Murder on Marble Row (2 page)

Frank was picturing the scene. Bombs were merciless, and the human body had no defense against them. He had a hundred questions, but he figured Roosevelt wouldn't know any of the answers, at least this early in the investigation. “Do they have any idea who planted the bomb?”

“Anarchists, I'm sure,” Roosevelt said, waving the problem away with his hand. “No successful man is safe from them. You know what they did to Henry Frick.”

Everyone knew about Henry Clay Frick. When his workers in Pittsburgh had gone on strike, Frick hired Pinkerton detectives to break the strike. The workers had been slaughtered, and in retaliation, some Russian anarchist had shot Frick. In the ass. Not a fatal wound and hardly comparable to a bomb exploding. He decided not to point this out to Roosevelt, though. “Did Mr. Van Dyke have problems with his workers?”

“Every employer has problems with his workers, but nothing out of the ordinary that I know of. Anarchists don't need a reason, though, do they? Killing a wealthy man is enough. Sends a warning to others and all that poppycock.”

He was probably right. Frank hadn't given the matter much thought. He didn't particularly want to give it any thought now, either, and he still had no idea why Roosevelt had told him all this. “Was Mr. Van Dyke a friend of yours?” he guessed.

Roosevelt's perpetual grin faded. “An
old
friend. Known him all my life. Families were close.”

Of course.
Van Dyke
and
Roosevelt
were names that dated back to the original Dutch settlers, the ones they called Knickerbockers. All those families had known each other for generations.

Decker
was another of those names, one Frank tried not to remember.

“I'm sorry,” Frank said politely. “That's a hard way to lose a friend.”

“And that's why I want you to investigate this, Detective Sergeant.”

Frank tried not to react, but he wasn't entirely successful.

“Don't be so surprised, Malloy,” Roosevelt said. “You've proven yourself to be a man who can be trusted to handle difficult situations discreetly. You also aren't afraid of the truth, no matter where you must go to find it.”

“You're sure anarchists killed Mr. Van Dyke,” Frank reminded him. “Solving the case won't need much discretion. Or much courage.”

Roosevelt's expression grew grim. “I hope not, Detective Sergeant, but one can never be sure what a police investigation will uncover. Everyone has secrets, and even if those secrets don't have anything to do with why Gregory was murdered, they might come out and cause distress to his family.”

Frank could feel the dread forming in his belly like a lead weight. “If you know of something in particular, I'd be grateful if you told me now. I'll have a better chance of keeping it away from the press.”

“That's just it,” Roosevelt confessed. “I don't. But a man in Gregory's position . . . Well, I'm sure he's made enemies.”

“People who might want to kill him?”

Roosevelt didn't actually squirm. Men in his position would never do anything so craven. He did look remarkably uncomfortable, though. “Civilized people don't kill their enemies by blowing them to bits.”

Now Frank was pretty sure he understood why he'd been selected for this task. “What if I find out it wasn't anarchists?”

They both knew what he meant. The law was a flexible instrument, and it tended to bend a great deal for those with money and power. If Van Dyke's killer had both, bringing him to justice could be problematic, if not actually impossible.

“I want justice to be done, no matter who the culprit is,” Roosevelt assured him, somewhat to Frank's surprise. “When you know, come to me, and I'll deal with it.”

Roosevelt handed Frank the papers he'd been examining, two typewritten pages containing the details of the case that were known so far. Frank knew the detectives on the scene had hastily scrawled a report, and Miss Kelly had no doubt typed it for the commissioner to read.

Sensing he had been dismissed, Frank rose. “I'll keep you informed,” he promised.

“Give Sarah my regards,” Roosevelt replied.

Frank looked up sharply, instantly wary. Was he being tested? Like Roosevelt, Mrs. Sarah Brandt was a Decker and one of the Knickerbockers, a woman whom Frank should, in the normal course of his life, have never even met. “I don't expect to be seeing Mrs. Brandt,” he said guardedly. Indeed, he'd sworn to himself never to see her again.

