Gaslight Mystery 05 - Murder on Mulberry Bend Read online

  “I take it you didn’t approve.”

  She expected an explosion of frustrated anger, caused by his guilt at having allowed his wife to do something of which he didn’t approve, but he made no response at all for a long moment.

  “It’s worse than that,” he said at last. “I ... I didn’t care.”

  Now Sarah was thoroughly confused. “If you didn’t mind that she went, then you can’t blame yourself for what happened.”

  He sighed in the darkness. “No, you don’t understand. It’s not that I didn’t mind. I didn’t care. I didn’t care what she did or how she spent her time, just so long as she didn’t bother me.”

  Sarah recoiled instinctively, this time out of aversion instead of fear.

  “You see,” he accused. “You hate me from just hearing about my behavior. I’m despicable.”

  “Oh, no!” she tried. “I don’t hate you.”

  “Don’t try to spare my feelings. You can’t hate me more than I hate myself. I was a selfish cad. I didn’t know how fortunate I was to have the love of such a wonderful, selfless woman. I would have bought her anything she wanted, but all she wanted was a family — the one thing my money couldn’t buy. When the children she wanted didn’t come, she tried to find other things to fill her life.”

  “That’s only natural,” Sarah assured him. “I know many people think women should be content with managing their households and visiting their friends, but that’s not enough for some of us.”

  “It wasn’t enough for Hazel. She was too restless, too...”

  “Intelligent?” Sarah supplied when he hesitated.

  She could feel his sharp glance. Few men acknowledged that females could be intelligent.

  “Yes,” he admitted after a moment. “I think that may have been it. She was bored with the things women usually do. After she ... was gone, I remembered things she’d said. She’d tried to explain it to me, but I was too busy to listen. Too busy to care. And then it was too late.”

  “Are you sure it’s too late?” Sarah asked softly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean you admitted that you sought me out because you wanted me to help you understand her. That is what you were saying, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is,” he said wearily. “I had this insane notion that if I could figure out what drew her to that place, I might be able to understand ...”

  “Understand why she died?” Sarah guessed.

  “I know it sounds foolish.”

  “It doesn’t sound foolish at all.” Sarah had experienced the same need after Tom died. If only she’d known what he’d been doing the night he was killed, and who he’d seen, and who had killed him and why ... It was foolish. Knowing all that wouldn’t bring Tom back. It might, however, bring her some measure of peace. “How can I help you?”

  “I don’t think you can,” he said sadly. “I’m sorry I burdened you with all of this. Please forget we ever had this conversation, and forgive me if you can.”

  “Nonsense. Your wife sounds like someone I would have liked to know, and now I’m curious about this mission myself. They must do wonderful work there, or she never would have continued to support it. Perhaps they need our help. We owe it to her memory to find out.”

  “You don’t need to involve yourself in this, Sarah. I’m perfectly capable of making the necessary inquiries myself. It will be my sackcloth and ashes.”

  “You forget that I owe you a favor, Richard,” she said, reminding him of what he had done for her neighbor, Nelson Ellsworth. He hadn’t been entirely willing to perform this favor, but he still could have refused outright and ruined an innocent man. Sarah felt he should be encouraged to continue on the proper path. “I will consider it my duty to help you learn everything you can about the Prodigal Son Mission.”

  Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy grumbled as he pulled his coat collar up against the early morning chill. Any sane man would be home in bed, enjoying his Sabbath rest. Trouble was, on certain subjects Frank Malloy wasn’t exactly sane. He’d been forced to acknowledge that recently. That was why he’d left his warm blankets and trudged out into the deserted city streets this morning. He knew the early daylight hours of a Sunday were the best time to catch miscreants unawares — not only with their pants down but completely off as they slept away their Saturday night revelries.

  He walked down the filthy alley behind a row of tenement buildings. He’d been here twice before and found no one in residence, although the place was clearly occupied on a regular basis. He’d received a tip from a drunken prisoner that he would find the answer to an old mystery here. The drunk had been interested in being released from jail in exchange for this information. Frank had been happy to oblige him, figuring Ol’ Finnegan would get picked up again within the week anyway. The favor he had granted was little enough, even if the information proved worthless. And if it wasn’t worthless ...

