A Deadly Affection (31 page)

“Yes,” I told him. “I still want to keep her out. The fact that this murder occurred while Eliza was under house arrest only proves that there's another killer at large.”

He studied me for a long, unblinking moment. I waited with bated breath for his response, realizing that everything now lay in his hands.

A hansom cab had stopped to discharge a passenger halfway up the street. I started slowly backing toward it, my head cocked.

“All right,” he said finally. “I'll talk to Judge Hoffman and try to make him see it that way.”

“Thank you,” I whispered, nearly speechless with gratitude, and turned to run for the cab.

• • •

From the hansom's interior, I could see Maloney standing on the sidewalk in front of the Brauns' building, huddled with the scruffy watchman I'd seen on the stoop the day before and a taller man in police uniform. I instructed the cabbie to drive past them to the end of the block. Having learned not to expect full disclosure from Detective Maloney, I thought it might be best to try to glean covertly whatever information he'd discovered before attempting a more direct approach.

I paid the driver through the roof hatch, waiting to get out until a wood merchant who was walking up the block had drawn abreast of the cab. I stepped out and fell in behind him, pulling my hat down low and taking cover behind the sack of kindling over his shoulder as we approached Maloney's trio from their blind side.

“Nah, she didn't go out the back either,” I heard the uniformed policeman say as we drew near. “I was out there all night, and nobody came out the door or the windows.”

Maloney said something I couldn't make out, and they all looked up at the roof.

“She'd have to be a monkey,” the scruffy watchman remarked.

As the wood merchant moved to the left to avoid Maloney and the others, I cut to the right to stay behind them, squinting up as I did so at the jagged roofline. The Brauns' brick tenement stood between two other buildings of identical height. If Eliza had climbed the stairwell to the top of her building and tried to escape by that route, she could have easily walked east or west across the immediately adjacent rooftops. But continuing any farther would, as the man said, have required either the climbing skills of a monkey or a formidable array of ropes and tackle. Going west, she would have had to drop three stories down a flat, windowless wall onto the top of a two-story town house, then scale six stories back up the sheer party wall of the adjoining tenement. Traveling east would have been no easier, requiring her to scale buildings of similarly divergent heights. Even if she'd had the strength and equipment to manage this extraordinary feat, she would have been visible nearly the entire time to the watchmen below.

The uniformed cop was still looking up as I walked past. “I suppose she could have come down through one of the neighboring buildings and walked right out the front door,” he suggested. He shot a scornful look at Simon's man. “He might have missed her if he wasn't looking for her there.”

“I didn't miss nobody,” the scruffy little man retorted. “Maybe you're the one who missed her, coming out the back.”

“All right, knock it off,” Maloney said. “I talked to the owners of the adjacent buildings as soon as I found out she'd been released from the Tombs. They both told me they keep their door to the roof locked and the only key in their possession.”

Once I was past them, I crossed the sidewalk and stood in front of the bakery next to the Brauns' shop, pretending to peruse the glazed buns in the window.

“Have you seen her yet this morning?” I heard the detective ask.

“She came down to fill the register about fifteen minutes before the store opened,” Simon's man replied.

“You're sure it was her?”

“Sure I'm sure. I could see her through the window, plain as day.”

“And you didn't see her go in or out of the building anytime before that?”

“I told you, no one went in or out until the old lady came out to sweep the sidewalk, just before nine.”

“What about last night? When was the last time you saw her then?”

“I didn't. My shift doesn't come on until midnight. The place was quiet by then.”

“Well, who was on before you, and where can I find him?” Maloney asked irritably.

“Joseph Kearny.” The watchman glanced down the street. “He oughta be here any minute for his shift.”

“I'll wait,” said Maloney. “Fallon, call the station and tell them I want another man posted upstairs, right outside the flat.”

“Starting when?” the officer asked.

“Starting yesterday. The prisoner is confined to her private quarters from now on.”

