Murder on Mulberry Bend (8 page)

As the train lurched to a stop at the next station and passengers began to come and go in the car, Frank rubbed his head. He hadn’t gotten much sleep last night. Every time he closed his eyes, he’d see her face and the hurt in her eyes just before he’d snatched Brian from her arms and fled.

She’d never speak to him again, but that was as it should be. She never should have spoken to him in the first place. He never should have gotten to know her. He never should have allowed her to help him solve any murders. And he never should have let her help Brian.

But he had. She’d done him a favor, her good deed for the year. She’d been repaying him for the cases he’d solved for her, because she was the only one who cared if they ever were or not. They were even. Or at least she needn’t feel she was in his debt.

But each time his son took a step, he realized he would be in her debt forever.

That probably also meant he’d remember her forever. It couldn’t be any harder than losing Kathleen, he reasoned. He’d thought the pain of losing his wife would kill him, and here he was, three years later, alive and well. Of course, Kathleen had died, so he didn’t have any choice about accepting that. He couldn’t see her again, and she wasn’t there somewhere in the city, living without him. He’d certainly never had to worry about meeting her accidentally and not knowing how he’d react if he did. He’d had no choice but to let Kathleen go.

Sarah Brandt was another story, at least until one of them was dead. Maybe then he’d be able to stop thinking about her. And wondering if things might have been different if... if everything about them had been different.

Finally, the train stopped at City Hall, and Frank rose wearily from his seat and made his way out of the station. Glad for the distraction from his own, painful thoughts, he let himself be caught up in the roar of the street. People of all descriptions milled and mingled in the shadow of the city’s government. Each day, hundreds of them took the train or walked across the bridge from Brooklyn. Dozens of street vendors waited, ready to sell them whatever they might need. The crowds ebbed and flowed around the government buildings and those nearby on Newspaper Row, where the major papers had their offices.

City Hall itself sprawled for a block, its marble front gleaming in the morning sunlight. Wide steps led up to the columned portico, inviting all who were not too intimidated to enter and be heard.

For several years the politicians had been talking about building a new City Hall. This one was too small for such a large city, and the cheap brownstone they’d originally used on the back of the building was crumbling. Nearly a hundred years ago, no one had imagined the city growing northward beyond that point, so the back of the building hadn’t seemed important. Now, of course, the city stretched northward for miles, and thousands of people saw the back of City Hall with its crumbling brownstone every day.

The report had said the dead woman had been found in the park across from City Hall. Frank crossed the busy street and entered the relative sanctuary of the park. Recent rains had stripped most of the leaves from the trees, but the grass was still green, or at least what he could see of it beneath the leafy covering. He quickly spotted his destination. A small crowd had gathered and several uniformed officers were keeping them back, guarding the place where the body lay.

One of the officers had covered the woman with his coat. She was lying on the ground in front of a bench, as if she’d been sitting there, tried to rise, and fallen down dead. Frank saw no signs of a struggle. The leaves on the ground around her were undisturbed. He pushed his way into the circle the officers were maintaining.

“Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy,” he told them, showing his badge.

The three young men seemed relieved to finally have someone in authority present.

“ ’Morning, sir,” the one without a coat said. He was Jewish. Another one of Commissioner Roosevelt’s innovations. Frank wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to seeing Jews on the force, but he supposed as long as they did their job, it was all right. “I’m Eisenberg.”

“Tell me what you know.”

“Well, now, I was walking my beat this morning, just like usual, when this fellow comes up and says a woman is laying on the ground over here. I thought it might be a whore or something, passed out drunk. They don’t like that kind of thing in the park, so I goes over to take a look.” He glanced down at the body. “She was just laying there. Her face was all blue like. I knew she was dead. Couldn’t be that color and still be alive, could you? Her eyes was open, too, just staring.”

Frank glanced at the body again. “Had she been interfered with?”

Eisenberg glanced at the body, too. “I didn’t look for that,” he said, appalled.

Frank sighed. “I mean, were her skirts down like that when you found her?”