Roosevelt's enormous grin appeared again. “Well, I expect you
will
. Felix Decker was the one who called me about Gregory's death. He asked me to put you on the case.”

Frank could not have been more stunned. Felix Decker was Sarah Brandt's father. And Frank already knew him to be a murderer.

 
 
S
ARAH BRANDT HADN'T HEARD THE EXPLOSION, EITHER.

She had been delivering a baby on the Lower East Side all night and for most of the morning. As a midwife, she traveled the city at all hours, and now she was returning, bone weary, to her home on Bank Street. She'd taken the Third Avenue Elevated Train to Fourteenth Street, where she hoped to find a Hansom cab to carry her across town. Since it was raining—sleeting really—she doubted her chances.

She'd just reached the bottom of the long flight of stairs that led down from the El station three stories above the street when she heard a newsboy shouting about an explosion.

He was peddling an Extra edition of the paper, a one-sheet version that would report on an event so extraordinary, it couldn't wait for the next day's regular paper, or even the evening edition.

“Rich man gets blowed to pieces!” the boy cried. “Read all about it!”

People were crowding around, eagerly paying their pennies to get the gory details. Sarah approached with a sense of dread. While she hadn't moved in those elite social circles for years, she still knew far too many rich men personally. Her own father was one of them.

“Who is it?” she asked, handing the boy her penny. He was sheltering the sheets of newsprint from the rain beneath his tattered coat. He pulled one out for her.

“Mr. Gregory Van Dyke!” he shouted for all to hear. “Blowed up by anarchists! Read all about it!”

Sarah's relief was only momentary. Her father might be safe, but Gregory Van Dyke was one of his oldest friends. She hurried away from the jostling crowd around the newsboy, stopping beneath an overhang where she could “read all about it” and remain relatively dry. All around her, people were voicing their surprise or their shock or their satisfaction that one so wealthy was not beyond the reach of violent death.

Quickly, she skimmed the story for facts, then reread it more slowly for details. Only three hours had passed since the explosion in his office, so they didn't have much to report yet. Mr. Van Dyke had arrived at his office as usual, shortly before nine o'clock. He had been in there, alone, for only a few minutes when something exploded. The police suspected a bomb, and everyone knew that anarchists used bombs. They also killed wealthy industrialists such as Gregory Van Dyke. Hadn't they tried to kill Henry Clay Frick in Pittsburgh, which was why Mr. Frick and his family had moved to New York City? The sheet was filled with words, but very few of them described known facts. Everything else was conjecture and rumor and innuendo.

Her weariness forgotten, Sarah unfurled her umbrella and looked around for a Hansom. She'd have to go home and change into something more presentable, but instead of taking a well-earned rest, she'd be heading uptown to see what she could do to comfort her parents.

 
 
F
RANK STILL COULDN'T FIGURE OUT WHAT HE'D DONE TO deserve this. All the way uptown, riding on the Elevated Train, he'd thought of a dozen ways he could have avoided working on this case. Unfortunately, all of them involved resigning from the police force. Since employment opportunities for Irish Catholic men were extremely limited, and none of the others would allow him to provide adequately for his deaf son, he knew he was stuck. The best he could hope for was to come out of this without getting himself fired. Considering how many rich people he was probably going to have to offend, he figured he'd be extremely lucky to escape with his hide intact.

Which was a lot more than Mr. Van Dyke had done, Frank noted as he looked around the dead man's office one last time. The coroner had carried away the larger portions of Mr. Van Dyke. The blast had hit him in the face and chest and literally torn his body apart. Smaller pieces of him were still splattered over much of the room. The pattern told the story. The pattern and the smell.

The blast had come from a credenza that stood at one end of the room. Shattered glass among its remains and the unmistakable smell of spilled whiskey confirmed the information that the cabinet had held the liquor that Mr. Van Dyke served to his visitors. The odor of the alcohol helped cover the stench of gunpowder and death. The rain-wet air coming from the shattered windows would eventually clear all of it.

