Murder on Astor Place (18 page)

Mattingly was used to disguising his true feelings, although a fury such as he was experiencing at the moment was impossible to completely conceal. He had the sense not to succumb to it, however, much to Frank’s disappointment. He took some time to gather himself, folding his knobby-fingered hands carefully on the desk in front of him. He studied the liver spots of the backs of those hands for a long moment, as if seeking some guidance there. When he looked up, he was in complete control of himself.

“Detective Sergeant, I have already told you, I am not acquainted with the gentleman you are seeking. I must ask you again—”

“Did you know Alicia VanDamm?”

For an instant, Mattingly almost lost his patience. “I know her entire family. Everyone knows the VanDamms.”

Probably, he meant, “Everyone who is anyone knows the VanDamms.” Frank wouldn’t qualify, of course.

“Do you know the VanDamms socially or professionally?”

“I can’t believe that is any of your business,” Mattingly said with the confidence of one powerful enough that he needn’t fear the police.

“And I can’t believe you don’t want to help me find out who killed Alicia VanDamm. The girl was strangled, Mr. Mattingly, and I’m trying to find and punish the brute who did it, and here you are, treating me like I’m the third cop to come in here asking you to buy tickets to the policeman’s ball.”

Frank got the impression that Mattingly wanted to wrap those long, bony fingers around his neck and choke him the way somebody had choked Alicia VanDamm. He only got that impression from his sixth sense, however, since Mattingly was doing his very best not to betray any emotion whatever. Finally, however, he allowed himself a bit more impatience.

“Really, Detective Sergeant, I think you are overstating the case. If I am short with you, it’s because you are wasting my time as well as your own, as I have already pointed out. You come in here asking me about a man I never heard of and accusing me of... well, accusing me of heaven knows what, and then you accuse me of withholding information that I do not have. I believe I have
every reason
to
be annoyed
with you,
particularly
when I have already asked you to leave. Don’t think I won’t mention this to your superiors.”

Oh, yes,
Frank thought,
please be sure to tell Commissioner Roosevelt just exactly how
annoyed
you
are
with me. Aloud, he said, “Thanks for your help, Mr. Mattingly. I’ll be sure to mention your assistance to Mr. VanDamm.”

“Do that,” he countered, calling Frank’s bluff beautifully. “And don’t be surprised if he has already heard about it from me.”

T
HE MAID BLINKED at Sarah in surprise. “Your mother?” she echoed in confusion. Perhaps she thought Sarah was daughter to one of the servants.

“Mrs. Decker is my mother,” she explained with a small smile.

For a moment, she was afraid the girl was going to close the door in her face in retaliation for telling such a bold-faced lie, but apparently she thought better of that impulse.

“I... I’ll have to see if she’s at home,” she said finally, and after another moment of thought, she invited Sarah inside to wait.

Although she had worn her best dress for the visit to the VanDamm’s today, Sarah knew she still did not meet the standards society had set for being fashionably attired. These days her clothing tended toward the practical rather than the stylish, and she might even, if she allowed herself to admit it, be a bit shabby in the bargain. If she was going to start moving in the more exalted social circles, as she had been these past few days, she would have to start paying some attention to her wardrobe again.

The girl returned almost immediately, and now her eyes were wide in her small face, and her manner had changed from hesitant to ingratiating. “I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you, Miss Decker, but I’m new, and I didn’t know. Mrs. Decker asks will you wait in the morning room until she comes down?”

Sarah released the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding as relief flooded through her. Although she hadn’t really expected to be turned away, the possibility had been there all the same. Her parents had been just as angry as she when she’d stormed out of their life after Tom’s death. But apparently, the years had mellowed them, too. Or at least the years had mellowed her mother.

Sarah was only too glad to wait. This wasn’t her mother’s usual afternoon “at home,” the time when she formally received visitors, so she wouldn’t be dressed properly. She would also never allow Sarah to see her for the first time in three years looking less than her best, so a delay was inevitable.

