Murder on Washington Square (29 page)

To Frank’s disgust, the bloodshot eyes filled with tears. “I loved her, Malloy. I would’ve done anything for her.”

“Even leave your wife and son?”

Giddings winced at that. “I wanted to, but she wouldn’t let me,” he confessed. “She was too honorable.”

Frank didn’t bother to argue the point. Let Giddings believe what he wanted. “I guess your family was grateful for her sacrifice,” he said instead.

“They . . . they didn’t understand. I can’t blame them, I suppose. They lost so much.”

“You son seems more angry than your wife,” Frank observed. “He doesn’t think much of your Miss Blake.”

“He’s young,” Giddings excused him. “He doesn’t know much about life.”

“He knows about his life, and his mother’s. He knows how you and Anna Blake ruined both of them. He must hate her.”

“He doesn’t even know her.”

Frank wondered if Giddings really didn’t know. “Yes, he does. He met her at least once.”

Giddings stared blearily at Frank, not certain he’d understood correctly. “Harold couldn’t have met her.”

“But he did. Went to her house on the night she died. What do you suppose he wanted?” Frank asked.

One of the drunks nearby started coughing. The sound was raw and painful to hear, and Frank couldn’t help wondering what disease he might be carrying.

Giddings was looking at the coughing drunk with distaste, probably unaware that he himself looked no better than the filthy, unshaven wretch. At last the coughing stopped, and Giddings looked up at Frank again. “Harold didn’t know her,” he insisted.

“Then why did he kill her?”

This time Giddings reacted in a normal way. His eyes grew large, first with surprise, then with fury. He even made a valiant effort to rise, ready to confront Frank, but Frank hooked his foot behind Giddings’s heel and sent him sprawling back to the floor again.

Gasping with pain from his aching head and his bruised ego, Giddings glared at Frank. “Harold couldn’t kill anyone. He’s just a boy.”

“You better take a good look at him next time you’re home,” Frank advised. “He’s not a boy anymore. He’s taken your place as the man of the family.”

Giddings winced at the accusation, but he didn’t back down. “He didn’t kill Anna!” he insisted.

“How do you know? Is it because you killed her yourself?”

Giddings’s jaw dropped, but before he could speak, the jailer called to Frank.

“He was here Tuesday night. Came in around nine o’clock.”

“That’s pretty early,” Frank said, a little disappointed. Of course, that still would have given him time to kill Anna, since the landlady had said she’d left the house before dark.

“He got into a bar fight. He’d been hanging around all evening, cadging drinks, but he didn’t have any money of his own, so the crowd got tired of him. Threw him out into the street, but he kept coming back in. The beat cop took him in.”

Frank looked down at Giddings. “That was the night Anna died. You told me you couldn’t remember what happened that night. What were you doing in the bar?”

He looked up, his eyes resentful. “I didn’t remember everything. I went to visit Anna that day, but she wouldn’t see me. They wouldn’t even let me in. That woman, Mrs. Walcott, told me not to come back again, that Anna was going away.”

“So you went to the bar?”

“I couldn’t go home. My wife . . . she doesn’t understand. So I went out.”

“How did you get into a fight?”

“I told you, I don’t remember anything after I left her house until I woke up here the next morning.”

“Did you try to see Anna that day?”

“I wanted to, but I was too sick. I had to wait until the next morning.”

“That’s when we met,” Frank guessed, remembering how frantic Giddings had been to find her.

Giddings nodded and rubbed his head again, unable to meet Frank’s penetrating gaze.

“So that means even if you could remember, you wouldn’t know if your son went out to see Anna Blake that night or not,” Frank said.

This brought Giddings’s head up, his eyes wild with fury. “My son didn’t even know where she lived! If you try to blame him for this, just because you can’t find her real killer, I’ll have your job!”