“That's all we know,” Captain O'Connor informed Frank belligerently. The captain of this precinct had taken over the investigation personally until Frank's arrival. He was a short, stocky man with a florid complexion that spoke of many years of close association with a whiskey bottle. Most likely, he'd been promoted before Roosevelt came into power.

Frank nodded politely. He'd read the report Roosevelt had given him, and O'Connor hadn't had much to add. “I'd like to question everyone who was here when it happened.”

O'Connor frowned sourly. “Suit yourself, but they don't know nothing.” The captain would have risen to his current position by knowing exactly how to avoid offending the wealthy residents of the neighborhood. That, and managing to amass the fourteen thousand dollars necessary to buy the promotion. He wasn't going to jeopardize his livelihood by letting Frank annoy anyone important.

“Would you introduce me to them?” Frank asked, still polite. “You know them, and they respect you.” He figured they probably knew the captain only too well and
despised
him, but he needed O'Connor's cooperation if he hoped to solve this case. Flattery was always a good way to win someone over.

O'Connor grunted his consent, although Frank could see he was a bit mollified.

“I'd appreciate it if you'd sit in on the questioning, too,” Frank added. “I'd like to get your impressions when we're done.”

The captain only nodded, but Frank could see his attitude toward Frank was beginning to thaw. With a sigh of relief, he followed O'Connor out of the ruined office. The outer office, where Van Dyke's secretary had been sitting, had also sustained some damage. Van Dyke's door had been closed, and the blast had torn it loose from the hinges and sent it smashing into the secretary's desk along with shrapnel from the bomb. The secretary had been taken to the hospital. Frank would question him later. Meanwhile, Van Dyke's partner and son were waiting down the hall.

The partner's office was a good indication of what Van Dyke's had probably looked like before the blast. An ornate desk polished to a high gloss sat in the center of the room. Several leather armchairs formed a seating area at the far end, by a tall window that looked out onto the street one floor below. A young man sat in one of the chairs, a heavy crystal glass in his hand, while an older man stood beside him, his back to the room, staring out at the traffic going by.

“Excuse us, Mr. Snowberger,” O'Connor said with such deference, Frank half-expected him to bow. “Sorry to disturb you, but Mr. Roosevelt has sent a detective, and he's got a few questions for you. Won't keep you long, sir,” he added with a warning glance at Frank.

Frank ignored the warning and the glance. “I'm sorry for your partner's death, Mr. Snowberger,” he said perfunctorily. “I'm Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy. Commissioner Roosevelt has asked me to help clear this up.”

Snowberger slowly turned from his vigil by the window and looked at Frank with little interest. He, too, held a glass half-full of amber liquid, probably an attempt to deal with the shock. “Is this absolutely necessary?” he asked O'Connor.

“It is if you want to find out who killed Mr. Van Dyke,” Frank said before O'Connor could reply.

The captain gasped at his bluntness, but Snowberger only looked mildly annoyed. The young man, Frank noticed, drained his glass in one gulp.

“You must be Mr. Van Dyke's son,” Frank guessed.

The boy looked up. His eyes were red-rimmed and his face ashen. He looked appropriately grief-stricken. “I found him,” he said hoarsely.

“After the explosion, you mean?” Frank asked, instinctively reaching into his coat pocket for his notebook and pencil. No one had invited him to sit down, but he took the chair closest to young Mr. Van Dyke and began to make notes.

“Yes.” The boy closed his eyes, as if trying to shut out the horrible vision of his father's mangled body.

“Tell me what happened. Everything you remember,” Frank urged.

The boy shuddered. “I heard the explosion—”

“Start earlier. Did you see your father today before the explosion?”

The boy drew a breath, probably glad to be thinking about a time before this had happened. “Just for a moment, this morning, at home. I was finishing my breakfast when he came down.”

“How did he seem?”

“Seem?”

“Did he seem nervous or preoccupied or did he seem normal, the way he always did?”

The boy was handsome, with light brown hair and pale blue eyes. Frank guessed him to be no more than twenty-two, if that. His smooth forehead creased with the effort of remembering. “He seemed happy,” he reported in surprise.