The frustration in the detective's voice was music to my ears. My confidence in Eliza's innocence, it seemed, had been well founded. I was still anxious to talk to her, however. Keeping my head low, I started toward the private entrance of the Brauns' building.

“Dr. Summerford,” Maloney called out, spotting me before I was halfway to the door. He strode toward me, his expression even more sour than usual. “Where might you be going?”

“I have an appointment with Mrs. Miner.”

“I guess you didn't hear. Dr. Hauptfuhrer's daughter was murdered this morning.”

“I did hear. Mr. Shaw telephoned me with the news. I was shocked to learn of it.”

“Shocked? I don't know why. I told you Elizabeth Miner was dangerous. And now she's gone and killed someone else. How does that make you feel?”

His cold conviction was unnerving. “Eliza was under twenty-four-hour guard,” I reminded him. “If anything, this murder proves that the real killer is still out there.”

His hard eyes were unmoved. “How many deaths is it going to take before you stop singing that tune?”

“All right then, Detective, you tell me: How did she get out and back in again without being seen? Or are you suggesting she was in two places at once?”

“I don't know how she did it yet, but I'm going to find out. And the minute I do, she's going straight back to the Tombs. For good this time.”

“I'm afraid you're going to have a very long wait. But how you choose to spend your time is your affair. Now please, step aside and let me pass so I can tend to my patient. I'm responsible for her medical care while she's under house arrest.”

“You and me both know there's nothing wrong with Mrs. Miner except in her head,” he said with a scowl.

“If you have a complaint about the terms of her release, Detective, I'm afraid you'll have to take it up with the judge.”

“Unfortunately, I don't have the pull with Tammany judges that some people do,” he spat out. “So instead, I get to go around cleaning up after their mistakes.”

“Well, I'll let you get back to your job,” I said coolly, “and I'll get back to mine.” I started to walk past.

He threw out an arm to block me. “No way, no how. No one talks to the prisoner until I've had a chance to question her.”

“But the judge said—”

“I don't give a rat's ass what the judge said,” he hissed. “You take one more step, and I'm putting you under arrest.”

I felt my face flush. I had no doubt he'd carry out his threat. “Very well. I'll come back another time.” I turned and made an ignominious retreat down Eighty-Third Street.

• • •

Back home, the aftershocks of the morning's ghastly discovery began to make themselves felt on my battered psyche, bringing my anxiety to a whole new level. Although I kept reminding myself that neither Eliza nor I was culpable, the possibility that I was in some way connected to Miss Hauptfuhrer's demise gnawed away at me. Further work on Professor Bogard's paper was out of the question. Instead, I spent the rest of the day with my mother in the conservatory, trying to block out the memory of Miss Hauptfuhrer's mutilated body with eyefuls of lush greenery and the sound of my mother's unusually cheerful voice as she chatted about her garden design.

I managed to keep up a normal patter with my parents over dinner, even joining them afterward by the fire for a game of Round the World with Nellie Bly before I retired for the evening. The effort of keeping the day's horror at bay took its toll, however, and I could barely keep my eyes open as I brushed my teeth, shook out my hair, and pulled on my nightgown. The instant my head touched my pillow, I fell into a heavy slumber that was unperturbed by any dreams I could later recall.

Still, some nervous agitation must have persisted, even in my exhausted state, for at some point in the night I awoke abruptly, my senses on full alert. I stared up at the dim ceiling, listening to the silence, wondering what had awakened me. Gradually, my eyelids slid closed and I drifted back toward sleep, only to startle awake again at the sound of a thud against my window.

I turned and looked across the room. In the faint glow from the Fifth Avenue streetlamps, I could see a roughly circular shape, about the size of a pigeon, backlit at the bottom of the window. I pushed up on one elbow, straining to distinguish the dark blob from its paler background. The blob moved, accompanied by another thumping noise, followed by a sharp strike against the windowsill.

