the VanDamms?”

The fellow shrugged his powerful shoulders. “Sometimes. Mostly, they get their own carriage.”

“Did you ever drive their daughter? The younger one, Alicia?”

“Once or twice. She’s a sweet little thing. Not like the other one. That one’s got a tongue on her could raise a welt on a leather boot.”

Frank thought this was probably true. “The VanDamm girl’s dead, you know.”

He looked surprised. “Is she now? Can’t say I’m sorry.” He spit a stream of tobacco juice over the side of the wagon. “What happened? Did she try that razor tongue of hers on the wrong man?”

“Not her,” Frank said. “The younger one, Alicia. She’s the one who’s dead.”

“The hell you say!” the driver exclaimed. “And her so young. Hardly more’n a babe. She get sick or something?”

Frank watched him carefully as he said, “No, someone murdered her.”

The driver gaped at him, his shock almost painful to behold. For a long moment, the only sound was the clop, clop of the draft horse as he plodded on, but finally the driver was able to say, “What happened?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

The driver nodded wisely. “That’s it, then. I been wondering what a copper’s doing out here, asking for the VanDamm place.”

Frank frowned. He hadn’t told the man his profession, so he must have been able to tell just by looking at him. He wondered what gave him away, but he didn’t ask. The man would only lie.

“You didn’t, by chance, take her to the train station about a month ago, did you?” he tried. “She would’ve been alone, or maybe with a young man.”

The driver shook his head. “Haven’t even seen her in a couple years. They keep ’em close once they start getting ripe.”

It took Frank a minute to figure out what he was saying. “They keep a close watch on the girls, you mean?”

“Always afraid they’ll get in trouble. You know what young men’re like. It ain’t so long since you was one yourself.”

Frank could hardly remember, but he nodded his agreement. “You ever hear of her getting in trouble? With a young man, I mean?”

But the driver shook his head. “Never heard nothin’ about her at all. Like I say, they keep ’em pretty close.”

Frank knew he shouldn’t be disappointed. The odds that this fellow had driven Alicia and her lover to the train when she’d run away were pretty slim. She would’ve been much more circumspect. Probably, she stole away in the middle of the night. Maybe she didn’t even take the train at all. It was a long carriage ride back to the city and the roads were poor, but she might not have wanted to risk being recognized on the train.

“That’s it there,” the driver said, pointing with his chin.

Frank looked up and gasped in surprise at the house sitting on a rise before him. It seemed enormous, large enough to accommodate the inhabitants of an entire block of tenements. Myriad windows glittered in the blinding sun and the red bricks glowed. The grounds rolled away gently on every side, the grass newly green in the warm spring sunshine. From a distance, everything looked perfectly peaceful and serene, and why shouldn’t it? The murder had taken place far from here, in that other world he’d left behind this morning when he’d boarded the train at Grand Central Station.

This morning he’d imagined that he could come out here and learn more about Alicia VanDamm and why she had run away and with whom. Now, looking at the home from which she had fled, he couldn’t even imagine why she had done such a thing. Who in her right mind would leave this beautiful house for the uncertainty of a life alone, hiding in a strange place among people she didn’t know? To run away with a lover, that Frank could understand. He could still remember passion, although the memories were sadly dim. He could still remember love, no matter how much he wanted to forget. Without those motivations, Alicia VanDamm’s flight made no sense at all.

So now he knew one thing at least: Alicia VanDamm must have fled with a lover—or at least to a lover—be—cause she never would have simply run away from a place so utterly magnificent for any other reason.

The driver waited, as Frank had previously arranged, since he couldn’t depend upon the VanDamm’s servants to provide him transportation back. Because this was an unsanctioned visit—Sarah Brandt had warned him not to ask VanDamm’s permission because he most likely would have refused or at the very least warned his servants against revealing anything—Frank was going to have to rely on his ability to either charm or intimidate. If it had to be the latter, he wanted a guaranteed method of escape if things got too unpleasant.

Up close the house looked even more impressive. The carved oak door appeared solid enough to withstand an onslaught of armed barbarians. Through the spotless windows Frank could see the lace curtains which his mother had always told him only “quality” folks had. He’d have to get his mother some lace curtains just to prove her wrong.