Frank didn’t bother to point out that he was no longer in a position to be any danger to Frank’s job. He had more important things to think about. Frank had been hoping that Giddings would turn out to be the one who’d killed Anna. It was still possible, since Giddings claimed not to remember what he’d done that evening. He’d had time to find her and kill her before going to the bar. And if he couldn’t remember killing Anna, he could have been truly surprised to learn later that she was dead. That would explain why he’d acted like an innocent man the morning Frank had first seen him. But the boy was still a good suspect, too, and Frank knew for certain he’d seen Anna that night. “Your wife said you were home with her and your son the night Anna died, Giddings,” Frank said. “Now why would she say that?”

Giddings rubbed his temples. “She’s a good woman. She doesn’t deserve this.”

Frank gave him another light kick to get his attention. “Where is your son working today?”

Giddings started up stupidly. “How should I know?”

That’s what he’d expected, but he still didn’t like it. He stepped back over the ragged bundle of a man sleeping between him and the door. The fellow hadn’t stirred during the entire conversation, which meant he was either dead drunk or just dead. Frank walked out of the cell, and the jailer closed the door behind him.

“Keep that one until I tell you to let him go,” Frank said, indicating Giddings.

Giddings blinked, still rubbing his head. “I thought you were going to let me go,” he said.

“Didn’t anybody ever warn you that liquor makes you stupid?” Frank asked, then turned away. He needed some fresh air.

 

From her parents’ house on Fifty-Seventh Street, Sarah took the Sixth Avenue Elevated Train down to Twenty-Sixth Street and walked over to Bellevue Hospital to visit Webster Prescott. As she’d feared, he was in a fever and didn’t seem to know who she was. She forced some soup down his throat and bathed him with cool water. Then she put some hot compresses on his wound, to draw out the inflammation that was poisoning him. When she left, he seemed to be sleeping more comfortably. She told the nurses she’d be back to check on him later, hoping that would motivate them to give him better than average care in the meantime.

She’d posted the letter to Prescott’s aunt that morning. With any luck, the woman would receive it in the afternoon mail and be over to visit him tomorrow. Until then, Sarah would keep a close watch on him. Breathing a silent prayer for his recovery, she left the hospital and stopped in the middle of the sidewalk when she realized she had no idea what to do next.

Malloy, she knew, was going to find Mr. Giddings’s son and try to get him to confess to Anna’s murder. Sarah should have been relieved. Once the murder was solved, they could concentrate on solving up the embezzlement at the bank and clearing Nelson’s name once and for all.

But she didn’t feel relieved. She’d never met this boy, but for some reason she couldn’t believe he’d killed Anna Blake. And she also couldn’t shake off the feeling that she’d left something undone. She thought she knew what it was, too. She’d never gone back to the Walcott house to question Catherine Porter or the maid again. They must know more than they’d told her that first time. The maid hadn’t been there, of course, but Catherine had. And she’d been Anna’s friend, or the closest thing she’d had to one, at any rate. Maybe, if pressed, Catherine could provide a possible reason why Anna might have gone out to the Square that night. Sarah couldn’t shake off the feeling that once she knew that reason, she would understand what had happened to Anna Blake. Or at least she’d have a clue as to who might have killed her. And why.

Pulling her cape more tightly around her, Sarah set off toward the Second Avenue Elevated for a quick trip downtown to the Walcott house.

All the way down on the train, she tried to decide what she should ask the women if she was fortunate enough to get in to ask them anything at all. Catherine might not be home, or the maid might not admit her. If the Walcotts were home, they might throw her bodily into the street. Without Malloy, she had no official reason to question them, and they would surely know it. In fact, she was probably foolish to even consider this. On the other hand, she couldn’t just go back to her house and wait. She had to do
something.

With some trepidation, Sarah climbed the steps to the Walcotts’ front door and knocked. After what seemed a very long time, the door opened, and the maid looked out to see who was there.

“Good morning,” Sarah said, not really sure it was still morning but willing to take the chance. “Is Miss Porter in?”

The maid was frowning, trying to place her. Sarah smiled benignly, praying she wouldn’t be able to. Finally, the girl said, “You’re that lady what was here before about Miss Blake. You come with that policeman.”

Sarah managed not to flinch. “That’s right. Miss Porter asked me to call when I was by this way again,” she lied.

The girl looked doubtful, but she said. “Come in, please, and I’ll see if Miss Porter’s at home.”

