Murder on Waverly Place (19 page)

“Please, put your hands on the table,” she said, moving the coffee cups aside as Frank and Sarah each laid their palms on the tabletop.

Serafina reached across with her left hand and took Frank’s right wrist. “Please, hold Mrs. Brandt’s wrist with your other hand,” she instructed him.

Frank took Sarah’s right wrist with his left hand, and she in turn clasped Serafina’s right wrist with her left hand.

“This is how we hold our hands when the lights are on,” Serafina said. “Then I get up and turn out the light and close the door.” She pulled her hands free of theirs, as if she were getting up. “When I come back,” she continued. “Sometimes I do this.”

She kept her right hand off the table, and offered her left wrist to Sarah, who clasped it, and then she clasped Frank’s wrist with the same hand.

“In the dark, you will not see this,” she said, pointing to the way they were both clasping the same one of her hands. “And I have one hand free to . . .” She raised her hand as if she held an invisible knife and brought it down toward Sarah, who instinctively recoiled.

Frank jerked his own hand away and glared at her. “But nobody would know how to do that except you.”

“Mr. Cunningham knows how,” she said. “He told me he knew that I sometimes keep one hand free. He was very proud he had figured this out.”

“But he was too far away to stab Mrs. Gittings,” Frank said.

“If he figured it out, the others could have, too,” Sarah said.

Frank frowned at her. “The DiLoreto boy still had the best reason to want her dead,” he reminded her. “The Professor said she wanted to get rid of him. They had a fight about it the night before she died.”

“But she said he could stay,” Serafina argued. “I told her I would leave with him if she sent him away.”

The Professor had said the same thing, so that part was true, at least. “But he might have thought if he killed her—”

“No!” Serafina interrupted in frustration. “If he killed her, we would be telling fortunes on the street again.”

“Not if Sharpe set you up in a house like he wanted to,” Frank reminded her.

“But Nicola could not come with me. And if Mrs. Gittings was dead, we would have nothing.”

“Except her money,” Frank tried. “With her dead, Nicola could come back and steal the money—”

“No, no!” she cried. “He stole it before she died!”

Frank and Sarah gaped at her as she clapped a hand over her mouth, aghast at what she had just said.

“Nicola stole the money?” Frank asked, using his police detective’s tone.

Her eyes widened in terror. “It was really our money,” she said. “I had earned it, but she would not give it to us. She would give us nothing!”

“How did he steal it? You said you didn’t know the combination to the safe,” Sarah said.

“We . . . we made a small hole in the wall so we could watch when she opened the safe,” she admitted. “We were waiting until the end of the month, before she paid the rent, so . . .” She gestured vaguely.

“So there’d be more money to steal,” Frank offered.

“But it’s not the end of the month yet,” Sarah pointed out.

“After the fight with Mrs. Gittings, we decided we could not wait,” Serafina said.

“Exactly when did he take the money?” Frank asked.

“Yesterday, right after everyone arrived for the séance. The Professor locks the money in the safe, then he comes to the parlor to help me escort people into the séance room. Nicola took the money from the safe when the Professor and Mrs. Gittings were with me and the clients in the parlor and . . . and he hid it.”

“Where did he hide it?” Frank asked.

“He . . . In my bedroom,” she admitted reluctantly. “In my carpet bag.”

“Oh,” Sarah said in surprise. Frank glanced at her questioningly. “I noticed that she was very protective of the bag on the trip over here,” she explained.

“So you have it here with you?” Frank asked.

“Yes, but it is mine! I earned it!” she cried, her face crumbling.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to take it,” Frank assured her. “I just wanted to know where it was. So DiLoreto took the money before the séance even started.”

“Yes, that was our plan. Then we were going to wait until they were asleep that night, Mrs. Gittings and the Professor, and we would run away together.”

“Where were you going to go?” Sarah asked.

“To another city,” Serafina explained, leaning forward in her desperation to make them understand. “With the money, we could rent a house and I could do readings and we would not need Mrs. Gittings anymore. So you see, we did not need to kill her.”