Now fully awake, I rose from my bed and crept slowly toward the window. But by the time I got there the shape was gone. Stepping cautiously up to the panes, I peered down at the street two stories below. Both the street and what I could see of the sidewalk were deserted. I watched for several more moments, shivering in the draft, but heard or saw nothing more. I concluded that it must indeed have been a bird pecking at the sill and scrambled back under the covers.

The next time I opened my eyes, the sky was bright outside the window. I came slowly, reluctantly to consciousness, sensing the heaviness of the past days' events before clear memory returned. I forced myself out of bed, washed and dressed, and walked down the hall to the top of the stairs. There I paused, hearing an unfamiliar male voice down below. Peering over the banister, I saw the domed cap and uniformed shoulders of a police officer. I stepped back, stifling a gasp.

They couldn't be coming after me at this late date for breaking into the doctor's office, could they? I inched forward for another look. My parents, Katie, and Mary were in the hallway with the officer, conversing in grim tones. I had an urge to go hide in my room, but of course, that would only delay the inevitable. Straightening my shoulders, I climbed down the stairs to join them.

They all turned to look at my approach. I immediately recognized the policeman as affable old Officer Boyce, who directed traffic at the Eighty-Fifth Street intersection. “What's going on?” I asked, trying to read my father's face.

“Come into the drawing room, will you, Genevieve?” he said.

I trudged after him into the front room, followed by Officer Boyce and the others, steeling myself for what was to come. Instead of ordering me to sit down, however, my father pointed to the window, saying, “Mary discovered it when she came down this morning.”

I looked blankly at the window. It was partially ajar, but there was nothing unusual in that—Mary always opened the downstairs windows for twenty minutes before breakfast to allow the rooms to air.

Father took me by the arm and drew me closer, pointing to the windowsill. “There.”

The wood on the outside of the sill, I saw now, was chipped and splintered in places, almost as if it had been struck by a chisel.

“Someone tried to break in,” Father spelled out for me when I still failed to respond.

“If your father hadn't installed those new window catches,” my mother added, “they would have made away with all the silver.”

I frowned down at the mutilated sill, remembering Father's insistence on retooling the windows after a rash of burglaries a few years before, in addition to purchasing a pocket pistol for self-protection.

“Your normal burglar's tumbler won't work on a catch like that,” Officer Boyce agreed, nodding in admiration. “It'll open 'er up, all right, but it can't get past the chain.”

I sucked in my breath, suddenly recalling the noises I'd heard at my own window during the night. I was about to tell them all that the burglar had tried to break in through my window as well, when an awful thought occurred to me. “Were any other houses burgled last night?” I asked Officer Boyce.

“None from around here. But the car barn hooligans have been pushing farther west lately. Could be they wandered over to your neighborhood.”

The Irish rowdies who congregated in front of the streetcar barn at Ninety-Sixth and Second had become enough of a menace over the past year to earn themselves the moniker “The Car Barn Gang.” Although previously their activities had been confined to snatching valuables from delivery wagons or from passengers on the streetcars, in recent months, they'd become much bolder, engaging in armed robbery and openly defying the police. Just two weeks ago, they'd posted a “dead line” notice on the gashouse wall, stating
No Cops Allowed to Pass Below 98th Street, By Order of the Committee
. That same night, two officers had been beaten with their own clubs on Ninety-Seventh Street by a group of mixed-sex gang members. Since then, the police had taken to patrolling the area in groups of four or six, but that couldn't protect them from the bullets and bricks that rained down on them from the tenement rooftops.

“Have you ever known the gang to strike this far west?” I asked Officer Boyce.

“Can't say that I have. But if it wasn't one of theirs, it was probably just a squatter from the vacant lots up north of here.”

Or it could have been someone with a very different purpose in mind. I told myself that of course it had only been a burglar, not someone trying to do me harm. The dark shape at my window must have been the shadow of the man below, cast up by passing headlamps. After all, it would have been impossible for an intruder to reach my second-floor window unless he'd brought a ladder with him. This thought reassured me momentarily—until I realized it would have been just as difficult to reach the ground-floor window I was looking at, since the recessed areaway was located directly beneath it.