  Frank stopped and looked around for any signs of life. Even in daylight the alley was dark, shadowed by the five- and six-story buildings looming over it. The sun’s rays would reach it for only a brief period during high noon before moving on to warm other, more deserving parts of the city.

  Above him stretched a cat’s cradle of clotheslines, strung between the two buildings that backed to either side of the alley. Most of the laundry had been removed in honor of the Sabbath, but here and there a lonely pair of drawers or a tattered sheet hung limply. The porches that stretched along the backs of each building on every floor were cluttered with bundles of belongings and stray pieces of furniture that wouldn’t fit into the cramped flats or had been removed for the night to make room for sleeping. More clothes hung over a railing here and there, forgotten.

  The alley itself was littered with the debris of many people living tightly packed together. Garbage was piled next to a crudely constructed children’s “fort.” A reeking outhouse stood beside wooden washtubs. The cobbled ground was stained with decades of discarded waste, human and otherwise. A mangy dog lay in the shelter of an overturned crate, but Frank’s arrival hadn’t disturbed him. Either he didn’t care or he was dead.

  Nestled in the midst of the alley was a compact dwelling of sorts, made of an odd assortment of materials obviously scavenged from many different locations over an extended period of time. Some tin here, some brick there, and many sizes, shapes, and colors of wood everywhere. The window holes were shuttered from within with what appeared to be crudely constructed wooden planks. The door had been scavenged from an old building and seemed as solid as it was scarred. A bent and battered stovepipe extended above the ramshackle roof, but no smoke drifted from it. If anyone was inside at this early hour, he wasn’t stirring yet.

  After taking one last look around for lurking danger, Frank strode up to the worn door and pounded on it. “Open up, Danny!” he shouted.

  He knew this would draw as many of the neighbors as could raise their aching heads out onto the surrounding balconies to see what was going on. Entertainment was at a premium in this section of town, and free entertainment was always a draw.

  Without waiting for a response, he tried the door, putting his shoulder to it when it didn’t open immediately. To his surprise, it wasn’t a lock that prevented the door from opening but a sack of rags lying on the floor in front of it. One good push sent it rolling away, allowing the door to swing wide.

  Even though the alley was deeply shadowed, he still needed a moment for his eyes to become accustomed to the darker darkness within. For an instant, he had the impression of having disturbed a rat’s nest. The floor seemed to come alive. Piles of rags — including the one that had blocked the door — and dirty blankets trembled and rose up, becoming children of varying sizes, shapes, and genders. They were groaning and cursing, and a dozen pairs of eyes glared at him murderously in the morning haze.

  “Danny’s the one I want,” Frank bellowed, using the voice that turned hardened criminals to jelly.

  A girl screamed, drawing Frank’s attention to the far corner. A young fellow, a few years older and much larger than those sleeping on floor, had pushed himself up to a half-sitting position from where he’d lain on a thin, straw mattress. The girl who had screamed was one of two sharing the makeshift bed with him. Neither of the girls wore much in the way of clothes, and Danny didn’t seem to be wearing any at all. From what Frank could see of the girls, which was quite a bit, he knew they couldn’t be more than twelve, if that.

  “Danny, it’s the cops!” one of the other children yelled.

  “I don’t want any of you guttersnipes,” Frank shouted. “Get out of here before I run you in!”

  He didn’t have to warn them twice. As quickly as little hands could snatch up belongings, they were out the door and gone, off to find a doorway or a drain pipe or a stairwell in which to hide. The two girls sharing Danny’s bed were a little slower because they had to throw on enough clothing to make their dash for freedom somewhat decent, but in another blink of the eye, they were gone, too.

  “Good business you’ve got here,” Frank remarked as the young man rose, cursing, from his stinking mattress and looked around blearily for his clothes. “How many kids you got working for you?”