“And killing her would just complicate things for them,” Sarah pointed out, earning another frown from Frank. “Why would they want to upset the clients or get the police involved? If they killed her, they were bound to get caught.”

The timing of the theft of the money was exactly right. The Professor had said it was all there when he put in the fees for the séance. Nicola had no opportunity to hide it after the séance started because he was busy making the background noises, and after the murder, the house was full of cops who would have noticed him carrying a sack of money around. And he couldn’t have come back and stolen it later, because Serafina had it with her when she left the house.

“Nicola did not kill her, Mr. Malloy,” Serafina said again. “Please, you must believe me.”

“Can’t you at least question the other people at the séance to see if you can figure out what really happened?” Sarah asked again. “If the boy is innocent, you can’t let him hang.”

Frank sighed in defeat. “I might be able to talk to each of them
once
,” he admitted grudgingly, “if I say I’m trying to collect more evidence against DiLoreto and if they’ll let me in at all. But if they refuse to talk to me, I can’t force them.
And
. . .” he continued when Sarah started to look hopeful, “I can’t treat them like criminals.”

“What does that mean?” Serafina asked Sarah.

“It means he has to be polite and not make them angry,” Sarah said.

“Which means they might not tell me the truth,” Frank said. “Especially the one who killed her, if one of them did. And unless one of them confesses to killing Mrs. Gittings, I won’t be able to arrest any of them even if I’m sure they did it.”

“But at least you’ll know Nicola is innocent,” Sarah said.

“And you will let him go free,” Serafina added, her lovely eyes full of hope.

How did Frank let Sarah get him into this? He’d had a perfectly good suspect that nobody would care anything about except this girl whom nobody would care anything about, but now he was going to have to go uptown and bother people who never got bothered by the police because they were too important. And with Roosevelt gone, he had no one to stand up for him if one of these important people got offended and wanted him fired.

He looked up to find Sarah studying him as if trying to read his thoughts. She opened her mouth to say something, but the sound of her doorbell distracted them. Sarah got up to answer it.

While they waited for her, Frank said to Serafina, “The Professor said to tell you that you’ve got clients scheduled today. He wanted to know if you were coming back to see them.”

“He is worried about money,” she sniffed derisively.

“He should be,” Frank said. “You didn’t leave him any.”

She didn’t look very repentant. “Maybe I should go back,” she said after a moment. “Just in case someone comes to see me.”

“And in case DiLoreto comes looking for you,” Frank suggested.

She looked up in surprise. “I . . . I did not think of that.”

“Yes, you did,” Frank said. “He’ll be wondering where you are.”

Frank heard a familiar voice, and he rose as Sarah returned to the kitchen with her mother.

“Mr. Malloy, it’s so good to see you,” she said in greeting, but her gaze went immediately to Serafina. “How are you, my dear?”

Serafina burst into tears, which immediately won the sympathy of both women, who rushed to comfort her. Frank stood back, watching for any sign that Serafina’s outburst was faked to distract Frank from thoughts of DiLoreto. She’d managed real tears, he noted, lending an air of authenticity to her outburst.

“What have you been doing to her?” Mrs. Decker demanded of him.

“Nothing, Mother,” Sarah assured her. “We’ve just been discussing the reasons Nicola couldn’t have murdered Mrs. Gittings.”

“Not
couldn’t
,” Frank corrected her.
“Wouldn’t.”

All three women gave him black looks.

“Did she at least convince you that he’s innocent?” Mrs. Decker asked.

“She convinced me it’s possible,” Frank admitted.

“The problem,” Sarah said quickly, before her mother could respond, “is that Mr. Malloy will be risking his job if he goes to question the others at the séance who might have had a reason to murder Mrs. Gittings.”

“How would he be risking his job?” Mrs. Decker asked.

“Think about it, Mother,” Sarah said. “What would Father do if a police detective came to your house to question you about a murder?”

Mrs. Decker only needed a moment to imagine the scene. Felix Decker would have used all of his power and influence to make sure such a thing never happened again. “Oh, dear.”

“Exactly.”

“But Theodore—” she tried, obviously remembering how their old family friend, Mr. Roosevelt, had always supported Malloy’s efforts.

