A Deadly Affection (18 page)

“And yet, the neighbor must have had some reason to be so concerned.”

“I had that thought as well,” he said. “And though she did seem to get much better over time, I never entirely stopped worrying about her. Which is why I thought of her for your class.”

I reminded myself that depression caused by grief, even suicidal depression, wasn't necessarily an indication of insanity. “What about her family members?” I asked him. “Did they ever speak to you about any problems she was having?”

“There's only her mother, as far as I know; the father died before I came to the mission.”

“You mean you never knew Mr. Braun?”

“Why, no. As I say, he had already passed away when I arrived.” He glanced at me. “You're disappointed.”

“I was hoping you might be able to give me a picture of her father's health before he died. Apparently, if neither of Eliza's parents had this illness, she can't be affected.”

“I don't remember hearing anything about the father being in ill health. All I really know about him is that he died of an accident of some sort while still in his prime. I did spend some time with Mrs. Braun, though, during my visits after the baby's death. She would sit with me while Mrs. Miner slept, and we chatted to pass the time.”

“And she never said anything that suggested her husband had been impaired?”

“No, I can't say that she did. But then, I don't remember her mentioning him much at all.”

“What about her daughter? Did she ever confide any concerns about Eliza to you?”

“Not beyond the effects of the immediate tragedy, no.”

By the time the buggy pulled up in front of my house, the feeling of doom that had followed me out of the cigar tenements was beginning to recede. The Reverend had confirmed my own impressions of Eliza, which did not support Dr. Hauptfuhrer's diagnosis. Nor had he had any damning information to impart about her father.

Of course, I would have to dig deeper before I could say with any certainty that the father was disease-free. Which meant that tomorrow, like it or not, I was going to have to try to persuade Mrs. Braun to put aside her resentment and speak with me. I put this unpleasant duty from my mind for now, determined to wrest a few hours of peace and quiet for myself before the night was over. I'd have to deal with Father before I could finally retire, but I had excuses for my absence ready, and if he proved particularly difficult, I was not beyond claiming, truthfully, that I had a headache and escaping to my room.

Given my life of late, I should have known that the remainder of the evening would not go as I had hoped. The minute I walked through the door, Mary pounced on me, taking my coat before I had a chance to hang it myself and then hovering behind me with the coat dangling over her arm as I deposited my book bag on the side table.

“Did you need something, Mary?” I asked her.

“No, miss,” she said with a start, turning belatedly toward the coat closet.

I was sifting through the mail when, from the corner of my eye, I noticed Katie standing halfway down the hall, dusting the same candlesticks she'd been dusting earlier that afternoon and casting furtive glances my way. I looked from her to Mary, who was now lingering in front of the closet door. “What? What is it?”

“Is that her, Mary?” I heard my father call from the drawing room.

“Yes, sir,” Mary replied, staring at me as if I was Christ on his way to the cross. “It's Miss Genevieve.”

“Send her in, please.”

Mary grimaced, biting her lip.

I put down the mail and crossed the hallway into the drawing room. My father was standing in front of the piano. Seated beside him, still wearing his coat and hat, was Detective Maloney.

I stared at the detective in horror as he got to his feet.

“That will be all,” my father said to Katie and Mary, who had followed me to the door. He waited until their footsteps had faded down the hall, then said, “Genevieve, this is Detective Edward Maloney of the New York City Police.” The vein in his neck was pulsing ominously against his collar. “He's come to talk to you about a case he's working on, which he seems to think you know something about.”

I licked my dry lips, wondering how long the detective had been there and how much he had revealed. “Good evening, Detective.”

Maloney touched a finger to his hat. “Doctor.”

“Apparently, the case involves one of your patients from the church mission,” Father continued. “She's been accused of committing a murder. A
murder
, Genevieve!”

“I see,” I said, taking a few more steps into the room. “Well, thank you, Father. I'm sorry to have kept you waiting, but I can take it from here.”

He flushed. “I'm not going anywhere, not until I hear what this is all about.”

“But, Father,” I said, “if it involves one of my patients, I'll need to speak to the detective alone, to protect her confidence.” I gestured toward the hallway. “I'm sure you understand.”

He stared at me, jaws flapping, while I gazed innocently back and hoped that my knees wouldn't buckle beneath me. “Very well,” he said at last. “But I want to speak to you the moment you're done.” He stalked out of the room.

I closed the pocket doors behind him, listening for a few seconds to be sure he wasn't still on the other side. I wouldn't put it past him to eavesdrop, although I hoped the prospect of being caught by Katie or Mary would deter him. Only after I'd heard his footsteps move away did I turn to face the detective.

