Murder on Sisters' Row (29 page)

“She thought it was from you, telling her you were tired of Amy and wanted her to take the girl back.”

“I can see that! But I didn’t write it!”

“I know you didn’t. You wouldn’t have sent me to get Amy away from her if you did.”

Van Orner looked at the note again. “She probably wrote it up herself, to throw you off the scent.”

“I thought of that, too, but she wouldn’t have known I’d be coming after Amy. And besides, how would she have known exactly where Amy was going to be this morning?” Frank looked at Miss Yingling, and this time she took offense.

“Why do you keep looking at me? I didn’t tell her where Amy was going to be!”

“Someone did. Someone who knew. Someone who wanted to get rid of Amy because she was causing too many problems.”

“Amy always caused problems,” Van Orner said wearily.

“But she’d never caused problems for anyone close to you because she’d always been someplace else. First she was in the house you’d provided for her,” he reminded Van Orner. “Then she was at Mrs. Walker’s house. Then she was at the rescue house. But when she showed up on your doorstep with her baby in her arms, suddenly she was causing problems for someone new.”

“Who?” Van Orner demanded.

Once again Frank looked at Miss Yingling, and this time she took a step back. “Stop looking at me! I didn’t have anything to do with this!”

“Didn’t you?” Frank asked gently, the way he did when he wanted to disarm a suspect. “You’ve been waiting a long time to get Mr. Van Orner all to yourself, haven’t you?”

Van Orner had been staring at her, too, and now he jumped to his feet. “Tamar? What’s he talking about?”

“I have no idea!” she claimed.

“Mr. Van Orner, did you know that Tamar Yingling was the first prostitute your wife ever rescued?”

Miss Yingling winced, but Van Orner wasn’t shocked. “Of course I knew. Vivian brought her here so she could keep her under my nose, a constant reminder.”

“A reminder of what?”

“Of my weakness, or what she considered my weakness. She thought it abominable that I enjoy the pleasures of the flesh, Mr. Malloy. She thought having a reformed harlot in our house would torment and shame me.”

“And did it?” Frank asked, beginning to feel disgust.

“What do you think, Tamar?” he asked her with a sly grin.

She grinned a little herself. “You didn’t seem ashamed, although I think I managed to torment you.”

Now Frank really was disgusted. “You betrayed your wife under your own roof with a woman she was trying to save?”

“Yes, and it was quite enjoyable for a while, wasn’t it, Tamar?”

Tamar Yingling smiled. “Yes, it was, especially when Vivian would lecture me on how I had to conduct myself properly to avoid any suspicion of immorality. She never suspected a thing.”

Frank’s mind was racing. “You said it was enjoyable
for a time
. . .”

“Yes, but like everything else in life, it ceased to be a novelty. That’s when I met Amy, and I turned my attentions to her, leaving Tamar to become the respectable young woman Vivian believed her to be.”

Miss Yingling stared back at Frank serenely, as if she’d felt no pain at being rejected for a younger woman. But if she’d thought to convince him of her innocence, she was wrong.

“You must’ve despised Mrs. Van Orner,” he said to her.

He saw the emotions flicker across her face. “She was always very good to me,” she said, belying what Frank saw in her eyes.

“I’m sure she was, but that kind of goodness has a price, doesn’t it? You always have to earn it, and you never can be quite worthy enough, can you, no matter how hard you try?”

“What does any of this have to do with Amy’s death?” she asked, angry now.

“I’m coming to that, but first we have to think about Mrs. Van Orner’s death. She was poisoned, too, remember?”

“What does that have to do with this?” Van Orner asked.

“I don’t believe in coincidences, Mr. Van Orner, especially when two women living in the same house turn up dead from drinking the same poison.”

“You think Amy’s death has something to do with Vivian?”

Frank was starting to wonder how a man so stupid had managed to be successful enough to become rich. But maybe he’d just inherited his money. “I think somebody who wanted you all to herself decided to do away with your wife. That somebody slipped laudanum into your wife’s flask at the rescue house.”

“Amy!” Van Orner guessed.

“That’s what I thought at first. She had the opportunity to poison her and she wanted her dead. And the next day she packs up her baby and marches over here and presents herself to you, and you take her in. That made me think she’d planned it.”