“Theodore has resigned as police commissioner,” Sarah said. “He’s going to Washington to be assistant secretary of something or other.”

“The Navy,” Frank supplied helpfully.

“The
Navy
?” Mrs. Decker echoed in astonishment. “What does Theodore know about the Navy?”

“Who is Theodore?” Serafina asked tearfully.

“No one, dear, it doesn’t matter,” Mrs. Decker said, dismissing the brand-new assistant secretary of the Navy with a wave of her hand. “But if Mr. Malloy can’t question these people, how are we to determine what really happened to poor Mrs. Gittings?”

“We were just discussing that when you arrived,” Sarah explained. “And I was going to offer my own services. I could call on them and question them myself.”

“No, you can’t,” Frank protested, and he was gratified when Mrs. Decker confirmed it.

“Oh, no, my dear, you couldn’t possibly,” she said. “I’m sure they would refuse to see you, under the circumstances. But,” she added archly, “I’m sure they would all be more than glad to welcome me. We can visit them together.”

10

“
W
HAT?” MALLOY DEMANDED, OUTRAGED.

“Oh, Mother, do you really think that’s wise?” Sarah asked, not paying any attention at all to Malloy. She’d known he would give her an argument about getting involved, so she’d already determined to ignore it. She hadn’t expected her mother to offer her help, however.

“I’m
sure
it’s not wise,” Mrs. Decker said, “but I intend to do it anyway. How else can we save that poor young man?”

“Mrs. Decker,” Malloy said, trying to sound reasonable instead of furious and failing miserably, “if one of these people killed Mrs. Gittings, you might be in danger yourself.”

“Danger? Nonsense! Why would anyone want to harm
me
?”

“Somebody who’s killed once won’t stop at killing again to protect himself,” Malloy argued.

“But I have no intention of letting anyone know I’m investigating the murder,” Mrs. Decker pointed out reasonably. “Who would believe such a thing in any case? I’ll just be calling on them to find out how they are coping after the tragedy.”

“I think that might work,” Sarah said to Malloy, who looked like he might be in danger of having apoplexy.

“What do you think your father would say if he found out your mother was investigating a murder?” he asked.

“I’m sure he would have a lot to say
if
he knew,” Mrs. Decker said before Sarah could answer. “But I have no intention of telling him, and I’m sure no one else does either.”

Malloy was rubbing his head as if it hurt him. Sarah felt a flash of pity for him. He really did not stand a chance of prevailing.

“What can I do to help?” Serafina asked.

“Nothing,” Malloy told her sharply.

“You can tell us everything you know about these people,” Sarah said, giving him a glare that he returned. “Let’s all sit down,” she added. “Mother, would you like some coffee?”

When everyone was seated around Sarah’s kitchen table with a fresh cup of coffee, Mrs. Decker asked, “Where are the girls?”

“I sent them to Mrs. Ellsworth so we could talk in private,” Sarah said.

“That’s a relief. I wouldn’t want Catherine to overhear us. Now what were we discussing?”

“Serafina is going to tell us what she knows about the other people at the séance.” Sarah gave the girl an encouraging smile.

“Where should I start?” she asked uncertainly.

“With Mrs. Burke,” Mrs. Decker said. “What you don’t know, I’m sure I can supply. I’ve known her for years.”

Serafina took a deep breath as if to fortify herself. “She has been coming to see me since last fall. She wanted to contact her sister.”

“Yes, they had a quarrel,” Mrs. Decker said. “The sister died before they could make it up. She told me Madame Serafina contacted her sister, and she was able to apologize and be forgiven.”

“Yes, and this made her very happy,” Serafina reported. “But Mrs. Gittings wanted her to keep coming back, so I had to tell her that her sister had important messages for her. We had a private sitting for her, and her sister told her things about her children.”

“Mrs. Burke’s children?” Sarah clarified.

“Yes, they are . . . not happy,” Serafina hedged.

“Kathy’s son is a worthless profligate,” Mrs. Decker reported. “His father has had to rescue him time and again, but he never seems to learn his lesson.”