Sarah stepped inside, as bidden, but the maid left her standing in the hallway instead of inviting her to have a seat in the parlor, silently telling her she might not really be welcome. Of course, the maid knew perfectly well whether or not Catherine Porter was at home. What she’d meant was that she would check to see if Miss Porter was at home to Mrs. Brandt. If Miss Porter didn’t wish to see her, she would simply instruct the maid to say she wasn’t at home. It was a convenient fiction that saved people from having to be overtly rude but still allowed them some control over their social lives.

Sarah wasn’t quite sure what she would do if Miss Porter refused to see her. She could always force her way past the maid and go upstairs and find the poor woman, cowering in her room. Such an approach was hardly likely to result in Sarah being able to elicit information from Miss Porter, however. She was smiling at the thought when she heard the maid coming down the stairs again. To Sarah’s relief, Catherine Porter was right behind her.

She did look wary, Sarah noted, so Sarah smiled in what she hoped was a reassuring manner. “Good morning, Miss Porter. I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

“What do you want?” Catherine Porter asked when she was halfway down the stairs, not bothering with the usual social niceties.

A very good question, and one Sarah didn’t dare answer truthfully. “I was hoping you would have a few minutes to visit with me. We’re still trying to find out who killed poor Miss Blake, and I thought perhaps you might be able to help.”

“I already told everyone, I was asleep when she went out that night,” she said defensively. She came down a few more steps, though. Sarah could see now that she wore a housedress and her hair wasn’t done, so she hadn’t been planning on going out or receiving visitors.

Sarah knew Catherine was probably lying about having been asleep, since Anna had left the house in the early evening, but she decided to work up to that question. “I thought perhaps you’d overheard Anna’s argument with the young man who came to see her that evening,” she tried. She glanced at the maid, who was still hovering, unwilling to miss this conversation, although she should have discreetly withdrawn by now.

For some reason, Catherine glanced at the maid, too, as if looking for reassurance. “Is Mrs. Walcott at home?” she asked the girl.

“No, ma’am. She went out early. Said she wouldn’t be back for a while,” the girl replied.

Catherine came down the rest of the stairs. “I guess I could spare a few minutes,” she allowed. “Although it won’t do you any good. I don’t know anything that will help.” She glanced at the maid again. “Go back to work. It’s all right.”

The maid nodded reluctantly, then slipped away down the hall. Catherine Porter led Sarah into the parlor and closed the doors behind them. When she turned, Sarah instantly saw the change in her. The last time they had met, Catherine had been worried, but now she looked almost frightened. Her face was pale and lines of strain had formed around her mouth. Her youth and health had been her most appealing features, but those seemed to have faded, leaving her worn and lifeless.

“I don’t know anything about Anna’s death,” she said before Sarah could even think of which question she wanted to ask first.

“You said you were asleep when Anna left the house that night. What time do you usually retire?”

“I don’t know. Nine o’clock. Or ten, maybe. I don’t pay attention. I go to bed when I’m tired.” She walked over to the sofa and sank down wearily.

“You go to bed after dark, though,” Sarah guessed, taking a seat opposite her.

“Sure. I’m not a farmer,” she said derisively. She was lying, then, about having been asleep when Anna left the house, which meant she’d also been lying about not knowing why Anna had left.

“I guess you got in the habit of staying up late when you worked in the theater,” Sarah tried.

“You have to,” she said. “The plays are at night, and by the time you get changed and out of the . . . Wait, how did you know I worked in the theater?” Her eyes widened, and she looked wary.

“You told me,” Sarah reminded her, smiling with what she hoped was reassurance. “Your friend Irene said you and Anna and Francine were all actresses.”

“Irene,”
Catherine scoffed. “She’s no friend of mine.”

“Was Francine a friend of yours?”

“I knew her, if that’s what you mean.”

“Did you live here when she did?”

“She left before I came.”

“Where did she go?” Sarah asked, wondering if this Francine might be able to tell her anything.

“I don’t know. Some place in the country. She got a rich man to take care of her, so she left.”