“Of course she did!” Miss Yingling cried. “She planned the whole thing. Gregory had told her all about Vivian’s work, so she told the midwife her sad story and begged her to contact Vivian to rescue her. She was going to kill Vivian all along!”

“I don’t know what she planned to do, but even if she did plan it, somebody else beat her to it.”

“How can you know that?” Van Orner asked.

“Because the killer didn’t plan on Amy showing up on your doorstep or you taking her in. She intended for Amy to get blamed for the murder, because Amy had the perfect reason for wanting Mrs. Van Orner dead. But when you let Amy move in here, the killer couldn’t take the chance that you’d protect her. So Amy had to die, too.”

Now Van Orner was looking at Miss Yingling, his eyes filled with horror at what she’d done.

Her eyes widened with terror. “It’s not true! I didn’t do any of that!”

“Who else had something to gain by killing these two women?” Frank asked.

Miss Yingling looked around wildly, as if hoping to find someone to blame lurking nearby. “Mrs. Walker! She’s surely the one who killed Amy. She died in her very house.”

“That’s what you wanted us to think. That’s why you sent Mrs. Walker that note and signed Mr. Van Orner’s name. You knew you were taking Amy shopping this morning. You also knew Mrs. Walker would do what Van Orner wanted, because she’s afraid of him. In fact, she was too afraid of him to kidnap Amy unless she thought that’s just what he wanted.”

“She’s not afraid of him!” she tried, but they all knew it wasn’t true.

“And don’t forget, the person who killed Amy also killed Mrs. Van Orner,” Frank said.

“Mrs. Walker could’ve done that!” Miss Yingling cried. “She was here the morning Vivian died, remember.”

“But why would she want to kill Mrs. Van Orner?”

“I . . . Because she hated her. Because she’d stolen Amy right out of her house.”

“And isn’t it funny that you didn’t remember Mrs. Walker had visited Mrs. Van Orner until this morning.”

“That’s not true! I remembered all along.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me before?” Frank asked.

“Because I wanted you to think Amy killed Vivian!” she cried, then clamped her hand over her mouth in horror over what she’d just admitted. She looked to Van Orner for help, but he was staring at her as if he’d never seen her before.

“What have you done?” he roared.

“Nothing! I didn’t do anything, I swear!” She was trembling now, her face white and her lips bloodless. She stared up at Van Orner, her breath coming in shallow gasps. “You’ve got to believe me!”

Van Orner started toward her. “You lying bitch! After all I’ve done for you!”

She gave a cry and her knees gave way. Frank caught her before she fell. He lifted her into his arms and carried her to the sofa, where he laid her down.

“I didn’t do it, Gregory,” she murmured. “You’ve got to believe me!”

“Get her something to drink,” Frank told Van Orner.

Reluctantly, Van Orner went to the sideboard and poured something into a glass and handed it to Frank. Frank pressed it to her lips, and she took a sip or two, then turned her head away. “You might as well give me some laudanum, too,” she said bitterly.

“You won’t get off so easy,” Van Orner said. “I’m going to see you hang!”

She gasped, her eyes wide with horror. Frank decided not to mention that in New York State, murderers died in the electric chair, figuring that wouldn’t ease her concerns at all.

She turned to Frank, tears flooding her eyes. “You’ve got to believe me! Why would I kill anyone?”

“Because you wanted me all to yourself,” Van Orner snapped.

“But I didn’t! I didn’t want him at all!” she told Frank. “I was so glad when he got tired of me, and Vivian was giving me a chance to have a real life! I never would’ve harmed her.”

“Then who did?” Frank asked reasonably, ignoring Van Orner’s disgruntled frown.

“I thought it was Amy! Truly, I did. That’s why I convinced Gregory to let you investigate. I was sure you’d find out she killed Vivian. If I’d killed her, why would I want you to investigate?”

Frank had to admit that did seem to support her innocence, but he still wasn’t convinced. “Maybe you thought you’d set it up well enough that I’d think Amy was the killer, but when she showed up here, you decided not to take a chance and got rid of her yourself.”

“That would be stupid! Why would I take a chance like that?”

“Who else would have wanted them both dead then?”