“Kind of wound up, ain't he?” he said.

“Naturally, he's concerned.”

“I guess you didn't tell him about your patient being arrested for murder.”

“I try not to worry him unnecessarily.”

He snorted. “I can see why.” He glanced around the drawing room. “Nice place.”

“Thank you.” I thought of the last time I'd seen the detective, when I'd been half in shock and ready to believe the worst. He had taken advantage of my distraught state to try to convince me that the case against Eliza was clear-cut and to persuade me to supply evidence against her. I was determined that this time, he wouldn't find me so malleable.

He bent to look at a photograph of Conrad and me on the piano, lifting it by its leather frame. I didn't like him touching it; I didn't like him being here at all, upsetting the household, invading my private life.

“Who's this?” he asked.

I stepped forward and snatched the picture from his hand. “My brother Conrad,” I said, replacing it on the piano. “But you're here to discuss Mrs. Miner.”

He straightened. “All right. I'll get straight to the point. You had your chance to talk to her. Now it's time to fill me in.”

“Actually, I was hoping you might fill me in on something, Detective. Eliza told you she heard someone struggling with the doctor in his office while she was waiting in the examining room. For some reason, that wasn't mentioned at her arraignment. I'd like to know why you're ignoring critical evidence.”

“Come on, Doc. It's late, and I haven't eaten yet. I'm not in a joking mood.”

“Neither am I, Detective, I assure you. Why didn't you tell the judge about the intruder? For that matter, why aren't you and your men out there looking for him right now?”

He shook his head. “It may surprise you to learn that statements made by people trying to avoid conviction are sometimes looked upon with suspicion.”

“In other words, all suspects are considered guilty until proven innocent?”

He shrugged. “As far as I'm concerned, they are.”

“But how can they be proven innocent if you won't investigate?”

“I don't get paid to go on wild-goose chases.”

“There's evidence to support her story! The fingerprints on the sword, for instance. Those don't belong to Eliza. Although you led me to believe that they did.”

“Just because her fingerprints aren't on the weapon don't mean she didn't kill him. All it means is that she was smart enough to keep her gloves on when she did it. The doctor probably showed that sword to a lot of people. The fingerprints we found could have been on there for months.”

“Or they could belong to the real murderer! Can't you at least admit that it's possible?”

“We caught her red-handed, standing over the doctor's body.”

For all the man's supposed devotion to detail, he seemed incapable of diverging from his preconceived version of events. Knowing what Simon had told me about his alienation from the rest of the police force, I wondered if this rigidity really reflected an indifference to outside opinion, or if it was a bullheaded reaction to it. In either case, now that his mind was made up, I feared it would be impossible to change.

“She entered the room after the murderer left,” I said, determined to try nonetheless, “and went over to see if she could help.”

“Then why was there blood all over her?”

“The sword cut through the doctor's carotid artery. A severed carotid artery will keep spurting blood—up to a distance of several feet—until the heart ceases to pump, which can take five minutes or more. If Mrs. Miner knelt beside the doctor while he was in his death throes to see if she could help, she most certainly would have been splattered.” My face was hot, my words spilling out with increasing urgency. There were valid arguments to be made on Eliza's behalf. If the detective wasn't willing to explore them, we might never know what really happened that morning in the doctor's office. “Besides,” I continued, “if she had killed him, why wouldn't she have just run away? The doctor was the only one who'd seen her there that morning. No one would have been the wiser if she'd fled. Instead, she not only stayed by the doctor's side, but actually screamed for help as well!”

“Well now, Doc, you know the answer to that as well as I do.” He tapped the side of his head. “Because there's something off with her up here.”

It was like trying to plant a seed in a bed of granite. But why, if he was so convinced he already had a case, did he need me to say there was something wrong with Eliza's mind? Perhaps, it suddenly occurred to me, because he'd been unable to get confirmation from Dr. Huntington. I assumed he'd tried to track him down after reading Hauptfuhrer's letter, to confirm the damning diagnosis. The fact that he'd come back to question me suggested he'd been unsuccessful in this attempt. I decided to put this hypothesis to the test. “I understand your eagerness to portray Mrs. Miner as mentally unbalanced, in light of your complete failure to produce any rational reason for her to kill the doctor. But I'm afraid you're barking up the wrong tree. You're not going to find anyone who will tell you what you want to hear.”

“As a matter of fact, I already have,” he said, looking smug. “We found a copy of a letter written by Dr. Hauptfuhrer in her medical file. It says straight out that Mrs. Miner has a disease that causes ‘mental degeneration.'”