Frank didn’t have to knock. This was the country, and his approach had probably* been observed when he was still halfway down the lane. The front door swung open before he reached the top of the porch steps. A formidable looking woman glared out at him, probably ready to run him off. Her ample figure was encased in black, giving the impression of rigidly tucked upholstery. Frank wondered if she was in mourning or if she always wore black. Somehow, he thought it was the latter. Her hair was hidden beneath the white cap of a servant, but her face was set into an authoritative glare which told him she was no ordinary servant.

“Good morning,” Frank said, trying out the manners he so seldom used. “I’m Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy of the New York City Police.”

If he’d thought to cow her, he failed miserably. She simply raised her chin another notch and looked down her hawklike nose at him. “Then what are you doing out here?” she demanded.

“I’m trying to find out who killed Miss Alicia VanDamm,” he replied, hoping to strike some nerve.

Her face tightened for an instant in what might have been a spasm of grief, but she gave no other sign of weakness. “You’d best go back to the city then, since that’s where she was killed. You won’t find no murderers here.”

Frank hadn’t expected to, of course. “I was hoping to get some information about her. Maybe that will help me find who killed her.”

“I’m sure nobody here will be gossiping about Miss Alicia, so if that’s what you’re hoping, you came a long way for nothing.”

Frank figured she’d make certain none of the servants told any tales about Alicia. “I don’t want gossip. I need to know when she left and who she left with.”

“We don’t know,” the housekeeper insisted, her broad, homely face reddening. “I already explained everything to Mr. VanDamm. We just woke up one morning, and she was gone. We don’t know nothing else. Leave us alone.”

“Mr. VanDamm said I could search her room and question all the servants, just in case,” Frank lied.

“I don’t believe you,” she said, her small eyes widening in alarm.

“Do you want me to go back to the city and tell him you wouldn’t cooperate with my investigation?”

He could see her inner struggle. She didn’t want to risk VanDamm’s disapproval, but she wasn’t certain which decision would bring it. Refusing Frank admittance seemed the sensible course, since VanDamm was most certainly not in the habit of having the police search his home and interrogate his servants. On the other hand, Alicia had been murdered, not a common state of affairs to be sure. Would this render all the usual rules null and void?

“I’d have to be sure Mr. VanDamm gave you permission,” she hedged.

Frank wasn’t about to let a little thing like that stop him. “I didn’t bring a letter of reference, if that’s what you’re after.”

She sniffed derisively at him. “I’ll telephone to find out.”

Damn.
Frank had forgotten that they had a telephone here. “Go ahead,” he bluffed, “but be quick about it. I haven’t got all day.”

The chances that VanDamm would be at home in the middle of the morning were probably small, and somehow he couldn’t imagine the mighty man stooping to speak to a servant on the telephone in any case. Of course, there was that snooty butler, but would he take it upon himself to withhold permission for Frank to do his duty?

Left standing on the doorstep, Frank decided to make himself comfortable. Might as well let the old bat find him taking his ease like a regular guest, not holding his hat in his hand waiting anxiously for her return.

When she returned, he was lounging quite comfortably, sitting on the steps with his legs out in front of him, crossed at the ankles, and leaning back against one of the massive pillars, his hat tipped down over his eyes. As if he had all the time in the world and not a single worry that VanDamm was going to have him tossed out on his ear.

She glared at him again, but she said, “Mr. VanDamm was out.”

Frank managed not to betray the surge of relief he felt. “Are you going to keep me waiting here on the porch until he comes back in?” he inquired with all the annoyance he could muster.

For an uncomfortable moment, he thought she was, so he took the really big gamble and rose to his feet, dusted off his seat and reached into his pocket, pulling out his notebook and pencil. “What’s your name?” he demanded.

“Mrs. Hightower,” she replied, nonplussed.

Frank nodded ominously and wrote it down. “I’ll be sure to tell Mr. VanDamm it was you wouldn’t let me in.”

He was gratified to see a flash of fear in her close-set eyes. Fear always worked to his advantage.

“You’re not to touch anything in her room,” she said, as if it had been her decision all along to allow him inside. “You can look around, but you’re to leave everything just as it is. That was Mr. VanDamm’s orders. Nobody is to touch anything.”