Gaslight Mystery 10 - Murder on Bank Street Read online

  Murder on

  Bank Street

  A Gaslight Mystery

  E

  Victoria Thompson

  Murder on

  Bank Street

  Gaslight Mysteries 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

  Bank Street

  A Gaslight Mystery

  E

  Victoria Thompson

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, En gland Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, En gland This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third- party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 2008 by Victoria Thompson.

  The Edgar® name is a registered ser vice mark of the Mystery Writers of America, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  The name BERKLEY PRIME CRIME and the BERKLEY PRIME CRIME design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Library of Congress Cata loging- in- Publication Data Thompson, Victoria (Victoria E.)

  Murder on Bank Street : a gaslight mystery / Victoria Thompson. — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  ISBN: 1-4362-2068-8

  1. Brandt, Sarah (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Women detectives—New York (State)—New York—Fiction. 3. Midwives—Fiction. 4. Spouses—Crimes against—Fiction. 5. Malloy, Frank (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 6. Police—New York (State)—New York—Fiction. 7. New York (N.Y.)—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3570.H6442M866 2008

  813'.54—dc22

  2008003939

  To my husband, Jim,

  for always supporting me!

  Murder on

  Bank Street

  Prologue

  New York City, 1893

  Danny didn’t like lying to the doc. Everybody knew he wasn’t like the rest of them. Most doctors were drunken bums, at least the ones who’d come into the Lower East Side. They didn’t have no pity neither, no matter how sick somebody was. They wouldn’t come unless you could pay. They’d want to see the money first, too, before they’d even look to see what was wrong. Like as not, they couldn’t help even if you could pay them, though, so Danny never did understand why anybody’d send for one in the first place.

  Doc Brandt was different, though. He was never drunk, and he’d always come if somebody was in a bad way. Didn’t seem to care much if he got paid or not, which was why everybody gave him as much as they could. That was why Danny didn’t like lying to him.

  “How much farther is it?” Doc Brandt asked. He was panting a little, trying to keep up with Danny. Maybe because he had to carry that big black bag.

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  Victoria Thompson

  “Not far now,” Danny replied, not looking the doc in the eye.

  Of course, he wasn’t really lying. He was just playing a trick on him. That was what the swell had said it was, a trick. He wanted to meet Doc Brandt someplace where nobody’d see them together. That was all, just a private meeting. The swell, the rich fellow with the silk top hat and silver walking stick, he was afraid Doc Brandt wouldn’t meet with him, so he’d hired Danny to fetch him. All he wanted to do was talk, though, so what harm could it do?

  Danny could live for two weeks on the five dollars the man had paid him, too. Or buy a pair of shoes. With winter coming, he could do with a pair. He’d sure never be able to sell enough newspapers to fund such a purchase. On a good day, he might earn fifty cents, but that was rare, and he had one of the best corners in the city, right beside one of the Sixth Avenue Elevated Train steps. At least half his pay went to the Newsboys’ Lodging

  House for his bed and board,

  though, and most of the rest went to Nick, the older boy who protected him and let him use that corner to sell his papers. Yeah, when would he ever see five dollars all together again?

  “It’s just up here a ways,” Danny said when they turned the corner.

  Doc Brandt was frowning. They’d crossed over into the ware house district, down by the river. The huge buildings, silent at this time of night, loomed over them, their dark windows like dead, empty eyes. The stench from the water hung thick in the air, and traces of fog swirled around them like a living thing. Nobody lived down here, or at least there weren’t any tenements. Street Arabs, the abandoned children like Danny who hadn’t come to the lodging houses yet,

  might find a hidey- hole here, or a drunk who’d lost his way.

  Murder on Bank Street

  3

  But nobody who could afford even five cents for a lodging house bed would be in this neighborhood at this hour.

  “Are you sure you’re not lost?” the doc asked.

  “We’re almost there,” Danny insisted.

  The doc sighed, but he followed Danny down the alley.

  The alley was wider than most and not completely dark because the gaslight on the corner cast a feeble glow into its opening, but Danny stuck to the middle, where there was less chance of encountering a pile of moldering garbage or a dead cat or even a dead person. Danny heard the doc drawing a breath to question him again, but before he could, another voice broke the silence.

  “Hello, Brandt.”

  The swell was waiting for them, just like he’d said he would be. He struck a match, and in its flickering light, Danny saw that the doc recognized him.

  “You,” he said. He didn’t sound happy to see him, but he didn’t sound scared or anything either. It was like the swell had said. They was just going to talk.

  “Danny,” the other man said. “You can go now. Here’s a little something extra for your trouble.”