  Not bothering with drawers — perhaps he didn’t own any — Danny stepped into a pair of trousers that were clean enough to indicate they’d been recently stolen off someone’s clothesline. Buttoning his fly, he glared balefully at Frank. “I pay my protection money to the captain regular, so don’t try to shake me down for more. I got friends.”

  “I’m sure you do.” They both knew even honest businessmen paid a fee to the police for the privilege of being allowed to operate unmolested. Danny would have to pay a hefty percentage of his income. “I’m not here to give you any trouble.”
br />   “Then get the hell out.” He stepped forward belligerently, and Frank had to resist an urge to laugh at his feeble attempt at intimidation. The boy was probably no more than sixteen. His hairless chin and bony chest were those of a child. His eyes, however, were older than hell itself. Cleaned up, he’d be a handsome lad. His hair, beneath the dirt and grease, was fair and curly. His eyes were blue as a cloudless sky. His nose gave evidence of having been broken, but it lent character to an otherwise merely pretty face. He twisted his full lips into a snarl, revealing that he’d lost a few teeth along the way. The look he was giving Frank probably terrified the urchins who stole for him in exchange for the protection of living in his shack. Frank merely returned it tenfold.

  To his credit, the boy hardly flinched. “I ain’t afraid of you. I’ve taken beatings before.”

  “I really don’t want to get blood on my suit,” Frank said reasonably. “So if you’ll tell me what I want to know, you can go back to sleep none the worse for wear.”

  The boy rubbed his head, which was probably aching. Frank reached into his pocket and pulled out a flask.

  “Here, this should help.”

  He looked at the flask suspiciously for a moment before snatching it unceremoniously from Frank’s outstretched hand. Still watching Frank, he pulled the cork and took a swig. He gasped as the liquor burned its way down his throat. “Mother of God, b’hoyo,” he said hoarsely. “You shoulda warned me it was the good stuff! Are you trying to poison me?”

  This time when he showed his missing teeth, he was grinning with delight.

  Frank grinned back, although it wasn’t from delight. “Now, tell me what you know about Dr. Tom Brandt.”

  “Who?”

  Frank knew he wasn’t being coy. It had, after all, been three years since Dr. Brandt had died. “Tom Brandt,” Frank repeated. “He was a doctor. Used to treat people in the neighborhood. Didn’t mind if you couldn’t pay.”

  Most physicians who ministered to the poor insisted on being paid before even examining a sick person. Some people were forced to forgo food for treatment, and those who couldn’t pay at all were left to suffer. Consequently, doctors were universally mistrusted and despised by their patients in this part of the city. Dr. Tom had been different, however.

  Frank watched Danny’s face as he forced his aching brain to work. It took a few moments, but the light of recognition finally brightened in his blue eyes. In the next instant he must have remembered what happened to Dr. Brandt, though, because the light vanished, replaced by wary fear. “Never heard of no Dr. Brandt,” he insisted. “Here, take your whiskey and be on your way.”

  He tried to give the flask back to Frank, but he didn’t take it. “Have another drink. Maybe your memory will improve,” Frank suggested.

  Danny shook his head violently, then instantly regretted the motion. He almost dropped the flask in his haste to grab his head and stop his brain from rattling around inside of it. Frank glanced around and saw one rickety chair leaning against the wall. He grabbed it and forced Danny to sit.

  “I don’t know nothing,” the boy insisted, looking up at Frank beseechingly. “I was just a kid when it happened.”

  “If you never heard of the good doctor, how do you know something happened to him?” Frank asked mildly.

  Danny’s eyes darted wildly as he searched for some means of escape, but Frank stood between him and the only door.

  “No one will ever know you told me,” Frank said.

  That challenged his manhood. Danny stuck out his chin defiantly. “I ain’t scared of nobody! Not even you, lousy copper!”

  Frank simultaneously took hold of the flask that Danny still held and hooked his foot around the front leg of the chair. When he jerked his foot, the chair fell over backward, slamming Danny into the floor along with it. Frank still held the flask safely in his hand.