“Oh, yeah, I mean, yes, sir. She was just like that. We didn’t touch her or anything. Just threw my coat over her, so people wouldn’t be gawking.” He gave the gathering crowd a derisive glance. “Didn’t stop ’em, though.”

“I sent for an ambulance to take her to the morgue,” Frank said. “But I want to have a look at her before they get here.”

“Wasn’t a mark on her that I could see,” Eisenberg reported as they stepped over to the body. Frank would have them sift through the leaves when the body was gone, to make sure nothing had been dropped or left behind.

“She was probably strangled,” Frank said.

“I thought that, too, but like I said, didn’t see no bruises on her neck or anything.” Eisenberg gingerly lifted his coat from the body, which lay facedown in the leaves, the head turned away from him. “I never saw nobody turn that color blue when they was strangled, either.”

Frank stared down at the woman for a long moment, his mind unable quite to comprehend what he was seeing. A woman. Blond hair. An ugly hat he knew well, lying nearby where it had been jarred loose when she fell. Brian had tried to pull that flower off the last time he’d seen it. Frank heard a strange roaring in his ears, as if the El were running right through his head.

“Sir? Are you all right?” Eisenberg’s voice seemed to come from very far away.

Frank opened his mouth to reply, but no sound came out. He wasn’t all right, and he would never be all right again.

The dead woman was Sarah Brandt.

“D
ETECTIVE?”

Frank forced himself to look away from the body and back at Officer Eisenberg. “Turn her over,” he said, his voice strangely hoarse.

“Yes, sir.” But when Eisenberg reached down, Frank realized he didn’t want a stranger touching her.

“Wait,
I’ll do it,” he said sharply, startling Eisenberg, who quickly jumped out of the way.

She’d been wearing that hat when he’d kissed her only a few days ago. This suit, too. He’d seen her wear it a dozen times. Gently he put his hands on her shoulder and her hip to turn her. She wasn’t stiff, which meant she’d been dead for only a couple of hours at most. The coldness of death had seeped through her clothing, though, a chill unlike any other. A chill that could never be warmed.

He’d been a fool. He should have told her how he felt. He should have kissed her again. He should never have let her die without at least trying.

The pain was like a vise around his heart, and he could hardly breathe as he forced his hands to move. Ever so slowly he eased her over, hating the indignity of it, hating that she was lying on the ground, dried leaves clinging to her clothing and her hair, hating that total strangers were staring at her, people who had no right to even speak her name.

He got her over far enough that her own weight carried her onto her back. She landed with a soft rustle in the leaves, and Frank stared down at the face, slack jawed in death, the skin stained an odd, bluish color. The empty eyes stared back at him, holding a secret the blue lips could never reveal.

“Sir, what is it?” one of the other officers asked. The tone in his voice was kind, the way he’d talk to someone who was very ill.

“I just ...” Frank had to clear his throat. “I thought I knew her.” It was the eyes. They were brown, not blue. Not Sarah’s eyes at all, thank God. And not her face, either, no matter how death might alter it. He drew a breath and felt the vise of pain around his heart release, leaving him weak.

It wasn’t Sarah. Sarah wasn’t dead.

But someone else was, someone who was wearing Sarah’s ugly hat. Someone who was wearing Sarah’s clothing.

“You don’t recognize her then?” Eisenberg asked.

“No, but I know someone who might.” He sighed with resignation. Or was it relief? Once again fate would take him back to Sarah Brandt.

Sarah had been taking advantage of having no babies to deliver this morning to do her often-neglected housework. She had just finished sweeping the last of the dirt from her kitchen out the back door when she heard someone pounding on the front door. She glanced down at her housedress in dismay. At least she could tell from the urgency of the pounding that it was a summons to service and not a social call, so it didn’t matter what she was wearing. Whoever had come to fetch her would wait while she changed into something more presentable.

Before she could put the broom away, her visitor was pounding again. They were always like that when a baby was on the way. Nobody seemed to remember that most babies took their own sweet time. Untying her apron, she made her way through the front room, which had been converted into a medical office, to the front door.