“I don’t know!”

“Of course you don’t. The person who did this had to hate both Mrs. Van Orner and Amy. She had to be in a place where she could sneak the laudanum to them. She had to know about Mrs. Walker and that she would do what Mr. Van Orner wanted. And she had to know where Amy was going to be this morning so she could set it all up. Who could that be but you?”

Miss Yingling was frantic now. Her eyes darted around as her mind raced in search of some way out.

“It’s no use, Tamar,” Van Orner said. “You’re the only person who—”

“No, wait, someone else knew!”

“Knew what?” Frank asked skeptically.

“About Amy, that I was taking her shopping today. Mrs. Brandt knew!”

“Mrs. Brandt?” Van Orner asked. “You mean Elizabeth Decker’s daughter?”

“Yes, the midwife! She was here on . . . on Saturday. Yes, I remember. We were talking about it then. Amy was bragging that she was going to get a nurse for the baby, and she asked Mrs. Brandt about . . . about feeding him, and then she told her that we were going shopping first thing on Monday, as soon as the nurse got here. She knew!”

Frank sighed. “You have to do better than that if you want to convince me you’re innocent. I know Mrs. Brandt very well. She’s been helping me with this investigation. She wouldn’t have killed either woman. She didn’t have any reason to.”

“It’s over, Tamar,” Van Orner said. “Mr. Malloy, you can take her now.”

“No!” she wailed. “No, there’s someone else! I almost forgot—Mrs. Spratt-Williams was there, too, that day. She came with Mrs. Brandt. She was worried about Amy, she said, and she came to make sure she’s all right.”

“Why would Mrs. Spratt-Williams want to kill Amy?” Van Orner scoffed. “Or Vivian either, for that matter. Vivian was her oldest friend.”

But Miss Yingling wasn’t listening. Frank knew that expression on her face and what it meant. He’d seen it many times before on many other faces. She was remembering something, something important, and putting it together with everything else and figuring it all out.

She sat up on the sofa, and when she looked at Frank, her eyes were clear. The terror had drained out of her, and she almost smiled when she said, “I know who killed them.”

14

M
RS. SPRATT-WILLIAMS TURNED IN HER CHAIR SO SHE could reach the tea tray that had been set out on a table beside her. Three cups were stacked on the tray, along with three saucers, three spoons, and three small plates to hold the little sandwiches and cakes her staff had prepared for them.

She picked up the top cup and set it on a saucer, then took the cup from the bottom of the stack and put it on another saucer.

“I’m not sure you realize the implications of your pledge to support my beliefs that charity to the poor should not be limited, Mrs. Brandt.”

“Perhaps not, but I do know how shocked I was to learn the philosophy of the Charity Organization Society.”

“Their philosophy, as you put it, is based on Mrs. Lowell’s belief that ‘Gratuitous charity works evil rather than good.’ ”

Sarah had heard those words before, the first time she’d visited Mrs. Van Orner’s office. “Mrs. Lowell?”

“Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell. She founded the COS. She believed that if a widow receives too much assistance to support her children, for example, she might lose her love for them because she was relieved of the anxiety of providing for them.”

Sarah blinked in amazement at such reasoning, but Mrs. Spratt-Williams wasn’t finished.

“She also believed that while giving a handout to an unemployed man would help him for the moment, it would also teach him the dreadful lesson that it’s easy to get a day’s living without working for it.”

As Sarah absorbed this astonishing bit of news, Mrs. Spratt-Williams carefully lifted the tea cozy off the pot.

“The COS has records on over one-hundred-seventy-thousand individuals and families, and they are quite selective and stringent in qualifying people to receive aid. The records of each applicant are carefully examined to determine if their poverty is the result of their own character flaws. Such people are denied assistance, and consequently, they refuse the majority of requests.”

Sarah couldn’t even imagine the tragedy this policy would have caused to the thousands in the city who were destitute and had no other hope of assistance.

Mrs. Spratt-Williams poured the tea. “How many lumps do you take, Mrs. Brandt?”

“Two, please.”

“I think you’ll find that with this particular type of tea, more sugar enhances the flavor. If you’ll allow me to judge . . .” She dropped four lumps into each cup.