  As soon as he got his breath, Danny started cursing and howling with pain. The chair hadn’t survived the fall, so Frank kicked the pieces out of the way and gave Danny a slight nudge, too, just to get his attention.

  “Ow! Whadda you want from me? I told you, I don’t know nothin’!” the boy protested.

  “And I told you I didn’t want to get blood on my suit, so if you make me do it, you’re going to be real sorry. Now just start talking, and I’ll let you know when I’ve heard enough.”

  Danny protested only once more, so Frank had to nudge him only once more before he started talking.

  “I was a newsboy then,” he said through gritted teeth, resentment darkening his too-old eyes. “I had a real good corner, right by an El station.” Newsboys fought each other regularly for the best corners. Most of them were homeless, and having a good corner might mean the difference between eating regularly and not. A spot by a station of the Elevated Train would be prime. Having such a spot proved Danny had been a tough kid even then.

  “Go on,” Frank said.

  Danny sighed with resignation. “This swell comes along. He buys a paper from me. He asks me do I want to earn some extra money. I say sure.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “I don’t know. A swell. You know, fancy suit, silk hat, walking stick with a big silver handle.”

  That could describe half the men in the city. “Was he old or young? Tall or short? Fat or thin?” Frank asked impatiently.

  “I don’t remember. I wasn’t paying much attention!”

  Frank had to give him another nudge of encouragement.

  When he stopped howling, he said, “Old, I guess. Older than you.”

  “What color was his hair?”

  The boy screwed up his face in the effort to remember. “He had on a hat.” Frank drew back his foot again, but Danny quickly recalled, “He had some gray around here, I think,” he said, pointing to his temple.

  “You’re doing better, Danny. That’s the kind of information I’m looking for. Tall or short?”

  “A little taller’n you, maybe. Not fat, not thin.”

  “How much did he pay you to kill Dr. Brandt?” Frank asked mildly.

  “I didn’t kill nobody! I swear!” He was genuinely frightened now. Most cops wouldn’t hesitate to solve a case by arresting the most convenient suspect, and Danny was certainly convenient at the moment. “I told you, I was just a kid. All he wanted me to do was take a note to this Dr. Brandt.”

  “What did the note say?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t read!”

  This, Frank knew, was probably true. “What was Dr. Brandt supposed to do when he got the note?”

  “I told you, I couldn’t read the note. I don’t got no idea.”

  Frank shook his head in disapproval. “You’re trying my patience, Danny. You were supposed to take him someplace, weren’t you?”

  “Who told you that?” Danny demanded, the fear in his voice just a little stronger than his feigned outrage.

  “Never mind who told me. Where were you supposed to take Dr. Brandt?”

  A shadow darkened the doorway, and Frank looked up to see another boy about Danny’s age peering in.

  “Are you pinched?” he demanded of the boy on the floor.

  “Yes, he is,” Frank replied, “and you will be, too, if you don’t get the hell out of here.”

  “You come here alone, copper?” the boy asked incredulously.. He was bigger than Danny, stocky beneath his ragged clothes. “You should know better.”

  With the light behind him, Frank couldn’t make out his features, but he saw the glint of the boy’s teeth as he grinned, and almost too late he saw the flash of the knife.

  He threw up his arm to block the blow, and the blade slashed through his coat sleeve. Danny was scrambling to his feet, and Frank shoved the boy with the knife, sending him sprawling out into the alley. The knife clattered on the cobblestones, but before Frank could turn to deal with Danny, the boy barreled into him, knocking him to his knees. Frank made a grab for him, but the bare flesh of Danny’s skinny arm wrenched from his grasp as he darted out of the hovel.

  By the time Frank pushed himself to his feet, both boys were disappearing down the alley in the direction of the street. Cursing his carelessness, Frank checked his coat sleeve and was furious to see blood already staining the fabric. It wasn’t bad enough that the coat was ruined, but he’d probably need stitches. He pulled out his handkerchief and awkwardly tied it around his arm as he made his way quickly back to the street. The creatures who occupied the tenements around him could sniff out weakness like a pack of jackals. He needed to get to a safer part of town as quickly as possible.