She hung the apron on the coatrack nearby and gave her hair a cursory pat before opening the door.

“Malloy!” she exclaimed in surprise. She wasn’t sure which was more shocking, his presence here at all or the expression on his face. He looked almost
desperate.
“What is it?” she demanded, growing desperate herself. “Is something wrong? Is it Brian?” she added as the new fear blossomed.

She stepped back instinctively as he came into the house without waiting for an invitation. Only then did she realize how intensely he was looking at her. His gaze swept over her, taking in her appearance from head to toe. Self-consciously, she touched her hand to her bodice, making sure all her buttons were fastened.

“Malloy, what — ?” was all she managed to say before his arms came around her and he crushed her to his chest.

A thousand sensations collided in her brain. Her cheek against the rough fabric of his suit, his masculine scent engulfing her, his arms locked fiercely around her, his breath harsh and rasping in her ear. What felt like a shudder wracked his large frame, and then, as suddenly as he had embraced her, he let her go.

Robbed of his support, she nearly lost her balance, and he caught her arm to steady her, then quickly dropped his hand again. She stared up at him, trying to get control of her scrambled senses. Before she could, he said, “You’re alive.”

“Yes, I am,” she agreed, a little breathless and still unable to make any sense of this. “Was there ever any doubt?”

She’d expected him to smile the way he did whenever she said something sarcastic. But he didn’t smile, and the hand he raised to his head was trembling.
Malloy was trembling!

“Come in and sit down,” she urged him, convinced now that he must be ill. Nothing else could explain such bizarre behavior. She took his arm, and he let her lead him to the upholstered chairs that sat by her front window. “Can I get you something?” she asked when he was seated in one of them.

“No,” he said, still looking at her strangely. “No, just ... just sit down here where I can see you.”

Now Sarah really was worried. She did as he’d instructed her, taking the other chair. “It’s not Brian, is it? Nothing’s happened to him?”

“He’s fine,” he said. “Everything’s fine now. It’s just ... a little while ago, I thought you were dead.”

“Dead?”
she repeated incredulously. “What made you think I was dead?”

He drew a deep breath and let it out in a shaky sigh as he rubbed a large hand over his face. Then he gave her a crooked smile. “Because I saw your dead body.”

“Malloy, stop this!” she cried. “You’re frightening me.”

“Then we’re even. I had a few bad minutes myself when I saw you lying dead in City Hall Park this morning.”

“I haven’t been near City Hall in weeks,” she insisted.

“Well, someone was near there. A woman with blond hair who was wearing your clothes and your hat, and she was dead.”

“That’s impossible! What made you think they were my clothes?”

“I recognized them. How could anybody forget that hat? It’s the ugliest thing any woman ever put on her head. There couldn’t be two like it in the city.”

“There’s absolutely nothing ugly about my hat,” she informed him indignantly, “and there’s also no way anyone else could be wearing it or ...”

“Or what?” he prodded when her voice trailed off on that thought.

“Oh, dear,” she said, remembering. “Someone else
could
have been wearing my hat. I gave it away!”

“Who did you give it to?”

“I took it to the mission. The Prodigal Son Mission. I took a whole bundle of clothes down there on Sunday afternoon.”

He looked askance at the shabby dress she was wearing. “Did you take a vow of poverty or something?”

“This is a housedress, Malloy,” she said, indignant again. “I was cleaning when you came. I gave my other clothes away because I got some new ones. From my mother.”

“Did your mother take a vow of poverty?”

Sarah almost smiled. This was the old Malloy. Whatever had been wrong with him, he was feeling better now. “I needed something to wear to the opera last Saturday, so I went to my parents’ house to borrow a dress.”

At the mention of the opera, he frowned, confirming Sarah’s opinion that he was jealous of Richard Dennis. She pretended not to notice.

“While I was there, she insisted that I take several other things as well. My mother has excellent taste, and my new clothes are so much more fashionable than the old ones, I decided I didn’t need them anymore.”