“Rubbish,” I said. “She has no such thing.”

His eyes narrowed. “Those were the victim's own words.”

“Do you mean to say that Dr. Hauptfuhrer made a definite diagnosis? Even though he is no expert in such matters himself?”

He hesitated for just an instant before saying, “Definite enough.”

“Well, I most certainly don't agree.”

“Look,” he snapped, “you told me yourself you were treating her for mental problems.”

“I never suggested she was losing control of her faculties.”

“So what exactly were you treating her for?”

I was afraid that if I tried playing the doctor-patient confidentiality card again, I'd only confirm his suspicion that I had something to hide. But I could no more tell this closed-minded man about Joy than I could personally strap Eliza into an electric chair and throw the switch. “As I told you before,” I said finally, “Mrs. Miner's son died in his crib three years ago, and she blames herself for the death. Her husband left her soon after the child died. She's picked up her life as best she can, but she still experiences periods of melancholia.”

“You're right, you already told me that. What else?”

“That's all there is.”

He shook his head. “You know, I'm starting to think there's more to your relationship with Elizabeth Miner than meets the eye.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

He shrugged. “You're a nice, decent lady, brought up in a respectable home. Seems to me you oughta be bending over backward to help bring a criminal to justice, not withholding evidence from the police.”

“I'm not withholding evidence.”

“No? Then why did you go back to the crime scene after you talked to the prisoner?”

I stared at him in mute horror.

“Usually,” he went on, “it's either to plant evidence or to hide it. I'm guessing in your case, it was to hide it.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” I said, feeling faint.

“We got a good description of a female intruder leaving the doctor's house on the afternoon of the arrest.”

“Well, it wasn't me! It was probably just the maid.”

“Nah, I've seen the maid. It wasn't her. The description matches you exactly.”

Drops of perspiration trickled down my ribs as I contemplated being charged with obstruction of justice—or worse. Maybe if I confessed now and told him what I'd been after, he'd be lenient with me. But if I showed him the list, he was sure to identify Eliza's initials on it, just as Simon had done, and argue that the loss of her baby had given her a motive for murder.

The detective reached over the piano top and picked up the glass snow globe that Father had bought for my mother during their honeymoon in France. “You've got a pretty nice deal here, Doc.” He gave the ball a shake, making the artificial snow swirl around the miniature couple and cozy little cottage inside. “It ain't so nice where I could put you if you don't cooperate.”

“Please, be careful with that.”

He looked up at me. “All I'm asking for is the truth. So let's try this again: Have you seen any indications of ‘mental degeneration' in your patient?”

“No, I haven't.”

“No ‘episodes of forgetfulness or unusual irritability'?” he persisted, echoing the phrases from Hauptfuhrer's letter.

“No.”

He bounced the globe lightly in his hand. “Would you swear to that in court?”

“Yes,” I answered truthfully, “I would.”

He nodded slowly, lips pursed. Suddenly, he launched the glass ball into the air. I gasped as it spun up toward the chandelier, the metallic flakes sparkling as it caught the light at the top of its arc, then held my breath as it started its descent. At the very last second, the detective reached out and grabbed it from the air.

“Okay, Doc, we'll leave it there for now,” he said, returning the ball to its stand. “But I'd suggest you give some thought as to who you ought to be protecting. Mrs. Miner is a very dangerous woman. You wouldn't want to be responsible for letting her back out on the street where she could hurt someone else.” He tapped his bony finger against his hat brim. “I'll see myself out.”

As soon as he was out the door, I collapsed into the fireside chair. My previous experience with lying had not prepared me for the job of protecting Eliza. I doubted I'd persuaded the detective that I hadn't returned to the crime scene; indeed, I was afraid that by denying it, I'd only managed to convince him that everything else I'd said was also a lie, including my belief in Eliza's innocence. I was still pondering the possible ramifications when I heard footsteps coming toward the drawing room. I barely had time to square my shoulders and lift my head before my father strode into the room.

“Well, Genevieve,” he said, closing the door behind him, “you have some explaining to do. Your poor mother is in a state!”

I considered getting to my feet but wasn't sure my wobbly legs were up to it. “There's nothing for her to worry about,” I said, as confidently as I could manage.

“Nothing to worry about? When one of your patients is involved in a homicide?”

“She's only been arrested, Father. They haven't proven that she did it yet.”

A strangled sound escaped him. “This is why you turned down an opportunity to work at one of this city's finest hospitals? To mingle with lunatics and murderers?”