Murder on Sisters' Row gm-13 Read online

  Murder on Sisters' Row

  ( Gaslight Mysteries - 13 )

  Victoria Thompson

  Midwife Sarah Brandt braves the dangers of the tenements in nineteenth-century New York to help the impoverished and, with Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy, bring the guilty that prey on them to justice. Now, the latest novel in the Edgar®-nominated series finds Sarah compelled to save an expectant mother from a fate worse than death…

  Summoned to an elegant house to deliver a baby, Sarah finds her patient is actually in a brothel. The young woman in labor reveals she is being held against her will and forced to prostitute herself—and that the madam intends to get rid of the baby.

  To rescue the new mother and her infant, Sarah secures the assistance of Mrs. Vivian Van Orner, a woman of means known for her charitable work. But their success comes at a high price when Mrs.Van Orner is found murdered.

  With Malloy’s help, Sarah’s investigation uncovers some unpleasant truths about the victim and her charity—as well as the woman and child Sarah risked her own life to save…

  Crime titles by Victoria Thompson

  MURDER ON ASTOR PLACE

  MURDER ON ST. MARK’S PLACE

  MURDER ON GRAMERCY PARK

  MURDER ON WASHINGTON SQUARE

  MURDER ON MULBERRY BEND

  MURDER ON MARBLE ROW

  MURDER ON LENOX HILL

  MURDER IN LITTLE ITALY

  MURDER IN CHINATOWN

  MURDER ON BANK STREET

  MURDER ON WAVERLY PLACE

  MURDER ON LEXINGTON AVENUE

  MURDER ON SISTERS’ ROW

  To Roselyn and Rosanna,

  who taught me the true meaning of charity

  1

  SARAH AND THE GIRLS WERE STROLLING BACK FROM THE Gansevoort Market, thoroughly enjoying the crisp fall morning and chatting happily about the purchases piled high in the large baskets Sarah and Maeve carried over their arms.

  “Oh, no,” Maeve said when they’d turned the corner onto Bank Street and saw the carriage parked in front of Sarah’s house. “Looks like you won’t be helping us bake any pies this afternoon.”

  The carriage most likely meant that someone had come to fetch Sarah to deliver a baby.

  “I’m sure you and Catherine will do just fine without me,” Sarah said, looking down at the small girl who clung to her free hand. Her foster daughter looked up, her eyes full of disappointment.

  “I’ll miss you,” Catherine said in her whispery voice. When Sarah had first found her at the Prodigal Son Mission, Catherine had been completely mute. She’d only started speaking a few months ago, and she still spoke softly, as if afraid of startling herself with the sound of her own voice.

  “I’ll miss you, too. You know I’d much rather spend my days with you and Maeve, but I have to help ladies have their babies. That’s how I earn the money we need to buy things with.”

  “I know,” Catherine said, but she stuck her lip out in an unmistakable pout.

  “We’ll ask Mrs. Ellsworth to help us with the pies,” Maeve said, naming their next-door neighbor. Mrs. Ellsworth was always available to help the girls do anything at all.

  Mention of Mrs. Ellsworth banished Catherine’s pout. Maeve knew just how to cheer her up. Sarah thought for at least the thousandth time how fortunate she was to have Maeve as Catherine’s nursemaid. The girl had also come from the Mission, and the three of them had formed a real family in the months they’d been together.

  A young man stood beside the carriage, and he straightened as they approached. He’d been smoking a cigarette, and he tossed it away. He wore a uniform of some kind, and he looked quite dignified when he put his mind to it, although Sarah noticed that he gave Maeve a very efficient once-over. He managed not to be offensive about it, though.

  “Can I help you?” Sarah asked when they were close enough for conversation.

  “Are you Mrs. Brandt, the midwife?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “I been sent to get you. Mrs. Walker, the lady I work for, she said to come quick. If you’d be so kind,” he added awkwardly, remembering his manners.

  “Is Mrs. Walker having a baby?”

  Something about that question amused the young man, although he controlled his expression almost instantly. “No, ma’am. One of her guests is.”