The morning room was the room her mother used for her private pursuits, writing letters, reading, managing the household. More simply furnished than the formal rooms where visitors were usually received, it had a comfortable, homey feel to it. Plainly, her mother wanted their first visit in three years to be unhampered by the rigid social conventions that ruled the rest of their lives.

The room smelled faintly of her mother’s perfume, the light floral scent she had used as long as Sarah could remember, and the aroma brought back bittersweet memories of happier times.

How could she have allowed so many years to pass without seeing her own mother? The argument that had separated them had seemed so very important at the time, but now, recalling the loving woman who had raised her, Sarah could only feel regret that she had been so stubborn. In punishing her parents, she had also punished herself by depriving herself of the comfort only a mother could give.

Restless with her memories, Sarah strolled around the room, examining everything. She recognized some of the pieces from the house on Washington Square where she had grown up. The desk was the same one her mother had always used. Sarah could remember darting between its graceful, curving legs as a child, trying to capture her mother’s attention.

On the desktop was a half-written note in her mother’s careful hand, thanking someone for a dinner party. The table in front of the window was new, but Sarah recognized the vase on it. Her mother had bought it at a market in Egypt on one of her trips abroad. A glass-fronted curio cabinet held other treasures, some of which Sarah remembered and others that were new. She was still studying them, remembering the stories behind them, when the door opened and her mother rushed into the room.

“Sarah!” she cried, coming toward her with hands outstretched. Sarah took them in her own and was surprised at how cold they were. As if her mother had sustained a shock, which of course she had. And was she trembling? Perhaps just a little, or maybe it was Sarah’s own nerves making her think so.

For a moment, she allowed herself to feel the pure joy of seeing her mother again. Inhaling her mother’s unique scent and kissing her still-smooth cheeks, Sarah basked in the absolute love she saw radiating from her mother’s eyes. As she pulled away, those eyes devoured her, taking in every detail of her appearance in an instant.

“You look... well,” she said, but the words held a question. Plainly, she assumed only some tragedy would have brought her home.

“I’m very well, thank you. In fact, I’ve never been better.”

Her mother looked doubtful. And worried. “Are you sure? Your hands ... Whatever have you been doing with them, Sarah? They’re like shoe leather!”

Sarah looked down self-consciously at where her mother still gripped her fingers. “I’ve been working, Mother. I have to earn my keep, you know.”

“No, you don’t,” her mother chided, and Sarah saw all the old retributions darkening her eyes.

For a second, Sarah thought perhaps she’d made a mistake in coming. What made her think anything would have changed in this house no matter how much time had passed? But then her mother shook herself, as if consciously shrugging off the old patterns that had alienated them for so long, and she made herself smile brightly, the perfect hostess again.

“Well, never mind about that. Come and sit down, and tell me what you’ve been doing and what brought you here on such a fine day. They say it’s like summertime out there today. Can you believe it? After we had snow just a week ago?”

Sarah allowed her mother to lead her to the settee by the window that overlooked the garden. Outside, the ground and the trees were just beginning to green with new life in the sudden fine weather, giving Sarah hope that perhaps she could begin a new life as well.

“I came to see how you were,” she said when they were seated.

Her mother wasn’t fooled by the polite lie. “You just woke up this morning after three years and wondered how I was,” she scoffed, but there was no anger in her tone, only sadness.

“No, I didn’t,” she admitted. “Something happened, something terrible, and it made me realize how short life is and how we shouldn’t waste a moment of it nursing old grudges.”

Her mother closed her eyes for a moment, as if sending up a silent prayer of thanks, and when she opened them again, the shadows were gone. “Oh, Sarah, how many times I’ve longed to hear you say that. But what terrible thing happened? You said you were well—”

“I’m perfectly fine and disgustingly healthy.” She patted her mother’s hand reassuringly. “What happened doesn’t concern me at all, except that I know the people involved. So do you. The VanDamms.”