  He flipped a coin into the air, and Danny caught it in the instant before the match went out. A silver dollar. He recognized it by the size and weight of it in his hand.

  Every instinct told him to run, but he hesitated. “Doc, I—” he began, but the swell interrupted him.

  “Go on now,” he said.
He no longer sounded friendly.

  “It’s all right, Danny,” Doc said.

  That was all he needed to hear. Danny turned and loped back down the alley until he reached the street. He should’ve kept going. Wasn’t none of his business what the swell wanted with Doc Brandt. He stopped, though. Maybe he was just curious, or maybe . . . Well, no matter. He stopped and 4

  Victoria Thompson

  listened. Didn’t hear anything at first, though. They was just talking, like the swell had said. Just talking, that was all. He started down the street, but then he heard the swell shouting.

  He stopped dead in his tracks. Wasn’t none of his business, but he crept back to the opening of the alley to listen.

  Doc was shouting now, too. They was both plenty mad.

  Danny had heard a lot of angry words in his short life, and he knew what anger sounded like.

  “You ruined my daughter!” the swell was saying.

  “I was trying to save her!” Doc said back.

  More arguing, but he couldn’t make out the words. Then one of them, it sounded like Doc, said, “Decker?” like he was surprised.

  The swell said something Danny

  couldn’t understand,

  and then the doc hollered, “No!”

  The next sound made Danny wince. He’d heard it a lot of times before, too. The sound of something hard hitting living flesh and bone. Someone was coming down the alley now, moving fast, his shoes slapping against the damp cobblestones. The gaslight illuminated the street, so Danny ducked back into a shadowed doorway just as the man emerged into the street. He looked left and right, checking to see if anyone was around, and Danny held his breath. He wanted it to be the doc. He wanted that mighty bad, but when the man turned and moved past him, near enough that Danny could’ve reached out and grabbed his sleeve, he saw the flash of gaslight reflected off the silver the man held in his hand. The big silver knob of his cane.

  In a few more seconds, the swell was gone, vanished into the shadows. Danny let out his breath in a rush, and then he listened again. He waited for the sound of staggering steps that would tell him Doc was hurt and looking for help.

  Murder on Bank Street

  5

  Danny would help him. That was the least he could do. So he waited, but he heard nothing. Nothing at all.

  After what seemed an hour, Danny crept back into the alley. “Doc?” he called, but no one answered. All he could hear was the sound of rats scurrying across the cobblestones and water dripping someplace far away. “Doc?” he tried again, and then he saw the darker shadow on the ground that hadn’t been there before.

  “Doc!” he cried in alarm, but the figure didn’t move.

  Danny knelt down on the filthy cobbles and tried to shake him awake. “Come on, Doc,” he pleaded. “Get up. I’ll help you!”

  No response.

  Danny leaned in closer, listening to see if he was breathing, but he heard nothing. He reached out his hand to see if he could feel any breath, and when his fingers touched Doc’s face, they came away wet. Wet and warm and sticky, and Danny knew from the smell that it was blood.

  “Doc, please,” he begged frantically. “I didn’t mean it!”

  But he knew it was too late. The doc was dead.

  1

  New York City, 1897

  Sarah Brandt opened her front door and stepped inside, grateful beyond words to have arrived home again after a long and exhausting night. As a midwife, she had spent many such nights helping babies into the world. Usually, morning found her instructing the new mother on how to care for her infant, but this morning had been different. The baby had come much too soon and had never even taken a breath. Sarah had spent her time consoling the young parents and assuring them that they had done nothing wrong to cause their child’s death. They hadn’t believed her. They never did. Parents always blamed themselves, and Sarah had never figured out how to lift that burden of guilt from them.

  At least she no longer had to return to an empty house to brood alone after a night like that. Her lips curved into a smile as the sound of running feet echoed through the house. In another instant, Catherine appeared, her small face alight with joy.

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  Victoria Thompson

  “Mama!” she cried as she raced through the front room that Sarah used as her office. Catherine’s “cry” was little more than a whisper, but Sarah had to fight the sting of tears. She could not have been happier to hear a choir of angels. The child had been mute when they’d found her abandoned on the steps of the Prodigal Son Mission months ago, but in the safety of Sarah’s house and surrounded by people who loved her, she had begun to speak again.

  Sarah set down her heavy black bag so she would have both hands free to catch the child when she ran into Sarah’s arms. “What have you been doing this morning?” she asked, lifting the girl up until they were eye to eye.

  Catherine squinched her face into a comic grimace as she pretended to consider the question. “Cooking,” she finally decided to reply. Sarah could have guessed that, since Catherine wore a child- sized apron tied over her gingham dress and had a smudge of flour on her cheek.