  Sarah glanced at the carriage and the horses. The horses were well fed and groomed, the carriage clean and in good repair. Not a rented outfit but one owned by someone who had the means to care for it. “I’ll be right with you. I just need to get my things. Would you like to wait inside?”

  He looked at Maeve again, as if weighing her attractions against his own responsibilities. “I’d better stay with the horses,” he decided.

  They went into Sarah’s house, and a few minutes later, Sarah came out carrying her black bag, the medical bag that had belonged to her husband, Dr. Tom Brandt, dead now for well over four years.

  The young man hurried to carry the bag for her, but Sarah didn’t release it when he reached for it. “It’s usually faster if I walk,” she said. “Because of the traffic. Unless it’s too far.”

  “Mrs. Walker said you was to come in the carriage. She’s very particular, and I wouldn’t want to make her mad.”

  And Sarah wouldn’t want to get him in trouble. “All right, but if we get stuck, I’ll get out and walk the rest of the way. Where are we going?”

  The question seemed to alarm him, but he recovered quickly. “We won’t get stuck. We don’t have far to go. Just a few blocks north.”

  He helped her into the carriage, and she placed the medical bag on the floor at her feet. Then he closed the door and hurried to climb up to the driver’s perch. Only when the door was closed did Sarah notice the curtains had all been drawn over the windows. She pulled back the one at the window beside her to let in some light to relieve the gloom. Then she leaned back on the cushioned seat and tried to relax. This would probably be the last time she got a moment’s peace for at least twenty-four hours. She closed her eyes, hoping to catch a brief nap before she reached her destination, or at least to rest a bit.

  Sarah was surprised to be awakened when the carriage rattled to a stop. She really had dozed off for a little while. Disoriented, she looked out the window she had uncovered and saw she was in an alley behind some large houses. The carriage shifted on its springs as the driver climbed down. A moment later, he opened the door and helped her out, taking her bag from her.

  “This way,” he said and directed her to precede him down the walkway that bisected the small patch of weedy ground that formed a backyard of sorts for one of the houses. It led to a porch and a kitchen door. A large Negro woman stood in the open doorway. She wore a bright red bandanna tied around her head, and her enormous apron was stained. Her hands were planted firmly on her broad hips, and her expression said she was furious.

  “Took you long enough,” she said to the young man.

  “She was out. I had to wait for her to get back, didn’t I?” he said.

  The woman made a rude sound and stood back so Sarah could enter the kitchen. It was a large, untidy room. The wooden table in the middle of the floor was covered with flour and mounds of dough, where she had been working on some pastries.

  The cook looked Sarah up and down, withholding her approval. “You the midwife?”

  “Yes, I am,” Sarah said. “Can you show me where to go?”

  “Take her upstairs, Jake, and show her Amy’s room. Mrs. Walker’s up there with her.”

  “I gotta take care of the horses. Take her up yourself,” Jake said. He thrust Sarah’s bag at the cook and stomped out again.

  Sarah smiled apologetically at the woman. “If you’ll
just direct me . . .” she began, but the woman was already marching through the kitchen, muttering to herself.

  “Miz Walker’d have my hide if I let you be wandering around by yourself. I don’t know what’s got into that boy. He knows my rheumatism been bad lately. I can’t hardly walk, and now he expects me to go upstairs.” The cook pulled open a door on the other side of the kitchen and revealed the narrow back stairs that the servants would use. “Watch yourself on these stairs,” she warned. “Miz Walker’ll have my hide if you falls down and hurts yourself. Come on now. Miss Amy’ll be getting anxious, I expect. Don’t know what got into that girl to go and have a baby for anyways. Foolishness, it is, but you can’t tell young people anything nowadays.”

  For all her complaining, the cook made short work of the stairs. Sarah had to hurry to keep up with her. The door at the top opened into a hallway lined with about half a dozen doors, all of them closed.

  “Be quiet now,” the cook warned. “All the other ladies is still sleeping, though I don’t expect they’ll be sleeping long once Miss Amy gets started good. I reckon she’ll shout the house down, don’t you?”