“Oh, my, yes. Poor, sweet Alicia. She was so young and always seemed so healthy. I guess you never know. They said it was a fever that took her, and so quickly. By the time they even thought to send for a doctor, she was gone.”

Sarah had wondered what story they were giving out. This one was as good as any, she supposed. Many people died of unexplained fevers every day. “Alicia didn’t die of a fever, Mother. She was murdered.”

“Murdered?”
she echoed incredulously. “That’s impossible! Whoever would have murdered her? And
why,
for heaven’s sake?”

As briefly as she could, Sarah explained that Alicia had run away from home and had been living in a boardinghouse where she was found dead. Plainly, her mother couldn’t believe such a thing could happen.

“How could she get away? She was only a child! How would she know where to go or even how to get a room?”

“I believe someone must have helped her,” Sarah said, deciding not to reveal everything she knew. Her mother had been known to gossip, and Sarah didn’t want to be the cause of the groom Harvey getting fired. “The police think she must have had a lover. Perhaps he helped her get away.”

“That’s nonsense,” her mother insisted. “Alicia was just a child. She wouldn’t even know any young men.”

“She knew at least one,” Sarah said. “She was expecting a baby.”

If her mother had been shocked before, she was stunned now. Speechless, she could only stare at Sarah for a long moment. Finally, she asked, “You’re sure? There could be no mistake?”

“No mistake. She was already six months along.”

Her mother considered this information, weighing it with the facts Sarah had already told her. “Of course, that would explain why they sent her to the country. So she could have the baby secretly.”

Then they both remembered a girl who had been sent to France for the very same reason, a girl who had escaped to die as well. But neither of them was ready to speak of Maggie, not when their reconciliation was so new. They looked away, not wanting to meet each other’s eyes while those memories were still in their minds.

“What I don’t understand,” Sarah said determinedly, hoping to steer them both away from their painful memories, “is why wouldn’t they have just arranged a marriage for her with the baby’s father?”

“Oh, my, any number of reasons. If he was unsuitable...” Her voice trailed off as they once again remembered Maggie and her unsuitable match. “Or perhaps he was already married,” she added after an awkward moment.

This was something Sarah hadn’t considered. But she couldn’t believe that Alicia could have been discreet enough to be impregnated without stirring at least a whiff of scandal.

“Surely, someone would know if that were the case. Have you heard anything about her? Anything at all that might explain what happened? Perhaps she was engaged, or her parents were arranging a marriage for her,” she added, recalling the groom’s reason for helping Alicia run away.

Her mother considered again, and Sarah waited patiently. Women like her mother, intelligent, talented women who had no socially acceptable outlet for their energies, filled their idle hours by visiting and learning as much about their neighbors as they could. In less elegant circles, this would have been called gossiping, but no one in her mother’s social circle would have used so vulgar a word to describe their activities. Still, that was what they did, day after day and year after year. No word or deed was too insignificant to escape their attentions, and they spent their entire lives analyzing one another’s behavior. This was why Sarah was certain that if Alicia VanDamm had become pregnant, which she most certainly had, someone would know something about it.

“There was one thing,” her mother said at last, “but it was so fantastic, I didn’t credit it. And I don’t think anyone else did, either.”

“What was it?” Sarah asked, unable to disguise her eagerness.

“You understand that I don’t believe in gossiping about my neighbors,” she said primly, and Sarah forced herself not to smile.

“Of course not, but any information you have might help us find out who killed her.”

“Us?”
her mother echoed in surprise. “Sarah, just how does all this concern
you,
and who else would it involve?”

Sarah could have bitten her tongue. Good thing Malloy hadn’t heard her slip. She was getting a little tired of his lectures about how she really wasn’t investigating this case. “I was able to help the police in their investigation. Because I knew Alicia,” she added at her mother’s frown of disapproval.

“The police?” she sniffed. “Really, dear, you shouldn’t become involved with the police. You know the kind of men who are drawn to that profession. They’re hardly the sort of people with whom you should associate.”