  “Cooking something delicious,” Sarah guessed, sniffing the air appreciatively.

  “We’re making hot cross buns,” Maeve announced as she emerged from the rear of the house at a much more dignified pace than Catherine. Maeve was the girl Sarah had hired to be Catherine’s nursemaid. Prior to coming to live with Sarah a few months ago, both girls had resided at the Prodigal Son Mission on the Lower East Side.

  “What a nice surprise,” Sarah said. “I hope they’re ready, because I’m starving.”

  “Mrs. Ellsworth is getting them out of the oven right now,” Maeve reported. “She said you’d probably like to come home to something sweet.”

  “Mrs. Ellsworth was right,” Sarah confirmed happily.

  Mrs. Ellsworth was the el der ly lady who lived next door.

  She’d once filled her lonely life with gossip about her Murder on Bank Street

  9

  neighbors. Now she spent her time teaching Maeve and Catherine the joys of homemaking, although she still man -

  aged to keep track of her neighbors’ comings and goings, too.

  Catherine wiggled down, out of Sarah’s arms, and grabbed her hand to lead her back to the kitchen. Sarah managed to shrug out of her cape before Catherine had pulled her too far.

  Maeve took it from her and hung it up as Sarah and Catherine disappeared into the back hall.

  “Welcome home, Mrs. Brandt,” Mrs. Ellsworth greeted her in the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. “You’re just in time.”

  “So I heard,” Sarah confirmed, letting Catherine push her into one of the kitchen chairs. “Or rather smelled.

  Can’t

  remember the last time I had fresh hot cross buns. Oh, coffee! Thank you!” she added in gratitude as Mrs. Ellsworth set a steaming cup in front of her.

  For the next few minutes, Sarah ate and exclaimed in delight over the buns while Catherine gazed at her adoringly and Maeve blushed modestly at the praise. “You girls are getting to be such good cooks, maybe we should open a bakery,” Sarah suggested as she licked the last of the gooey frosting from her fingers.

  “Mrs. Ellsworth says we need to know how to cook so we can catch husbands,” Maeve informed her with mock seriousness.

  Sarah exchanged a glance with Mrs. Ellsworth, who apparently didn’t realize Maeve was teasing. “A man doesn’t want a wife who can’t keep a house or fix his meals,” she agreed.

  “Maybe you should be teaching Mrs. Brandt how to cook, then,” Maeve said, her eyes gleaming with dev ilish delight.

  “Mrs. Brandt?” Mrs. Ellsworth echoed in surprise.

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  Victoria Thompson

  “Yes, so Mr. Malloy will marry her,” Maeve said slyly.

  Catherine giggled in delight, and Sarah gasped in feigned outrage.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Mrs. Ellsworth s
aid, still serious, although Sarah could see now that she was in on the game. “I don’t think Mr. Malloy cares whether she can cook or not.”

  This time Sarah’s gasp of outrage wasn’t feigned, but all three of her companions burst out laughing at her chagrin.

  Sarah howled in mock fury and pretended to lunge at Catherine, who squealed and raced from the room with Maeve at her heels. Sarah took off after them but let them escape, laughing uproariously, up the stairs to the second floor. “I’ll get you later!” she called after them, grinning broadly at their shenanigans.

  Her smile faded, however, when she thought of the reality of her situation. Frank Malloy was a detective sergeant with the New York City Police Department. Over the course of the past year, they’d worked together to solve several murders, and their relationship had evolved during that time from outright dislike to something more than friendship. How much more, Sarah didn’t like to consider, because there was little hope that anything permanent could come of it, the girls’ teasing notwithstanding.

  As she turned to go back to the kitchen, she saw that she had left her medical bag sitting in the hallway. Memories of the night before came flooding back at the sight of it, and the sadness of the baby’s loss weighed heavily on her shoulders. Wearily, she went over and picked the bag up. She needed to empty it out to wash the sheets she took with her to deliveries and to replenish her supplies. She carried it over to the desk where she sometimes saw patients.

  The desk where her husband, Dr. Tom Brandt, had seen his patients when he was alive.

  Murder on Bank Street

  11

  She set the bag on the desk and looked at it, really looked at it, for the first time in a long time, even though she carried it with her on every call. The leather was starting to show its age, scuffing on the corners. The tarnished brass plate near the handle was engraved with Tom’s name. She ran her fingers over the delicate ridges that formed the letters and tried to remember his face.

  “Everything all right?” Mrs. Ellsworth asked.

  Sarah looked over to where her neighbor stood in the hall doorway. “I guess I’m just tired.”

  “Difficult night, I expect. I can always tell when things didn’t go well. I hope the teasing didn’t bother you,” she added with a worried frown.