  Sarah didn’t offer an opinion, although she felt reasonably certain the woman was correct. She had a moment of confusion at the thought of the “other ladies” still being asleep until she recalled that when she’d still lived in her parents’ house as a member of one of the wealthiest families in New York City, she’d always slept late, too. It was a natural consequence of late-night social gatherings.

  They moved quickly down the hallway to the third door. The cook knocked once and then opened it without waiting for a response. “This here’s the midwife,” she announced, plunked down Sarah’s bag, and stood back for Sarah to enter before making her escape back down the hall.

  The curtains were drawn, so Sarah needed a moment to get her bearings in the dimness. She found herself in a lavishly furnished bedroom. An enormous four-poster bed draped with netting, piled high with bedclothes, and skirted with royal blue satin flounces dominated the room. She saw an elaborate dressing table covered with all sorts of bottles and jars, and a wardrobe with one door ajar and a riot of petticoats hanging out of it. At the far end of the room stood a chaise and a pair of upholstered chairs in a grouping, as if for conversation. A woman had been sitting in one of the chairs, and now she was up and walking to greet Sarah.

  “Mrs. Brandt?” she said. “I’m Rowena Walker. I’m so grateful you could come.” She looked to be about forty, but Sarah couldn’t judge accurately in the dim light. Her voice was well modulated and cultured, and she wore a housedress of rose pique, something Sarah’s mother might have worn to breakfast except for the excess of lace trimmings at the throat and cuffs.

  “I’m glad I was available.” Sarah heard a moan and turned toward the bed, where she could now see a woman lay amid the confusion of satin coverlet, pillows, and sheets. “Is this my patient?”

  “Yes, young Amy. This is her first.”

  Sarah went over to the bed and greeted the young woman with a smile. Amy looked as if she might be about twenty and quite attractive under other circumstances. At the moment, she was moaning, her face twisted in pain, and her golden blond hair ratty and tangled. Her nightdress was silk, Sarah saw with surprise, and cut unusually low in the front. It was stretched taut over her rounded belly.

  “Help me,” the girl begged, grabbing Sarah’s hand. “Please, get it out of me!”

  “We’ll have to wait for the baby to come out on his own, I’m afraid, but I can help you be more comfortable while it’s happening.”

  “Just tell me what you need,” Mrs. Walker said, “and I’ll have Beulah get it for you.”

  Sarah requested a rubber undersheet and clean sheets to start. In a few minutes Beulah, the cook, brought them. Sarah got Amy out of bed and helped Beulah change it. Although this took only a few minutes, Amy began complaining almost immediately.

  “I have to lay down. I can’t stand this pain! Give me some laudanum or something!”

  Sarah left Beulah to finish the bed and hurried over to where Amy was reclining on the chaise. “You shouldn’t take any laudanum,” she cautioned. “It can affect the baby.”

  “I don’t care about the baby,” Amy insisted. “I can’t stand this any longer!”

  “What an awful thing to say, Amy,” Mrs. Walker said, glancing at Sarah with an embarrassed shrug. “You don’t mean that, and of course you can stand it. Thousands of women before you have stood it, and you will, too.”

  “I promised I could make you more comfortable,” Sarah said. “The first thing we need to do is get you up and walking around.”

  “Walking around?” Amy fairly screeched. “How can that make me more comfortable?”

  “It will make your labor go faster. And do you have a . . . a plainer nightdress? One that’s looser? This one is so pretty, it’s a pity to get it stained,” Sarah added tactfully.

  The young woman looked at Sarah for a long moment, as if she were seeing her for the first time. Then she threw back her head and started laughing hysterically.

  Sarah’s mind was racing, frantically trying to decide what to do, but before she could, Mrs. Walker drew back her arm and slapped the girl smartly across the face. Sarah cried out in protest, but neither of the other women appeared to notice. Amy’s laughter ceased abruptly, and she stared at Mrs. Walker with mingled surprise and . . . Sarah needed a moment to identify the other emotion she saw in Amy’s clear blue eyes: fear.

  The girl reached up and cradled her cheek and whispered, “I’m sorry.”

  “You should be. Now stop acting like a child. Mrs. Brandt will lose patience with you and leave, and then what will you do? You can’t have this baby on your own, you know.”

  Amy turned to Sarah in alarm. “I’m sorry,” she repeated, more fervently this time. “Don’t leave.”

  “I’m not going to leave,” Sarah assured her. “But you need to do what I tell you. I’ve delivered hundreds of babies, and you have to trust that I know what I’m doing.”

  The girl glanced at Mrs. Walker, who was still glaring at her. Amy turned back to Sarah. “I’ll do what you say. I don’t have another nightdress, though. A plainer one, I mean.”

  “That’s all right. I meant what I said about walking. It will make the baby come faster. Your mother and I can take turns walking with you.”

  “My mother?” she echoed in surprise, looking at Mrs. Walker.

  Mrs. Walker smiled rather stiffly. “I think she means me,” she said, an odd expression on her face. “I’m not her mother,” she told Sarah, “just her . . . hostess. She boards here, you see.”

  “I’m sorry,” Sarah said. “I misunderstood.” Now she recalled that Jake had said one of Mrs. Walker’s guests was having a baby. She should have remembered that.

  “That’s quite all right,” Mrs. Walker said.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a boardinghouse this . . .” Sarah groped for the right word, not certain how to say what she was thinking without giving offense.

  “Fancy?” Amy offered, earning a disapproving glare from Mrs. Walker.

  “Yes,” Sarah agreed.

  “Mrs. Walker does run a fancy house,” Amy said with mock innocence.

  Some silent communication passed between Mrs. Walker and Amy, a warning of sorts, and then Amy clutched her stomach and moaned again.

  “Let’s get you up and walking,” Sarah said when the contraction had passed.

  For at least an hour, Sarah and Mrs. Walker took turns holding Amy’s arm as she paced around the room. During that time Sarah asked her questions about her health and the progress of the pregnancy and the details of her labor thus far. One thing she didn’t learn about was the baby’s father. No one had mentioned him at all. Beulah had remarked that the other ladies were still sleeping, indicating the other boarders were all female. Sarah began to wonder if Mrs. Walker was actually running a refuge for other girls like Amy, unmarried girls from good families who had g
otten with child and needed a place to have their babies secretly. She’d heard of such places, but she’d never been called to one before. She had always assumed they had arrangements with midwives whom they knew and trusted. She wondered why she’d been chosen today.

  Beulah brought them some luncheon, an elegant arrangement of sandwiches and tea cakes. Amy could manage only a few bites, but Sarah ate heartily, not sure when she’d have another chance. Mrs. Walker nibbled a bit, but she seemed preoccupied.

  When Beulah came to remove the tray, a young woman appeared in the open doorway. She was about Amy’s age, barefoot, and clad only in a silk nightdress like Amy’s, her dark hair tied up in rags, the way girls did to make it curl. Her eyes were still heavy with sleep as she peered into the room.

  “Is the baby coming?” she asked of no one in particular.

  Amy paused in her pacing and groaned, clutching her stomach as another contraction seized her.

  “What does it look like?” Mrs. Walker snapped. “Go on and mind your own business, Dolly.”

  The girl sniffed, offended. “I was just trying to be friendly.”

  “Be friendly someplace else,” Mrs. Walker said.

  The girl turned with a toss of her head, but the flopping rags spoiled the effect. Only when she was gone did Sarah realize that she didn’t look as if she were with child. Of course, she might not be showing yet. Some women didn’t begin to show until late in the pregnancy, especially with their first baby. Perhaps even more curious was Mrs. Walker’s rudeness to the girl. Somehow Sarah would have expected a “hostess” to be kinder to the unfortunate girls in her care.

  After an hour of walking, Amy wanted to rest for a while. Sarah helped her lie down on the chaise lounge.

  “I could brush your hair out for you, if you like,” Sarah offered. “We should probably braid it so it’s easier to manage.”